Millipede Murder

It's been a weekend of brutal bloodshed.

I don't normally kill. Killing is wrong, and I'm usually scared that the insects will attack me before I have the time to smack them. Yesterday was a rare exception, but I put it down to shock. While comfortably stretched out in the staircase in a phone conversation, this squiggly, long creature starts worming his way underneath the floor carpet right in front of me, giving rise to all sorts of scenarios. I get hold of a shoe to try and smack it, not realising that the enemy has sought refuge in a corner, out of access of non-pointy Camper shoes. I slam and slam while still on the phone, but the millipede wisely plays dead. Or is he? That's when I discover that red shoes, unlike black shoes, leave red stains.

At this point, poor Toby returns from a four-day stay in a tent under a tree in rural France (apparently the drawback of country manor weddings). As always, this wedding attracted a swarm of couples, leaving Toby to hang out with (and share the campsite with) the only other single person around.

This, unfortunately, was the Murderous Mr X, who soon into the conversation mentions that he killed two squirrels the day before. Why, Toby asks, and then, just before bedtime in the dark garden by the manor, the campmate admits without trace of regret that he drowned them (!!!). A friend of his apparently needed some stuffed animals for a new chess board, and Mr X thought he'd help him out by providing two of them, so he grabbed them from a friend's pest control van, and svush. (Police...)

Toby calls his mum to report the madness.

This was the first of Toby's sleepless nights under the tree in France. Not that I think his fears are justified, but after discovering the millipede scene, Toby doesn't seem to sleep all that well in his London bed either.


PS. This is Toby's 20cm-long Chinese millipede friend, which justifies my actions. But not Mr X's.