An Uninvited Midnight Visitor

Being alone at night doesn’t bother me much and for the last seven or so weeks I’ve done it and now that DH tour of duty has been extended I have another five months of it.  I mean, what could happen? I have two dogs with loud barks (when they are awake), surely they will guard me (not!) So when I was woken last night by a scurrying noise I listened for a while and after deciding it was either a mighty big mouse or something was amiss ,I tiptoed over the said sleeping dogs, crept downstairs, flicked on the lights and stepped into something not very nice – yuck! By this stage the noise had stopped but I could see something darting about through the kitchen, into the dining room and into the lounge.

With trepidation I crept into the lounge, hearing a large yawn from a sleeping dog upstairs.  There was nothing to be seen.  Now you need to realise that by this stage my heart was beating faster than any aerobic exercise would make it go, so I guess there was a bit of panic setting in.

The dogs clambered down stairs then all hell broke loose.  The two of them, sniffing frantically unearthed a Weka.  Weka’s are native birds of NZ, flightless, brown and very inquisitive.  The dogs chased this poor bird all over the house, upstairs, downstairs everywhere, eventually cornering it beside the fridge.

I guess the bird had walked into the house sometime during the evening when I had all the doors open due to a warm evening and it must have settled down somewhere that I hadn’t noticed.

Eventually I managed to control the dogs and get them shut away, then open all the doors again to try and encourage this little native outside – this was a mission in itself, these birds behave like chickens and obviously have no sense of direction but eventually I got it outside.

Once letting the dogs out of their lock up clean up had to start.  The bird had rummaged and enjoyed all the vegetables I had had stored in the larder, enjoyed the batting I had rolled in my sewing room and generally helped himself to indoor luxuries.  Everywhere he went both before the dogs and after he left a ‘deposit’, not to mention the amount of feathers shed during the chase.

Note to self, regardless of temperature, close all doors in the evening and check rooms for midnight visitors.

I hope you all had a much calmer night than I.

night night