A dead rat, a toolkit and flying solo

Saturday, 20 June 2026

Denise Irvine got back from a holiday to discover a rat that had obviously died a few days earlier (file photo).

Denise Irvine is a Hamilton freelance journalist and food writer, and a regular Waikato Times contributor.

OPINION: I came home from a holiday a little while ago to the deeply unpleasant sight of a dead rat on my deck. The rat had clearly been there for a few days and it was heavily infested with wriggly larvae. I think you get the picture.

The glow of a great week away faded as I scraped the remains off the wooden boards and tossed the corpse as far as I could into the adjacent patch of native bush, from whence it probably came. I scrubbed the deck and spade with boiling water and disinfectant, and finally went inside and unpacked my bag. With no-one on hand to say, “love your work, Denise”, and make me a cup of tea.

In a previous life, rat removal would have been my late husband Bill’s job. Not that I think it is men’s work, it’s just that he was more practical and stoical about some things than I am.

I’ve been running the show on my own for a long time, which was never in the script, Denise Irvine writes.

I’ve been running the show on my own for a long time, which was never in the script because we were going to grow old together. It doesn’t always work like that of course, and I’m increasingly aware of friends and acquaintances roughly my age, in their 70s, and beyond, nowadays picking up on all the tasks that were once shared, following the death of a spouse.

There are some painful adjustments to be made and I’ve always thought there should be a manual for this, a practical guide for older persons flying solo on household matters. So while the dead rat disposal remains fresh in my mind, I’m passing on a handful of hopefully helpful troubleshooting strategies. Which are somewhat skewed towards my own shortcomings.

Many of the tools that Denise Irvine’s late husband Bill accumulated have been given away (file photo).

Household maintenance is a genuine biggie: In the good old days, much of this took place without my input and I remember a crisis with clogged gutters the first winter on my own because gutters had simply never been my job. So I have developed (largely through recommendations from friends) a network of trades-people, including an excellent computer technician and a handyman, who I call on for support as needed. These are respected relationships, I stay entirely loyal to them, and the handyman, in particular, is gold. He first came to the rescue when my kitchen pantry door fell off its tracking.

I likewise value the reliable car repair and maintenance business I have used for several years, my AA membership for emergencies, and truly appreciate some extra help from visiting family and friends. I’ve also upskilled on DIY by watching YouTube videos, and this is really useful for solving technology problems too.

A basic tool kit is important. Bill had a comprehensive collection of tools and gadgets and most of these were dispersed among our sons and other family. I mean I’m never going to use an angle-grinder or a drill press, am I? But I kept some everyday essentials, including a hammer, various pliers, screwdrivers and spanners. All of which are useful for small jobs.

Cooking for one has been a challenge too. Denise Irvine is pictured in her kitchen in 2025.

A shout-out here to slip-joint pliers, a tool with an adjustable pivot point that shifts to widen or narrow the jaw opening, making them ideal for gripping, bending, and turning nuts, bolts and, most importantly, a stubborn screw-cap on a bottle of wine. I discovered this useful implement one night when I couldn’t get a screw-cap to budge. The wine was so near, yet so inaccessible. I searched the tool kit and had instant success with the slip-joint thing. They’ve been rehomed to the kitchen tool drawer and are used for all manner of tasks.

While we are in the kitchen, cooking for one has been a bumpy pathway. The initial problem was over-shopping and over-catering, and no-one to hoover the leftovers that glared from the fridge. I can always do a second round but a third is a serve too far. You can freeze extras, of course, but you can also end up with too many mismatched packets of bits and pieces. So the strategy here is to shop more carefully and cook from scratch, downsizing all ingredients for a single serve. It is often the easiest of things, maybe a crunchy salad with a piece of pan-fried chicken; a soup of chickpeas, chorizo, tomatoes, spinach and herbs; mushroom and leek risotto; or stir-fried greens with brown rice, fish and lemon. This is my treat to myself each night.

Most of my cookware is family-sized so I’ve collected some smaller pieces that are the right fit for one person (op shops are good for this), and I’ve learned to clean up as I go because there is no longer a dishy to take care of things later. I’ve also learned, via YouTube lessons, how to successfully wield a steel and sharpen my kitchen knives.

Outdoors, I’ve tried to simplify the property as much as possible and get help (more solid networking) as needed. Fortunately it is a small section with a chunk of it in native bush that largely looks after itself. But really there is no such thing as an “easy care” garden and I tell myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect (always a good strategy).

Leaving home, GPS is invaluable because there’s no-one riding shotgun, you can’t read an old-school paper map and drive at the same time, and I’d be lost (literally) in unfamiliar territory without the user-friendly Google Maps. I’ve also embraced Uber when meeting friends for dinner in Hamilton’s CBD or similar. It avoids parking hassles, and I’m not walking back to my car on my own at night.

The most important thing is to back yourself. I never imagined that one day I’d be scraping up a decomposed rat but it was a case of keeping calm and carrying on: which is probably the thing to do in all of the above circumstances.