Not my day...

I had made a start on this pastel from one of admirer's photos a couple of months ago. But I wasn't feeling confident so I left it awhile.
I was going to finish it this afternoon so went into the garage where all my pastels are kept in plastic boxes. I had invested in and bought a good few hundred pounds worth of soft pastels earlier this year.
The first pic is the swan pastel I was going to finish, but suddenly I realise some pastels were missing...no, a lot of pastels were missing. Where were my pastels?
Then I noticed a box had been gnawed at. Then suddenly I realised a whole pile of my plastic boxes had been nibbled and almost completely eaten away.
But where were my pastels that had been in the boxes?
You can see the pic where the boxes were eaten away. Only a few green pastels remained. And a couple of flesh/pink pastels remained. But the plastic boxes containing dark blue pastels had been emptied, as well as the boxes of light blues, dark greens, blacks, reds, light greens, yellows, browns, ochres, and more were all gone from the boxes, and also my beautiful collection of different purples mauves violets and lilacs...and there were very tiny scraps of pastels scattered around.
Then you can see in another pic tiny bits of the coloured pastels...they had been eaten!!! When did mice or rats eat artist's quality soft pastels, or any soft pastels that are meant for drawing pictures for that matter? And they chewed through many plastic boxes to get them.
There are some droppings in the last pic. I think they are mice droppings, but someone may correct me.
A few hundred pounds worth of soft pastels eaten by mice (or rats)....sigh....
I found the nest...it is underneath an old wardrobe in the garage, but the space under it is very narrow. I can't get at it. I am not manoeuvrable enough with my arthritis.
I gave the nibbly creatures 3 verbal warnings to get out of my garage. Well it is Christmas! They have until next Wednesday and then I will go and get some stuff...don't know what yet but I don't like killing things, even if they have wiped out my pastel collection and cost me a fortune.

In any case, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I go to collect my new car I have been waiting over 6 months for. My first trip will be to a cheap store which sells some cheap Inscribe pastels. So cheap pastels from now on. I can't replace all those expensive pastels again. Some were irreplaceable and I don't have the heart to. Then attempt the swan pic...