Vermin.

There's a mouse in our kitchen. The cat stares at the fridge for days and days. She is a weird cat, but I hear distinctly mousey sounds. Down with the torch behind the sideboard I go. 'Oh hai', says Ratty the Fucking Enormous Mouse. 'Thanks for the feast.' Ratty is winning the stand-off with cat. Ratty must go! I order a humane trap to catch him - avoiding the poison given that the kid and the cat are also prone to feasting on floor pie. The Boy thinks it's fine for Ratty to stay. He is wrong.

There's a bat in the farm house. I don't mind him. I like his squished-up face. The Boy says, 'What if he's a vampire and creeps into your bed in the night and sucks your blood?' I know he won't. He'd just nestle in for a snuggle, like the one I found curled into the jumper I left on the floor next to the bed one night. Batty.

There's a biter in my family. This is what I get for saying I'd rather not get up at 5.46am and totter around the paddocks in the 7-degree dark.

Broken skin, if you please. Little beastie.