Intruder Alert

 

Cannot believe a whole year has passed since making an entry in what was supposed to be my regular writing routine for when I couldn’t think of anything else to write. But there you go, and in a year when there has been plenty to write about, both inspiring and tragic, my pen ran dry. 

At the beginning of April I wrote a blog which is still sitting on the computer but failed to make it to the posting point. In the face of the unfolding tragedy of Covid-19, humour became one of the things to get us through. Crazy posts appeared on social media to make us laugh or give us ideas to amuse ourselves while in lockdown, so I took up the mantle and wrote a little missive using ‘coronavirus’ in multiple anagrammatical ways to weave a little tale. 

 As I looked at it though, it felt disrespectful to make light of a situation which even at that early stage was obviously escalating at an alarming rate right around the world, and I’ve written very little since. Nikki Gemmell’s Weekend Australian columns are a favourite of mine, and she’s included several thought provoking ones over the months on journeying through this foreign land of Covid. 

 Covid-19 turned up on our doorsteps uninvited, like an unwelcome visitor who in our ignorance we thought was staying for a few days but now refuses to leave despite our best efforts. We wash our hands of this intruder, literally. We distance ourselves from it in the hope it'll get the message, but it keeps lurking about, hiding in dark corners, ever ready to sneak in should we be off our guard. 

 All of this preamble was to tell of my new intruder who valiantly avoided every attempt yesterday to be captured, for his own good mind you, and is currently in hiding. It all started while chopping firewood, snow on the mountain, bracing chilly wind, you get the picture. As the splitter did its job on a big lump of wood, out popped three sun lizards who’d been having a nice little hibernation inside it somewhere. Well, they are pretty skinny and can fit in the tiniest crevices. I hadn’t hurt any of them, but they sat there, or rather lay there in stunned frozen silence as I apologized profusely. One had dropped its tail through the shock of it all, so I beat a hasty retreat to let them regain their composure and find another warm spot. 

 Fast forward a few hours, what should suddenly appear trekking across the lounge room floor but a sun lizard, ambling rather slowly, and I realized where he had come from. I never bring firewood into the house unless it’s going straight on the fire. Learnt my lesson yonks ago after bringing a Huntsman spider into the sanctuary of my home courtesy of a piece of firewood, but last night was pretty cold so I brought in an extra piece and laid it near the fire ready. On the woodpile it was the piece next to the one I split, so he was probably a cousin of those so rudely evicted from their cosy hideaway. 

 I’ve rescued plenty of sun lizards in my time that have wandered into the house or the office, figuring they’ll starve to death unless I get them outside again, but could I convince my lizard intruder of such fact? I could not. Even trying the teatowel trick so I didn’t have to actually handle him and scare him to death didn’t work, he simply wriggled his way to freedom each time. After several unsuccessful attempts, by which time he’d traversed back and forth in front of the fire and was suitably warmed up to make him nice and frisky instead of cold weather lazy, I gave up and went to bed. 

 Where he is now is anybody’s guess, and he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in staying still long enough for a photo opportunity, so there you have it. At least he’s not a scary intruder, but neither do I want him to be a dead one to be discovered as a wizened corpse in some dusty corner at a future date. So despite his unfounded fears I will continue on my rescue mission. The sun is pouring in so who knows, I might find him sunbaking in the dining room.