The Plague

With the imminent departure from the family abode to our own apartment, I do have a sneaking suspicion that I am being chased away. We live in a neighbourhood of trees, so a certain amount of wildlife is expected, however as the old houses and trees around us are being torn down and replaced with McMansions and paving our wildlife quota seems to be increasing. I get the distinct impression that the wildlife are subtly trying to tell me it is time to go:

Firstly it was the big mamma blue tongue lizard, who is intent on giving birth to lots of squirming little lizards on our back door step, every year –one of the babies slightly grown somehow managed to scale the stairs and end up under my bed. I have been known to climb out windows just to avoid this annual event.

Then on return from a whirlwind 10 days Christmas and NYE tour with the French family, I was awoken at midnight by the arrival of not one, but two rather large possums, who had come in through my bedroom window. They were quite put out that I was sharing their newly found hidey-hole. After waking up every possum rescue service and being laughed at for not wanting to share my slumber with wild animals we donned our trench coats and gumboots and managed to usher the house guests back out. The next day the culprit tree, which gave them access, was amputated. This didn’t of course deter the dear possums, who have simply found other methods of entering the house. Now at dusk I run around the house and close every single window – just in case.

We always have a few spiders around the perimeters (you know – for the mosquitos) but recently they are getting larger and bolder…

And we have a flock of fruit bats who descend on the peach tree outside my bedroom window – but they haven’t yet decided to come in and say hello – so besides making a huge amount of noise and mess, they are ok.

But today, today as I was packing up from our mother’s day brunch I opened a cupboard door, a door that doesn’t usually get opened, full of crystal glass ware for special occasions. I’m still not too sure why I opened it. But I did. Out poured THOUSANDS of tiny weeny black ants…they were EVERYWHERE. Two hours later we are now ant-less, I have re-showered and still feel creepy crawly, and I am counting down until we move into a nice high-rise apartment.