Days 787-793, 28-3 Aug '16, Beach House Fever, Wk 11Thursday 28 July - The headlines rang out "Mice Infestation!" Alright then, imaginary headlines. Not as though there are newspapers to read here in Langkawi (thank heavens for websites like BBC etc). We are in a constant battle with nature about what counts as 'indoors' and thus our territory and 'outdoors' and their territory. Call it the Alamo. Call it Little Bighorn. One way or another however, we are losing this territorial dispute. Essentially the boundaries are badly drawn (must have been a Colonial power in charge...) Anyway - I spent the morning upstairs doing housework. We'd both taken a couple of weeks semi-holiday to enjoy Joan's visit and the geckos had spent two weeks doing what they do... Eating and pooping and it takes forever to sweep it up. I was part way through the upper storey and clearing off a daybed (have to flip the cushions every week or so to ensure mousies don't make nests and become permanent residents). Anyway - shrieked like no-one's business - massive mouse jumped out from under a big cushion. Jury is out on who scared who the most. And she ran away (the mouse - not me. Well... maybe me). Anyway - I sent James up to investigate and he did indeed find a little mouse nest and then he said "Seriously - you screamed over that? it's tiny." And I'm downstairs gibbering away about the 7 inch monster mouse with fangs and claws and he brings down this tiny baby without it's eyes open... That was sooooo not the mouse I saw. As the day progressed we found two more baby mousies shivering in corners around the house. We snaptured the mama mouse Thursday night by leaving an open humane trap next to one occupied by a baby. We are such soft touches. Come Friday morning the mama was squeaking away to her baby and we felt hugely guilty tricking her into getting caught. Anyway - another drive down to the garbage skip was in order to drop them off at the all-you-can-eat buffet. We're such softies these days that James was even contemplating the 'mouse-in-a-bag-in-the-freezer' form of euthanasia so that the little one with its eyes still shut wouldn't get munched and killed immediately by a monitor lizard or eagle. But that put me off even more - so we were humming Elton John's "Circle of Life" song on the drive to the skip. Friday saw yet more cleaning, downstairs this time (more gecko poop) while James did the lawns. Saturday we set about setting up the beach house for a family of four and carted over another single bed. Gave it it's "first" clean and did a massive linen muster to ensure we could do a complete change out at the half way point of the stay if need be. Sunday was a semi-rest day. We hit the shops in town for assorted odds and ends for the beach house and little necessities that we've only just noticed missing - like a paper towel holder. Sunday was also our 11th wedding anniversary and we enjoyed a cheap and cheerful lunch while we were out and about. Might celebrate a little more seriously when we are stopping over in Dubai in September (which we can now officially refer to as next month!) Monday saw us with a big list of little jobs in Kuah and we finally got to our reward for all our recent hard work - a massage at our secret Thai massage joint. Third time of visiting and we're officially regulars now... we even have our favourite masseuses. We dropped into the cineplex to confirm when we could expect the latest Jason Bourne movie to start... or even the latest Star Trek movie... only to be told neither were coming to Langkawi. But you had the posters up! Yes... all the posters come - not all the movies. There are times when the catch phrase 'Malaysia - Truly Asia' really makes sense. Aaaarrrgh! There's a fair bit of rubbish on at the minute and we can only figure the licence fee or something was too high in comparison to the population here to watch the movies. Still. Massively disappointed but we suppose it will give us something to watch on our next long flights. Tuesday saw us down at the beach house giving it a proper clean and making up the 3 beds. Ended up taking 3 hours. Phew - no point doing it prior to the day of arrival though as the open air nature of the building means dust, sand, bugs etc would grub it up in no time. Our guests arrived on time at 8 pm all the way from Dusseldorf - making them just about as tired as us. But they survived their drive home from the airport which was good (only one cow, half a dozen scooters with no lights driving on the wrong side of the road and no monkeys... not as though anything could go wrong there). Wednesday we took it easy and stayed around the house. The highlight of the day was having pasta for dinner... first change from Asian food in almost 3 months! Speaking of... 11 weeks down, 6 more in the tropics.