I am on my best behaviour this week.
This is all because I overheard a discussion about holidays, which centred on the pros and cons of kennels.
The options are currently ‘Scotland’ and ‘Abroad’. Obviously I have no intention of being left locked up with a bunch of other mutts while they go swanning about in the sun, so for the time being I am being the most adorable, obedient dog imaginable. I am verging on the wonder dog. In fact on Sunday night we were out on the marsh and I walked next to B holding the end of my lead in the style of Lassie!
Suckers.
Other than the self-imposed creeping, I am having a good week, with a trip to the beach in North Wales yesterday and dog-sitting by Grandad Ronbo and Auntie Jean on Saturday night – spelling a plentiful supply of dog biscuits and other treats.
While this was fun, I do worry that the humans are becoming increasingly eccentric. On Saturday night they strapped on their hiking boots and marched up to the Cow Field. Without me.
Nothing strange about that, you might think.
Except that they went with a Bat Expert, called Laurence, and they were carrying bat detectors.
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| This one looks a bit like me |
Laurence, from the Bat Conservation Trust, is the world’s most enthusiastic expert on bats. He knows everything there is to know. For instance, there are 18 different kinds in the UK and two million of the little blighters, all eating 3,000 insects each night. Who’d have thought it? And they can live for 30 years... which means there are bats around who remember Bucks Fizz winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
How many people spend their Saturday nights bat detecting? Especially when they rush back, bursting with excitement because they have identified four types of bat: a pipistrelle, a noctule, a long eared and a whiskered. A whiskered bat? How can you tell in the dark at 100 miles an hour?
Predictably, Beard is now scouring the web to buy his own bat detector. Amazingly there is an online shop for bat fanatics, where you can buy these along with other fascinating and useful items.
Sadly if we do get to Scotland I will probably be forced to spend the week listening to high pitched squeaks.
Sadly if we do get to Scotland I will probably be forced to spend the week listening to high pitched squeaks.
Which reminds me. ... this is not the first family bat experience. When the New Zealand Weirds were visiting recently, there was a clan gathering at Chester Zoo, where the junior Weirds were very taken with the Bat Cave. Not surprisingly, after half an hour of bat-watching wonderment this led to one of them emerging into the daylight, elated but comprehensively doused in bat droppings.
During the ensuing (major) clean-up operation, one of the staff mentioned a couple who had been leaving the zoo a week before, only to find a fruit bat hanging upside down, asleep on the back of their pushchair in the car park.
To confirm the fact that both my humans are completely mad, Weird has spent the week singing ‘Bat out of Hell’ by Meatloaf to herself. You can join in here.
Ironically, Meat Loaf was a vegetarian for 15 years.
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| Rin Tin Tin eat your heart out |
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