Cockie Terminator




If you read my recent blog about the life of a house share with cockies, then you will be up to speed. They have really gotten the better of me over the last few days. I have stopped spraying at night, and leave them to have their rest – or more to the point, run wild through the place without the benefit of the mood-altering substance in the Red Spray Can.
Last night, however, in the early evening I was watching a DVD – Invictus, it was great and I now actually know the first rule of rugby – only pass the ball to the side or to the rear – when the sound of the scuttling got the better of me. I mean, fair cop, I had the lights on and I hadn't even gone to bed. There is a storage loft above my kitchen, with some rolled up Fijian mats and who knows what else. I could see a couple of very large cockies up there, so I couldn't resist the temptation to give the loft a shot from the deadly Red Spray Can. I whispered my hopes for rebirth in a better life for them, then settled back to my movie. By bed time all was quiet in Cockie Country.
Different story this morning when I got up. I picked up 9 very large, very terminal cockies from the kitchen and bathroom. They are huge and even the ants were having trouble dragging them out the door. As I had bought my Mortein bombs yesterday, I decided that I would go for a walk this morning and set off the bombs before I left. Did that, got home about an hour later to the sight of 27 very large dead cockies throughout the place. I haven't even found all the ones which may have died inside the cupboards. It kind of reminded of our old days at Eudlo, when we had a mouse plague and I set a trap with a piece of bacon in a kitchen cupboard – that trap went off 7 times in about 30 minutes and I caught a mouse every time. Eudlo was the house where if you wanted to go to the toilet at night – which was through the kitchen and into the bathroom, you had to stand in the doorway between the lounge and the kitchen, turn on the light, wait a minute for all the livestock to scuttle away – cockroaches, cane toads, rats – then walk quickly across to the toilet at the other end. Character building days for our boys, that's for sure.
I think that it must be almost a Guinness book of records effort – for a flat that has NEVER had a cockie, according to the owners. I was almost going to take them down and show her this morning, but I know she would just say it is because I leave the front door open (no screen) and they must all be flying in since I have moved here (one week ago). Still, they are nice people and I don't want to offend – they give me fish and coconuts and soon I am gonna have to murder their young dog for barking in the night. But the Tales of Blackie and Booza is for another blog!
I was going to go for the gross photo and line them up and record them here for posterity, but that would have meant touching them and I am not that keen on the blighters.
Instead, for your edification, here's a photo of last night's dinner of locally caught prawns – caught on the reef out the front on Friday night, into the markets Saturday early, into my seafood salsa Saturday nite.

Prawn Salsa Fiji Style Diced onion, capsicum, tomato, cucumber, avocado One small, finely chopped chilli Tablespoon each of fresh lime juice, soy sauce, Fiji honey Half bunch of chopped coriander Toss it all together in a bowl and chill in the fridge Cook up your heap of prawns, chill them in the fridge also To Serve: Half a cup of cold cooked rice in the bottom of your bowl Add the Salsa mix on top of the rice Dump the prawns on top of the lot Sit on the balcony, Bundy and Cola in hand and listen to the sound of the surf on the reef. EAT AND ENJOY