Batwoman .

The small hours of Friday morning . ' The font ' wakes me to ask " what in heavens name is that ? " . Sure enough, the rickety old farmhouse has developed a new noise . A ' gloop gloop gloop ' sound not unlike air being blown through a straw into thick yoghurt . If , as Madame Bay believes , we have ' a presence ' then it suffers from flatulence .

This morning I bump into the plumber at the bar and explain the problem . He makes a call and a friend promises to come out and look at the blockage in the septic tank later today . '' Don't worry M'Ongoose. We'll get it fixed . My friends a specialist " . A specialist in gloop . That sounds promising . And expensive .

Over breakfast ' the font ' finds a double page article in the local paper about bats . " Vivre avec les chauve - souris " . It seems that on Saturday the village hall is to be the scene of a departmental conference on bats . There will be a slide show on bats , the showing of a documentary film about bats , a talk about bats , dinner, and at eleven at night a walk round the lake to look at bats. The countrys leading expert on bats, a Madame Sauvage , is coming from Lyons to speak . The local paper somewhat optimistically says that this will be a day that captivates the entire family . Wilf and yours truly are dying to see what the batwoman looks like .