Sunny.

We've had a whole day of summer today with lots of blue skies and hot sun. 

Part of  my day has been taken up with this Pipistrelle bat which we found on our bedroom carpet in the middle of the night. It probably flew in earlier as I didn't close the windows until 10.00. It wasn't making any effort to fly (I've since learnt they need to drop about 5 feet to get flying) so I gave it some water on a wet cotton bud which it drank and put it in a box in the spare room. This morning I gave it some more water, then found some useful advice on the internet and phoned our local 'Bat Lady'. Up till now she hasn't got back to me. I was worried that the bat had got cold so I put it in its box in the bathroom which is very warm and then moved it to the spare room. In the meantime I rang our local vet and the advice I got was to wait for the bat lady contacts me, I've just rung again but still only got her answer phone. My next plan is to wait until it starts to get a bit darker and see if it will fly then. The cats are already locked in the conservatory because they would try and catch it.

Earlier following the internet advice I took it outside and put the box on top of Peter's car. It crawled out of the box then then tried to take off but fell on the floor. I had put my jacket underneath so it had a soft landing. Update - I had a reply to my last message from a lady who told me I'd got the wrong number, my mistake I'd written one digit wrong but a shame the person hadn't phoned me earlier. I got the correct number and phone the Bat Lady and we arranged to meet in the car park of the Muddiford Inn in 10 minutes time which we duly did. Unfortunately the bat died on the journey, it was alive before I left but not looking very lively. Looking at it Samantha couldn't see any obvious cause, at least we tried.

Today's jobs have been more oiling of the garden furniture and an overdue mowing of the lawn. The flies were on me as soon as I started so I had to cover up from head to toe. That sorted out the flies but left me to melt. Once the mowing was done I had a welcome shower and had an hour of 'holiday' sitting outside in the sun with my book.