The Medlar House mice are no exception. Some sleep and some stay awake.
The little Dormice sleep from the first frosts in perhaps October, to the warmer days of April. They are rather fat when they lay down their heads for their Winter sleep as they have been eating and eating to build up reserves which will keep them going when it's very cold. When they wake up, they are quite thin, and need to eat again quickly.
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| Ditsy the Dormouse is round like a little ball. |
Imagine going to bed at night when your clothes are a bit tight and waking up in the morning to find that your pyjama bottoms fall down round your ankles because you have lost so much weight.
THAT is what happened to poor dainty the Dormouse. None of her clothes fit her any more and it's too cold to go without them!
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| Poor little Dainty with no clothes....just a collar. |
One little mouse that stays awake some of the time, is Periwinkle.
She is a little blue Harvest mouse who should really hibernate all the time but she gets fed up of sleeping. Let everyone else do that...she wants to explore.
So it was one bright day, off she went into the garden to see what she could see.
It was very, very cold and frosty.
The Medlar Tree and the Curly Hazel tree were beautiful and looked as if they had been painted with white glitter.
But it was very, shivery in your Summer dress. You see, when Periwinkle had gone to sleep, in October, the weather had been very mild. She hadn't bothered to change her dress. Brrrr.
Now it was March and the winds were blowing, the ice was still on the water butts and the ground was frozen hard.
"But I thought it would be nearly Spring" said Periwinkle to herself.
" Oh no, " said a voice behind her. " It's not Spring yet".
It was the little white mouse Wensleydale, who had come on a visit from the Town. He had once lived in a cage in someone's house, where it was warm all the time and where food and water was given to him without him asking for it. He never hibernated.
He was however, a very clever mouse and even though it was easier to live in a cage and be looked after, he had escaped and had come out into the big world to see what it was all about.
" The weather forecasting men said that it was going to be a late Spring and that this nasty weather was going to last and last" he said.
Periwinkle, was amazed. How did he know? Did he know by the whispering in his whiskers and the curling of his tail what the weather was going to do?
Of course he had to explain to her that he had seen it on something called the 'television' which the people who had put him in the cage, had got in their house. This box in the corner of the room, had little people in it who scurried around doing things and who told the humans what was happening and what the weather was doing.
" Pah! " shivered Periwinkle " I don't believe you!"
Well it IS rather hard to believe isn't it?
Wensleydale is a gallant mouse, he has been watching a lot of Costume Dramas on this thing called a television and so he pulled off his nice blue jacket and wrapped it around Periwinkle. That was the gentlemanly thing to do, he knew, when a ladymouse was cold.
Periwinkle was immediately charmed and smiled shyly.
" You can keep it if you like " said Wensleydale. " I have lots of others in different colours."
And because Wensleydale was a rather romantic kind of mouse, he said " It goes with your pretty blue fur."
Periwinkle didn't like to tell him she was probably going even more of a blue colour because she was freezing!
Wensleydale rummaged in the pocket of his and now Periwinkles, jacket. He brought out a piece of white fur.
" Wait there he said"
He scampered off.
Periwinkle waited and shivered and shivered and waited until,
" There!" said Wensleydale. The piece of white fur had been strung onto a bit of garden twine. He popped it over Periwinkle's head.
" That", he said " is what the people call a Muff. For putting your paws into to keep them warm."
"Did you see that on the tel-e visi-on?" asked Periwinkle smiling.
" No" answered Wensleydale " I read it in a book! "
What a clever mouse.
And I bet you can't guess what the piece of white fur was?
Do you remember when Wensleydale caught the next door's cat's tail in the mousetrap...?
Hmmmm. ( Read here )
It is a white cat.
So,
Off they both tripped back into the roots of the Medlar Tree.
And Periwinkle acquired a nice new blue jacket, warm toasty paws,.... and a boyfriend.
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