Cradock – You would have thought us quite batty, if you’d seen us.
The intruder had first shown itself on Thursday night, when Di fled the bathroom, yelling, “There’s a bird in there.” It was circling wildly, on a mission to be free but finding no escape other than the door that I had just entered. Then I looked up, froze, and fled the bathroom.
“It’s not a bird! It’s a $%#@ing bat!”
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared, without trace. Just as if it had been vapourised or beamed up to the Starship Enterprise.
For this, we were to discover, is what bats do.
What do you do when there’s a bat in the house that has made its presence felt, as if to unsettle you, and then found itself a cunning hideaway? As bats do. You find a chunky pillow, place it next to you, and pour yourself a glass of wine.
There’s no need to Google this. It’s common knowledge among those of us who have had to deal with bat infestations. And yes, one bat classifies as an infestation. One bat is all it takes to have you running around in circles and pouring yourself a glass of wine to calm yourself down. Both Di and I can vouch for this.
We didn’t see the bat again that evening, but the following night there was much yowling of cat and flapping of wing in our bedroom. We pulled the bedcovers over our heads.
There was no sign of any bat on Saturday, and we forgot all about it. On Sunday afternoon I was sitting writing e-mails when something gently flapped at my neck. I wafted it away with a hand and caught the sight of something blackly flapping out of the corner of my eye. I thought nothing of it. Some Karoo moth, I reckoned.
On Sunday evening, when as luck would have it we already had glasses of wine to hand, and after we had eaten a simple supper of oxtail stew and gem squash fritters (we eat out of the restaurant to cut down on wastage, so our suppers have become increasingly odd), a giant shadow suddenly flapped menacingly above us. The bat was back.
We learnt later that bats appear to be much bigger than they actually are, and can hide in places so small that even a cat would not detect them.
“It’s Eddie Eckstein again!” yelled Di, leaping up and shooing it away with much waving of arms. She looked like she was guiding a jumbo in to land. The bat appeared to be dive-bombing her.
“Don’t do that,” I remonstrated. “If it bites you you can catch all manner of terrible diseases.”
Then we both froze as we realised that this thing had been hovering around my neck only hours earlier. Was I to add Nosferatu to my list of nicknames? Would I spend that night in a coffin in the cellar? Would I ever see the light of day again?
Did we have any garlic?
Three hours passed in chaos and madness as the bat flew from one room to another, hotly pursued by two humans who had since Googled “how to get a bat out of the house”, with worrying results. This was potentially very serious, warned an American site. It needed to be treated as an emergency and you may need to Call People In. If it bit you – which it would if it felt cornered – you’d need a rabies shot.
At one point I found it prone on the floor, a bulbous body, a pointy little face and, at the other end, a long, very skinny tail. Not much of a tail for a chef, I thought. No good for the pot, unlike a fat, meaty oxtail. I leapt into the kitchen and returned with a plastic cake cover and proceeded to trap the dreaded creature within.
My victory cry was caught short by the sudden realisation that the trapped creature was in fact a large leaf. The cunning creature of the night had set a decoy.
So we did what any sensible modern person would do in an emergency. We put out a call for help on Facebook. The ensuing advice was most helpful. Henri, who knows about these things, said it was highly unlikely to be rabid and suggested we cook it and eat it.
Thanks Henri.
Somebody suggested we attack it with a tennis racket. “Racquet!’ retorted another. A bat emergency was no time for grammatical faux pas.
Somebody asked if it was Eddie Eckstein, but we thought it was a rather nice-looking bat so we renamed it Paul Ditchfield. Paul, meanwhile, had found his way back to the kitchen.
Then, finally, came sage advice from fellow Karoo journo Julienne du Toit, who advised us to trap it in a darkened room with a window or door wide open to the night, with a light on outside, which, perhaps miraculously, is exactly what we did. We have not seen Paul since, but if we do we are going to try to persuade him to predict the outcome of sports matches and make some money out of it.
It is not a good idea to eat bats. So, rather make the nice oxtail stew we had been eating when all the madness broke out.
Slow-cooked oxtail in red wine and Old Brown Sherry
As many oxtails as you need
For each oxtail you need:
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 carrots, finely diced
2 sticks celery, finely sliced
1 cup (250ml) dry red wine
100ml Old Brown Sherry
1 cup (250ml) cold water
1 tsp ground ginger
4 or 5 oregano sprigs,leaves off
1 Tbs raspberry jelly or apple jelly
1 heaped tsp cornflour
Finely chop the onion, crush the garlic, finely dice the carrots and slice the celery thinly. Simmer in a little melted butter until softened. Sprinkle over a little cornflour, stir to coat, and cook for a minute or two, stirring.
Add the red wine, Old Brown Sherry, water, ginger, herbs and jelly, stir well, and bring to a gentle simmer.
Add the oxtail chunks, bring back to a simmer, and cook on a gentle heat for at least five hours, preferably six.
Enjoy on a still, dark night. Keep an eye out for bats.
Weekend Argus