A visit from a vampire. Oh, and an award!

Nothing interesting to tell you, I thought. HA! I had totally forgotten about Count Dracula visiting us. No really. There we were, on a warm summer's night, French doors open, comfortably nestled in the corners of the couch, watching something interesting on tv, when suddenly a shadow moved along the walls. And again. Turned out a bat had decided to pay us a visit. I'm really not that easily scared by animals. I pick up frogs and toads for instance. Wasps can land on my hand and I will look at them closely (they feel quite warm, did you know that?), while hubs is doing his hysterical 'aaarggghh a wasp' dance. I felt quite offended actually when two weeks ago I got stung by a wasp. Me! Who always treats them with respect, rescues them when they fall into my drink, puts them out into the sun to dry, lets them walk on my hand. And just for once I don't notice one landing in my neck, I turn my head and OUCH. It stings me! And my father taught me that if there are bats flying around and you throw a small pebble up in the air, they dive for it thinking it's food. So my father and I (I was about 15) spent a couple of evenings confusing bats by throwing small pebbles up in the air and letting the bats dive just over our heads. While my older sister ran away screaming. I thought it was rather exciting. Outside.

Inside the comforts of your own home however...it's a totally different matter. Quite scary to have a HUGE bat flying inches above your head. They are FAST! And you can't hear them coming. The dogs thought it was quite exciting too, so we put them in the hallway. Safer for both bat and dogs. Hubs went out to get the big fishnet on a long stick, which we have to fish things out of our pond and went on the Big Bat Hunt. Really, while it was flying around it was like Count Dracula had decided to go look for another place to put his coffin. But when hubs had finally caught the poor creature, it was just a tiny little, quite cute furry little bat. Sadly you could hardly see it in the net, so I didn't make a photo. You have to believe me on my word. Hubs set it free again. Outside. I didn't throw a small stone, it had endured enough that evening. It wasn't the first time we had a bat flying around in our living room actually. A couple of years ago hubs had to go on the Big Bat Hunt too. When we told people our exciting adventure, someone said that we had to throw a white towel in the air. The bat would grip that and then you could put it outside again. No idea why the bat would fly into a white towel, but hey, worth a try I thought this time. Hubs wouldn't have it however. He put his faith in the net. Worked for him once and never change a winning ...uhm ...team. So I can't say if the towel does the trick if ever you need to catch a bat. And now for something totally different: Oskar, the smartest and most handsome schnauzer I know (visit his blog if you have the time; it's very funny) decided to give me an award. Thanks Oskar (and Mimi, Oskar's 'mom person').

The instructions apparently are to:

1) Put this award on my blog and a link to who gave it to me.

2) Give a nod to the purple hatter.

3) Tag five other doggies who you just can't get enough of.

I am honoured to receive this wonderful award of course. I've decided long ago (never to walk in anyone's shadow, if I fail, if I succeed......suddenly that popped into my head, sorry) to not give awards away in huge amounts, so I'll give this one to one very special person, a true animal lover whom I admire very much (did I use 'whom' correctly?): T from It Matters To Me. She deserves something pawsome!