Bill the Bird

Alan returned to the UK to visit his parents at the end of the first week.  Sadly my friend Louise couldn’t make it out, so I was alone for a few days.  I therefore decided to work on the house. 

I started on the downstairs unfinished room, which was just filthy and an international spiders conference must have been held there, as the cobwebs were everywhere.  It was a bit like those horror films where you have to clean the cobwebs off your face as you enter a room.  I had to clear out the odds and ends left by the cleaners, as well as stuff I knew we were not going to use.  We have to more or less do this every visit.  This is the after picture.  Thankfully we are going to get these unfinished rooms completed over the winter.

To add a bit of pleasure to the mix, I started drawing.  I had bought a book that was all about simple drawing and shading.  Whist my first picture was nothing as such to boast about, it did give me confidence that I could draw with just a bit of practice.  However the pleasure of the evening, was in sitting at the bottom of the garden, with silence all around me, enjoying the late afternoon sun under the shade of a large tree.  It was absolutely blissful.

One morning, I opened our bedroom window wider that usual, which was a big mistake, because when I went in, there was a bird flying around and banging into the window as he tried to get back out.  Now, I don’t dislike birds as such, but those flapping wings and sharp claws, in close proximity to my hair, is a comedy waiting to happen.  I just KNOW they will get caught in my hair and I’ll be running around the room like a black Tippi Hedren, except you’ll hear me screaming (how she stopped herself from screaming, I don’t know). 

Okay, it wasn’t a huge bird looking back on things, but at the time it was like a pery, pera..oh you know, a big dinosaur bird. 

Having dealt with all the other creatures, I knew I had to be brave and get in there and open the window.  It took a couple of attempts as every time I entered the room, the bird would go mad and start flapping all over the place, and so I would run out also flapping all over the place.  Eventually the bird settled down.  I shot in at a low crouch and ran over to the window to open it wide, and then remembered I’d have to undo the security catch.  I managed to get it open and ran off out again.  I slammed the door and leaned against it (I saw Tippi do this).  Then I remembered that in The Birds, they pecked their way through it, so I stood back and waited for that pecking sound. Nothing.  When I re-entered the room he was gone.  Okay, it may not have been as dramatic as in The Birds, but to a lesser person then me, it could have been very traumatic!