Things that go bump in the night

02/02/13

Those that know me well, or that also carry the MacKinnon gene, will know that generally I don’t have an issue sleeping. As I child I could fall asleep on chill boxes, during my dinner and back to front in bed. Not much has changed. Although, I have become accustomed to complete darkness, due to Hubski’s OCD on there being NO light whatsoever in the bedroom when it’s sleeping time, and generally where we live is very quiet. There is the odd occasion when people will choose to trim their hedges at 8am on a Sunday, but as a whole sleeping is rather peaceful in my own home.

From holiday experience, when in tropical places you get the night time sounds which are a novelty for the week or so that you’re there. I think I am now in transition phase, the first week is a novelty, I am in the ‘when will it stop?’ phase and soon it will be so normal I don’t even notice.

When I turn my light off, smooth out my mosquito net and settle onto my pillow I am met with the following which carries through to the morning;

Cricket, cricket, cricket, woof, woof, grrrrr, woof, monkey squeal, cricket cricket cricket, TV sounds, football sounds, door closing, cricket cricket cricket, woooooof, woof, woof, cricket cricket cricket, woooooooooof, people shouting, cricket cricket, woof, woof, meaow, woof, monkey squeal, monkey jump thud, monkey run, woof, meaow, cricket. Morning prayers, woof, woof, people waking, water running, woof woof, women screeching, woof woof, meaow, monkey squeal. 

You get the gist.

These sounds are constant and only interrupted by a little bit of sleep and the squeak of my bed moaning under my fidgeting whilst trying to find a comfortable, sound free, cool space to snooze on.

Last night, on top of this I could hear ‘scratch, scuttle, scratch’ – armed with my torch, and from the safety of my mosquito net I had a look around to find the culprit of this irritating noise. What did I find? Well imagine a cockroach, but about 3 times bigger. One thing I was sure of, he was not spending  the night with me. It was too late to let out a ‘help me, I’m from England, I have no idea what that is’ scream so I had to deal with it. The old glass and sheet of paper trick worked a treat; no doubt I woke the whole compound trying to get my door open and the pest out without freaking out entirely. I went back to bed and heaved a relief, no more scuttling around in my room!

I’ve had another unwanted visitor since, a not so incey wincey spider. He got the same treatment as the roach. It seems pest control is another skill I didn’t know I had.

Kx