Things that go 'bump' in the night!

The night before last, I slept badly enough that I decided to sleep on the sofa last night to avoid any risk of disturbance from husbandly fidgeting or midnight cabaret performances from our resident miniature maniac. As it turns out, I got woken up anyway – either we have something nesting in a cavity above the sitting room’s bay window, or something fell down the chimney last night into the bricked-up fireplace. I’m hoping it’s the former, as if something has fallen down the chimney then we have no way of getting it back out…

 The sound took me right back to my bedroom in my parents’ house. They still live in the house I grew up in, an old thatched cottage with sharply sloping eaves which, for years, I had my bed right underneath. In spring we’d have sparrows nesting, slithering and scuttling about and twittering at each other. In autumn and winter we’d have squirrels (and one year even a family of weasels) clomping around at odd hours of the night sounding like they were playing hopscotch in hob-nailed boots.

Here’s hoping we’ve just got a few soon-to-fledge sparrows!