I found a possum a couple of Saturdays ago, in my fireplace which I had put a board in front of, and when I moved the board to see what was making scratching noises he just came out into the room and had a look around, and then settled in a corner. It was cartoon central, trying to get the critter back outside. He was quite comfy, sussing the place out, i.e. my bedroom, for a nice spring nest away from the weird and wacky weather we have been getting lately.

It was a comedy in itself just trying to locate one of the volunteer animal rescue people by phone to come and help, and after a few tries I finally got to talk to a woman who was sick and couldn't come and help. She told me to leave the window open - locked windows, don't know where the keys are, don't know whether I ever got keys for those locks when I moved in, finally remembered that there were two separate keys for the two windows, and opened one of them - at about 1am, hoping he would go out the window as the rescue lady said he would. 2am: no go.

Fell asleep waiting for him to take the hint. Woke up to a sound around dawn, hoping he had flown the coop, so to speak, but no, managed to worm his way back into the fireplace which I thought I had boarded up again.

No help from hubby, at least not until the next day when I told him I had managed to get the critter outside, let him loose near a tree and he just ambled back to the front door - which unfortunately I hadn't shut because I was too busy trying to juggle a possum on a big board with a cardboard box over it to be able to manage to shut the door - and he went straight back inside. Into a different room, and then into an even worse room which is the storage room with all sorts of stuff all over it, in boxes etc.

Luckily he was backed into a corner so we managed to get him into a sack and phoned the animal control lady again, who came and took him away. She released him back here after a couple of days, giving us time to put wire mesh over the top of the chimney. I haven't seen him or heard him so I don't know if he went off somewhere else to find a safe nesting spot.

The possum lady said that they need a nest out of the weather and nesting boxes in the trees are a good idea. Someone at work lent me a book with designs for nest boxes for different critters. We haven't made one yet, but I think it's on the To Do List for next spring.

It makes for a funny story but I wasn't laughing at the time, mostly from serious lack of sleep, after a very long week without much sleep anyway due to recently changing to a job on late shift (4pm till 11.30pm, home at midnight).

The animal rescue people are the ones trained to help. Hubby suggested calling them.

Helen