At the weekend I became an official inhabitant of the countryside – yes, I killed my first rat.

Now it’s not something I feel particularly happy about – I’ve only ever killed animals accidentally before by hitting them in the car, so to deliberately kill something came quite hard to me.

However, our friend Roland was sitting under the washing line and we needed to bring the washing in, so it was time for me to step up to the plate and show the rodent world that I meant business. After all, we have been kept awake far too many nights by various unidentified rodents dancing a merry jig in the roof over our bed – I figured it was payback time.

Of course, had I been a real country fellow I would have just clubbed or skewered it with a spade and been done with it. But somehow I couldn;t bring myself to do that, so I took to throwing large rocks at it. Less messy I thought. This was true, but also less accurate….

After several failed attempts to deal the killing blow I finally managed to hit the  furry fella square in the head, which seemed to do the job. Several large rocks later and I was sure of my victory. All hail the conquering hero! See how brave he is taking on a creature 1/20th his size! See the adoring family welcoming back the brave warrior, safe in the knowledge that the vicious monster is no more…..

I’m sure this was the first of many such encounters to come – here’s hoping they don’t all play on my concience like this one.