It’s 6am, my new awake time, and I’m listening to my latest – uninvited – flatmate having a whistlingly grand old time in the lounge.  In case the title wasn’t a giveaway, he is a cockroach.  Since I accidentally captured one a few weeks back I now know what they sound like, and I can hear them from two rooms away, my eyesight may be dire but I have excellent hearing, more fool me.  And once I hear them / him / her / it, sleep is not forthcoming.  What I should do is get up and go for a run – instead I lie here listening to the whistling, hoping that for some peculiar reason he’s left the property, but knowing that slow whistle wheeze will recur sooner than later.

He’s in the lounge, and he’s been there since mid July.  I can’t fumigate the room properly as the cats’ bedroom is off the lounge.  The fact they hiss at him occasionally means he’s a large one – and of course in my head he’s now at movie proportions, although there’s nowhere for a six foot cockroach to hide in my apartment, I do brace myself before I look behind the sofa.

My best friend tells me I should be glad they don’t fly (FLY!!) here.  Apparently in India they are everywhere; as if ‘Delhi Belly’ wasn’t enough……

I read an excellent comment the other day about how these guys will be eating our bones and tupperware long after we’ve destroyed humanity with nuclear weapons.  At 6am I’d like to know if there’s really a way to purge the world of cockroaches and mosquitos for good.  Or is there a greater purpose for these things?  Do they somehow hold the entire ecosystem together?  I don’t know if that knowledge would help me, as I lie here waiting for Mr Cockroach to whistle to let me know he’s still there – with my huge, Spanish size, cannister of instant cockroach killer spray at the end of the bed, on a shelf by the lightswitch.  If he makes the foolish mistake of invading my room, sorry sir, that’s coming your way – unless he actually is six foot, in which case I’m going straight off the terrace!