The Curious Incident of the Mouse in the Daytime

I wander into our kitchen on an uneventful Saturday afternoon, and there's a mouse in there.

A picture-book mouse, just sitting there, rather snootily, if I have to choose an adverb.
I gasp - inhale - clutch my chest, as one does when in shock.
I think: "yes, I know I said I wanted to live in the country... but this is not the country. This is no place for a mouse. If I was in the country, then of course I would expect to see a mouse, and be entirely calm. But here, I do not expect to see mice in my kitchen, so that is why I am not calm" (this is how we justify our silly fears, I know: the rather shameful chasm between the person I imagine myself to be, and the person I am).

Then I flash back to our house in England: I am a kid or a young teen - I can't remember which - and there's a huge rat in our kitchen. After he has gone to inspect and confirm the rat sighting, my Dad (a grown man!) runs back into the living room, visibly scared and uttering a four-word expletive. While he panics, Mum goes off to calmly deal with the rodent.

So what to do?
Survival instinct for non-murderous yet non-rodent-loving urban vegetarians: I throw a big plastic bowl over the mouse, thus rendering it captive.

Then I rush out of the back door, sprint over to our neighbour's back door and yell "there's a mouse in my kitchen!!"
As you may have gathered if you are a regular reader of this humble blog, I am not on hugely friendly terms with my neighbours. I guess you might say "we put up with each other." As people who share a communal garden must.
And yet - and yet - today I am weak-kneed with gratitude: I HAVE neighbours and they are kind enough to be at home!
They come at once to help - three of them: two scared females and one wonderously virile male carrying an A3 size hardback tome that he will use as Utensile B in my grand mouse-evacuation plan.

The mouse is moved, in its plastic prison, out of my kitchen, out of my house and across the road. Us three females, and a wide-eyed BB, trail behind my male neighbour, like a gaggle of groupies.

The mouse is deposited on a patch of grass, scuttles free, glances up to take stock.
As one, the cortege of females plus child takes a step backwards.

Then, as the mouse (who is admittedly fairly cute when not inside property I own) sniffs and scampers on its new patch of turf, the neighbours and I laugh and chat and make fun of each other, sitting along the low wall opposite our house.
We are soon joined my Grumpy Old Man and Wife, who are never slow to pick up on a whiff of drama.

For a few minutes, we are friendly, chatty, relaxed, connected.
And I'm so happy to have neighbours.