He came back!

I came down to make a cuppa first thing and just wandered out the back for a look while waiting for the kettle to boil (really expecting something to have made off with the dead dove in the night) – and there he was again, having seconds! Or thirds, or fourths, as the carcass had moved a couple of times through the course of yesterday afternoon – I’d wondered whether he’d been back or if something else had been moving it. Fantastic – it meant that everybody got to see it as Cameron came straight down, Tamsin pointed at it and said “duck!”* and it was still there by the time Maggie woke up, too. We think he’s quite young as he seems to have pale downy feathers on his back. But what do we know about sparrowhawks; maybe they all have them?

*A nice all-purpose word that covers all birds and animals. Not entirely sure if it is actually duck; it could be quack, cat, or that. But I first noticed her doing it to a duck.

 Edited to add that he came back again and finally, around 4 in the afternoon, picked up what was left of the dove and flew off with it in his claws! I do hope he comes back to visit us again (even if that does mean sacrificing a few of our garden birds).

I suppose she used a lot of them up early, she was quite the action cat. A few must have gone when she fell off that 70-foot viaduct (hunting pigeons) onto the road below then spent the best part of a year in and out of surgery while they pinned and plated the smithereens of leg back together. And of course she moved first to Scotland where she terrorised the neighbours’ rabbits by sitting for hours on their hutch, then flew the 6000-odd miles to Tokyo, where she learnt to hunt lizards instead of birds and charmed all our neighbours. She loved small boxes and her party trick was to climb into a plastic bag for people to carry about. She slept in our bed under the duvet when it was cold and had one of the thickest, softest coats I have ever felt. She limped on her gammy leg  when the weather was damp and had her own red plastic stool in the kitchen to sit on. She was sad when we lost her sister. We loved her (and who would hit a cat in their car but not stop?).

RIP Jura; may your afterlife be full of small birds, small boxes and long grass.

I’m back, I think. Haven’t been away doing anything fun, but suffering Maggie’s horrible lurgy – fortunately Mum and Dad were due to visit anyway so they could occupy the children while we felt sorry for ourselves. Hope nobody was terribly worried (huh. As if anybody even noticed.)

Plans for the long weekend include planting spuds, putting up shelves, fun things like that.

There’s snow on the hills and sun in the sky: this is more like it! Last week’s winds saw our shed door give up the ghost - it had been held up with string for some time so I can’t claim to be that surprised, but it means I have to get “a man” in (who, and where from, I have no idea). I wonder if I could find a multi-functional one who would mow what we laughingly refer to as “the lawn” too? A sheep might be a better solution but next-door’s dogs are irritatingly barky enough without encouraging it further. (M had just about come to terms with the yappy westies on the left and the pathetically whining and really old yorkshire terriers on the right, when one died to be replaced with a properly barking labrador. My poor girl is frightened to go in the garden. Jura, on the other hand, has a lovely time flaunting herself just out of reach!)

We at last have a new cleaner who I think is going to be a bit of a find: she’s very bright and personable and extremely efficient. And she claims to dislike cleaning, which I find strangely reassuring. The house doesn’t know what hit it and she managed it all whilst teaching M to count to five in Welsh (“un, dai, tre, pedwar, PUMP!” she goes). It’s Polish next week: like all good Guardian-reading households these days we have a Polish cleaner (or rather, our cleaner has a Polish assistant). Two cleaners! I feel very spoilt.

I spent much of the weekend waiting for the elusive combination of sleeping-Tamsin and not-actually-raining/dark that would have allowed me to go and dig another square foot or so of allotment. Never happened. My seed potatoes are all chitting in trays in the spare bedroom now so I have some pressure on. It is all very exciting (yes really).

Cameron is now in Mallorca. “For a meeting”, he says (“oh yeah”, I say). Alright for some, and irritatingly increasing his tally in our ongoing competition to visit the most countries as neither of us had previously visited Spain. He is head and shoulders ahead anyway, although that is helped by his insistence on counting the Vatican separately from Italy (tosh).

Too wet to go out again. Never mind the fact that I waited in until 2.30 for a building regs chap (expected between 10.30 and 1, naturally) who, when he did arrive, wondered why I thought I needed a certificate for the wood-burning stove* and explained he couldn’t do anything about it as I hadn’t installed it and didn’t have the instructions for him to check. Is this what building regulations approval entails – them checking I have correctly read some instructions? £60. A bargain.

Have done basically nothing all day apart from fritter away time online and scoff sweeties – sugar avoidance is not going at all well. And now I have a bad case of cabin fever but getting out with two children is such a flurry of shoes and hats and coats and have-you-had-a-wee that is hardly seems worth it without good reason.

*Because our solicitor said so.