It is only when you have children that you realise that you are surrounded in your house by a myriad of different poisons, all capable of taking a life or leading to serious injury. In my case, the previous tenant of the house I am currently renting, left a big chunk of red Rattex in a bar cupboard. We don’t really use the bar, and had never checked inside the cupboard.

Our soon to be two-year old daughter did, and we found our one daughter holding a chunk of Rattex. I decided, also for perhaps the wrong reasons, such as making sure both children were in the same boat together, to have them both tested and surprisingly enough the test revealed that the Rattex had been eaten, not by the child who we found the Rattex with, but one of my other children. The active ingredient basically thins the bloods and leads to uncontrollable bleeding and death in rats. Fortunately, it appears with humans you need a bigger dose before that happens and everything is okay now, but it is just another reminder as to how careful you have to be – even when visiting a friend’s house where there are plugs, chemicals, swimming pools, buckets of water and who knows what else.