You may be one of the lucky ones who have never lived in a house with these creatures. They got so bad at our previous home that in the end we moved house. We thought that we had left them behind for the new people to suffer, but sadly some of them must have slipped into the packing cases and arrived with us. House moving would be an Oopsydiddlydandydee's idea of heaven. Think of the chaos, think of the bits of paper, think of the things which could go wrong, think of the things which have been hidden for years which suddenly make an appearance, think of the things which you know you used to have but which have suddenly disappeared. Perhaps I ought to remind you about Oopsydiddlydandydees. They are impossible to see or hear. You need to have a special pair of glasses before you can see them. The glasses have to be made by a left handed spectacle maker during the night of the last full moon in July. The glass itself has to be coloured with the juice of the fruit of the Bangolin tree. The Bangolin tree is only found in the deepest part of the densest jungle in Burkoland. There is only one of them and it only has fruit on it once every fifty years. You can only hear the Oopsydiddlydandydees if you have these glasses. If you could hear them you would hear their favourite cry. "It wasn't me, honest guv!" Sometimes they change this to "I didn't mean to do it, honest guv." They only say this if you catch them doing something. As far as I know I have the only pair of these glasses in the world. I found the instructions for making them written on a piece of animal skin in the back of an ancient book. The book was called '70 Magic Tricks to Amaze your Caveman Friends.' All the tricks were just making rocks and pebbles appear and disappear. I was given the fruit by that world famous lady explorer. Miss Amanderella Grotsnobbler. Luckily the fruit stays fresh forever so I could still get some juice from it when I found the right kind of glasses maker. You may be wondering what these Oopsydiddlydandydees look like. Well they have round bodies, rather like a table tennis ball and round heads like a slightly smaller table tennis ball. However, it may be the glasses which make them look round like this, but if I take off the glasses to make sure then I can no longer see them. They are slightly pink in colour. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them. They are about this tall, certainly not as big as that. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them. They are about as wide as here, but not as wide as there. However it may be the glasses which make them look like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer see them. Their voices are small and squeaky. However it may be the glasses which make them sound like this, but if I take off the glasses I can no longer hear them. They love to live in houses where there are children. They like it even more if there are cats or dogs or ferrets or hamsters. They really love it when there are children, dogs, cats, ferrets and hamsters all in the same house. The oddest thing of all is that they do not mean to break things, spill things or do any of the other things that they do. They are just very, very nosy. They love to look at anything and everything. The trouble is that they have never learnt to look with their eyes and not their hands. For a while they did not show up after we moved. She who is always right spent as much time as possible using the vacuum cleaner on the new place. Oopsydiddlydandydees are terrified of vacuum cleaners. They hide away for weeks after one has been used. Sadly the cleaning just finished in time for Christmas. Now if there is anything an Oopsydiddlydandydee loves more than moving house, it is Christmas. To make our new place happy for the festivities, we put up a Christmas tree, covered it in decorations and lights. All round the living room we hung streamers and tinsel. The postman brought cards which we displayed on the mantle piece to show how many friends and relatives we have. To make the season even more jolly, there was lots of cooking. Mince pies, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, cheese straws with horseradish sauce, sausage rolls and all sorts of other goodies were either made or bought To make the season even jollier much alcohol was also bought, beer, wine and spirits by the crate made their way from Supermarket to pantry. Just in case the jollity go too much there was also a large box of indigestion tablets in the Medicine chest. It was the night before Christmas and all through the house nothing was stirring except the Oopsydiddlydandydees. In the morning I went into the living room, bleary eyed and tousled headed. The Cards on the mantle piece were all lying flat. The tinsel and streamers were draped artistically across the furniture. Even in my post celebratory haze I knew something was wrong. I get the glasses and looked. The room was full of them. To make matters worse they were all dress in red suits made from the bits of crepe paper which they had fished out of the waste bin. They had stripped the cotton wool from the model snow man to make them selves Father Christmas whiskers. Some of them were sat in the Christmas tree, pulling off the needles and throwing them on the floor. Others were unscrewing the bulbs from the fairy lights and dropping them. Yet more were unwrapping the sweets from the open tin. They were biting into them and then wrapping the half chewed toffee back up again. More were on the sideboard writing very, very rude messages using dry roasted peanuts. More still were carefully cutting up the special Christmas sticky tape, rolling it into little balls and dabbing them on to the still sleeping cat. They had filled an ashtray with white wine and were busy swimming in it. Round the edge of it lay the ones which had swallowed the drink. As if that was not bad enough they were all singing. If you have never heard Oopsydiddlydandydees singing then count yourself fortunate. Not one could find the correct note and they all sing at different speeds and not one of them could remember the words. I think they were trying to sing "We wish you a merry Christmas", but it might also have been "Away in a Manger" or "Silent Night." When they saw me they stopped singing and for once in their lives managed to all say the same thing together. "It wasn't me guv, honest" They did not stop what they were doing though. The ones pulling the leaves off the Poinsettia carried on stuffing them down the back of the radiator The ones removing holly leaves from a wreathe did not even look up from hiding them in a pair of slippers. Before I could move, she who is always right came into the room behind me. In an instant the Oopsydiddlydandydees disappeared. She does not believe in them in any case, but even so they are terrified of her. They call her 'the demon with the vacuum cleaner'. "Well, " she said, in that tone of voice which meant trouble for me. "That is the last time we have your family over for a Christmas get together." All I could say was, "It wasn't them, honest, luv."
Palustris, do you have cats? Cats can be invisible and unheard, and wreak havoc at will. You might want to check under beds, on top of bookcases, and all over the kitchen! OOpsy, Diddly, Dandy, and Dees would be great names for four cats!
Ah, but cats come when they need food. Oopsydiddlydandydees can only be seen when wearing the glasses. Sjoerd, waste of time looking for them. I have the only pair of glasses. They did allow themselves to be drawn when swimming in the cats water bowl.
Oh!...Well then Palu, I guess that you'll just have to come over this way for a visit and let me try them out.
