While other friends were relocating to Africa as missionaries, where
they would post photos on social media of monkeys or other
undomesticated creatures that managed to sneak inside their homes, we
didn't think we had to worry about such things when we moved to England.
We were wrong.
The squirrels in Didsbury are quite aggressive. We have been told they're actually American grey squirrels that somehow got to England, bred out of control and dominated the native red squirrels to near extinction.
Anyway, we have a top floor, one-room studio apartment on the campus of Nazarene Theological College. We're actually in the undergraduate dormitory, where Andrew serves as the resident assistant for all the students living on campus. When we first arrived, there were warning signs posted throughout the building about invasive squirrels. We thought it was a joke.
Each summer we battle the invasions of the squirrels, competing with us for the food in our own kitchen. I feel truly sorry for those little red squirrels.
In Europe, most residents do not have screens on their windows. If it's hot or you want fresh air, you open your window wide and there's nothing standing between you and whatever is out there, waiting to come in. My biggest concerns is usually about mosquitoes and spiders. There have been few of those. But the squirrels are another thing entirely.
If we open our windows in the summer, because it can get pretty stifling on the top floor on a warm, sunny day, these cunning critters will just come right in. Sometimes they poke their head through to watch and see what we're doing. Once I was exercising vigorously to a video on my computer just a couple of feet from the window and a squirrel peered in and watched me, and even tentatively started putting its paws inside the frame as if testing the boundaries to see what I would do. If we're not looking or we happen to leave for a few minutes, or even go into the bathroom and the squirrels think we're not there, they waltz right in and start finding treats and then hiding them in other places in our flat.
Just last week, we had already been raided 3 times when we accidentally left a window open while we were out. But we thought that it would be OK to have them open overnight to make it more comfortable for sleeping.
At 6:15 a.m., we were violently started awake by a loud noise. We bolted upright and looked around, but could see nothing that had tipped over or was out of place. So, we tried to go back to sleep for a little while longer. Then, Andrew heard something and looked over to see a squirrel standing on our kitchen table. He leaped up to shoo it away, but in the blink of an eye, it had vanished. We looked around for a while, and then finally peered behind a large piece of furniture and saw a bushy tail in the shadows. We opened a kitchen window and then moved the furniture to prompt the squirrel out. The squirrel leaped on the table again and then jumped out the window.
Other incidents involve squirrels finding my hidden bag of chocolate under my side of the bed and hiding truffles and other pieces of chocolate around our apartment, I guess to come back and get later. I've found an unwrapped truffle underneath my laundry basket, a small chocolate bar inside a shoe, and strangest, a truffle tucked underneath the corner of the fitted sheet on our bed when I changed the sheets. They also like to eat hamburger buns.
I did try to put up mosquito netting on one window to see what would happen. The squirrel pushed right through it to raid our kitchen once again while Andrew was blissfully unaware, studying on the bed with headphones in, listening to his music. I came back to find crumbs all over the kitchen floor.
Cheeky!
Suffice it to say, this is an unexpected aspect of "missionary life" in England.
We were wrong.
The squirrels in Didsbury are quite aggressive. We have been told they're actually American grey squirrels that somehow got to England, bred out of control and dominated the native red squirrels to near extinction.
Anyway, we have a top floor, one-room studio apartment on the campus of Nazarene Theological College. We're actually in the undergraduate dormitory, where Andrew serves as the resident assistant for all the students living on campus. When we first arrived, there were warning signs posted throughout the building about invasive squirrels. We thought it was a joke.
Each summer we battle the invasions of the squirrels, competing with us for the food in our own kitchen. I feel truly sorry for those little red squirrels.
In Europe, most residents do not have screens on their windows. If it's hot or you want fresh air, you open your window wide and there's nothing standing between you and whatever is out there, waiting to come in. My biggest concerns is usually about mosquitoes and spiders. There have been few of those. But the squirrels are another thing entirely.
If we open our windows in the summer, because it can get pretty stifling on the top floor on a warm, sunny day, these cunning critters will just come right in. Sometimes they poke their head through to watch and see what we're doing. Once I was exercising vigorously to a video on my computer just a couple of feet from the window and a squirrel peered in and watched me, and even tentatively started putting its paws inside the frame as if testing the boundaries to see what I would do. If we're not looking or we happen to leave for a few minutes, or even go into the bathroom and the squirrels think we're not there, they waltz right in and start finding treats and then hiding them in other places in our flat.
Just last week, we had already been raided 3 times when we accidentally left a window open while we were out. But we thought that it would be OK to have them open overnight to make it more comfortable for sleeping.
At 6:15 a.m., we were violently started awake by a loud noise. We bolted upright and looked around, but could see nothing that had tipped over or was out of place. So, we tried to go back to sleep for a little while longer. Then, Andrew heard something and looked over to see a squirrel standing on our kitchen table. He leaped up to shoo it away, but in the blink of an eye, it had vanished. We looked around for a while, and then finally peered behind a large piece of furniture and saw a bushy tail in the shadows. We opened a kitchen window and then moved the furniture to prompt the squirrel out. The squirrel leaped on the table again and then jumped out the window.
Other incidents involve squirrels finding my hidden bag of chocolate under my side of the bed and hiding truffles and other pieces of chocolate around our apartment, I guess to come back and get later. I've found an unwrapped truffle underneath my laundry basket, a small chocolate bar inside a shoe, and strangest, a truffle tucked underneath the corner of the fitted sheet on our bed when I changed the sheets. They also like to eat hamburger buns.
I did try to put up mosquito netting on one window to see what would happen. The squirrel pushed right through it to raid our kitchen once again while Andrew was blissfully unaware, studying on the bed with headphones in, listening to his music. I came back to find crumbs all over the kitchen floor.
Cheeky!
Suffice it to say, this is an unexpected aspect of "missionary life" in England.
No comments:
Post a Comment