Rude Awakenings

At 2.45 this morning we were woken by a strange noise. At first, I assumed I was dreaming, but then reality somehow wrapped it’s sticky fingers around my sleep fogged brain and I woke up to find the dog pacing from one side of the bed to the other. At this point, Hubby woke up and said something to the effect of ‘What the heck?!’ just as I told the dog to go downstairs. She obviously only registered the ‘down’ part of my command, and promptly laid down by my side of the bed. We turned on the lights and had a quick pow-wow about why the dog was upstairs and what had upset her enough to make her come up all stressed.

May I point out here that under usual circumstances, Doggy is allowed upstairs only for a bath. She knows this. Also, as she is currently pre-op cruciate repair (3rd time round, another story!) she is under vet’s orders to refrain from any kind of jumping, bouncing, climbing stairs, standing on back legs… all the things collies do as a matter of course. So at the moment upstairs is strictly out of bounds.

So, I got up and escorted her down the stairs, trying to keep her at a sedate pace, and not doing too bad a job if I may say so myself. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary downstairs, so I put her to bed and headed back to my bed. Once upstairs, I was sure I heard a single, high-pitched beep. I stuck my round the bedroom door and asked Hubby if he heard anything. ‘Sounds like the smoke alarm’ he said. This is not the first time we have had smoke alarm problems in the middle of the night. Last time it happened, he ended up wrapping his arms around my knees and lifting me up so I could remove the offending alarm. This time, I decided to go it alone. After a quick run through the smoke alarms in the house (upstairs hall – that was last time and I put a new Duracell in it, can’t be that one. Downstairs back room – replaced the entire alarm when I redecorated, the ceiling was white and the old alarm was yellow, therefore it can’t be that one. That leaves downstairs hall.)

I went back downstairs to find the dog pacing and stressed again. I told her it would all be ok, I would sort it out. I fetched a chair from the kitchen, climbed up and removed the alarm, then took it into the kitchen to prise out the battery, setting the alarm of twice in the process. After replacing the chair, calming the dog and persuading to go to bed, I went back to bed. Job well done.

I had just climbed back into bed when we heard another single, high-pitched beep. ‘Arghhh, I took down the wrong one!’ Hubby very kindly offered to go this time, but as I had already run up and down the stairs twice so far, I thought I may as well see the job through. Back downstairs, calm the dog, fetch the chair, take down the alarm, prise out the battery. Except this battery wasn’t so keen on being prised. I ended up levering it out with a pen knife and dumping the whole lot on the kitchen table. Finally, back in bed, and I was thinking about buying a battery.