A helpful mouse about the house?
Why I need a night-time mouse or couple of elves to help me tidy too.
Today I read an article in the Guardian about a man in Wales who has a night-time mouse that comes and clears up his workbench in the shed. Yes, honestly this mouse is real and would give the mice of the children’s TV classic ‘Bagpuss’ a run for their money. Here is a snippet from the article, do go to the link though and look at the video footage for yourself.
A mouse has been filmed secretly tidying up a man’s shed almost every night for two months. Wildlife photographer Rodney Holbrook noticed that objects he left out of place were being mysteriously put back where they belonged overnight.
The creators of ‘Bagpuss’ lived near Whitstable and there is now a ‘Smallfilms’ section in our local museum- grandly titled ‘The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge’, in Canterbury. Smallfilms made other classics such as Pogles Wood, Ivor the Engine and The Clangers. I grew up with all of these programmes and loved the characters in them all, but mostly I always wanted a mouse organ so they could help me tidy up!
A view of one of the displays in the Canterbury museum showing some of the ‘stop-motion’ artwork used in an episode of Ivor the Engine.
Above is a photo of the original mouse organ also currently on display in the museum.
Smallfilms was a production company started by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin in 1958. Here is a quote with some more information from museum website.
…animations were made using stop-go technology. Oliver Postgate wrote the stories, produced the films and animated the characters, which were made by Peter Firmin and his wife Joan. Many of the programmes were filmed in Firmin’s barn in Blean, just outside Canterbury.
I have just spent a few hours decluttering, tidying and cleaning an area in my home. I certainly could now do with a night-time tidying mouse to finish off the job! I know from past experience that without more input I may pause at this moment for a bit too long and my house will be in chaos for longer than it should be.
Maybe what I need are a couple more beloved characters from my childhood to help me- preferably the 2 tiny elves from ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’. They were also very helpful and similar to the ‘Welsh Tidy Mouse’ in the fact that they worked through the night, not tidying but making new shoes for the shoemaker who had runout of money. It is a great tale. They were rewarded for their hard work by the shoemaker and his wife who made them a set of bright new fancy clothes. It is one of my early memories- the sheer delight they expressed was so tangible I wanted to make all new tiny clothes for my dolls but in reality could only get as far as making them ponchos (it was the 1970’s- we all wore them!)- either square or round pieces of fabric with a neck-hole.
Cover of the Ladybird Book I loved as a child, this was one of my favourite stories.
So, realising that I had neither a Welsh Tidy Mouse or 2 elves from the above story I have joined a 4 week decluttering programme, the January Re-fresh run by Hannah Bullivant. I have been looking at her offers for a while now- I like the way she works, I mainly follow her on Instagram. A year or so ago she and her partner made a beautiful transformation of a very grotty static caravan. Their YouTube episodes of doing this project were really inspiring and well worth watching, there are also a few ‘stories’ on her Instagram page of specific static caravan area refurbishments.
The Chinese New Year (of the Wood Dragon) starts on the 10th of February, I am going to use this as a deadline for me to work through my fairly small home and get it ready for the year ahead. Hopefully this clarity in my physical space will allow more of my ideas to take root and grow freely. I look forward to that.
The footage of the mouse is adorable. I hope the mouse is well rewarded for their efforts!