Southern India - 18 February 2012 (1)

A Visitor

I enjoyed a lie in on our last day in India.  We had a leisurely breakfast and then I went back to Diane’s room as I was the only person not to have signed Lukose’s “Thank you” card.

When I got back to our room, Jen said that we had a visitor.  She took me through to the bathroom and told me to look out of the door (which had a clear pane of glass).  I looked into the walled off outside shower area and saw, in the plants around the edge, a small ground squirrel.  He must have fallen in there during the night or while we were at breakfast and couldn’t get out.  With the typical squirrel ingenuity which enables them to break into the most impenetrable bird feeders, he had worked out that he needed to jump onto the shower tap and then try to leap up onto the shower head to make his escape.  Unfortunately, the shower head was just too high for him and he kept falling back to the ground.  We needed to help him get up there.

Our Visitor

It was at this point that the hotel dressing gown came into its own.  With me providing cover to prevent the squirrel getting into our room, Jen took it outside and looped one of the arms over the shower head.  The dressing gown reached down to the tap.  She withdrew back into the bathroom and we watched and waited.

There had been no need for me to take my position, because as soon as the back door opened, the squirrel hid in the plants.  It took a long time before he felt safe enough to venture out again.  Then he started throwing himself against the bathroom door, which Jen said he had been doing earlier which made her notice him.  He soon saw the futility of that and then tried a jump onto the shower tap.  We held our breath.  He sniffed at the dressing gown, tried climbing it – and jumped back down again.

Then he tried again.  He jumped on the tap and started to climb the dressing gown.  He made the shower head and leapt.  His front paws reached the top of the wall and his back legs scrabbled to make purchase.   Then he was up on the top, free at last.  We cheered.