Curiouser and curiouser

I posted something on Facebook yesterday about the flying bedtime visitors. A friend asked if I was sure they weren’t bats. Truth be told the thought had flitted briefly across my mind as they were swooping around, but I immediately dismissed the thought. Bats only move around at night and my door is always closed long before dark, so how the hell could bats have made their way into the house? I replied that I was pretty sure they weren’t bats, although not 100% sure. To which she replied: “If they looked like shadows and you could not really get a good look at them, they were likely bats.” Hmm. They did look like shadows and I could not get a good look at them. 

For crying out loud. Bats? I know they are tiny things when they’re not actually flying around. Which means, of course, that, assuming they didn’t take the hint and fly out the window the night before last, they could be hiding anywhere. 

They could be curled up on the beam with the snow globes.

They could be hiding behind the suitcases stored on top of the closet.

If there was another sighting I’d have to borrow my neighbour’s ladder to investigate. 

Went to a friend’s house last night for dinner and to watch Hamilton. (Wow on the latter. Dinner was pretty good, too.) She has a friend who absolutely loves bats and might be able to offer some helpful information if I saw them again. 

Came home and settled down on the sofa to watch a couple of shows I’d taped. Around 10:45 I saw something out of the corner of my eye: a little black ball, no bigger than a ping pong ball bounced from the carpet to the side of the fireplace. What the hell? Then I started to hear a noise behind the fireplace.

When I say “fireplace” this is what I mean.

I mean the brickwork behind the place where the woodstove is located. The brickwork might look as if it is flush to the wall, but from a safety point of view it cannot be. There is actually a gap between the brickwork and the drywall.

And that, dear reader, is where the little black ball bounced last night before beginning to make this chittering noise. Do bats chitter? I had no idea. Called my friend who confirmed that yes, they do.

Oh, great. A borrowed ladder won’t help with this. It’s a sledgehammer job and that is not going to happen.

Then it happened again – another black ball hit the carpet and bounced behind the brickwork. This time Stella saw it and took up position trying to peer into the crack. No chittering this time, perhaps due to her proximity.

Oh, bloody, bloody hell. Not bats in the belfry. Bats behind the brickwork.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could face another round of inflight entertainment whilst reading in bed, so I just stayed up watching television until it was time to go to sleep. Once again opened the livingroom windows as wide as I could before retiring. If they did emerge to stretch their wings, I was fast asleep.

Just got off the phone with my friend. She and her bat crazy friend are willing to come around to investigate. Told her I’d need a couple of hours to tidy the house before anyone could come in. (Long time since anyone’s been here. She understood. Said half the reason she’d invited me over for dinner last night was to give her the impetus to tidy her own place.) Better get to the cleaning. 

Before I do, a quick comment on Hamilton. If you have a chance to watch it (worth adding the Disney Channel to your cable package in Canada for a month just to see it) I urge you to do so. Just fab. I loved everything about it, although I have to admit I probably loved King George the most.