THE BATH ATTENDANT

   Good morning my dear reader and welcome to Comb Towers where we are warm and cosy inside, but outside it is cold and wet, typical weather for a Bank Holiday weekend. Spouse and I will be staying at home, recovering from a very busy week. Marital harmony has been at peak levels - he has been working outside and I, inside, meeting up for meals and occasional cups of tea.

   I say I have been working indoors, but a lot of time has been spent outdoors, ministering to the needs and indeed, demands of our garden birds. The birds are nesting all around us and with their increased activities, come increased appetites for food - almost at a level to rival Spouse's and believe me, dear reader, that takes some doing. Competition amongst the blackbirds for the raisins is fierce. I have created a very secluded place to feed them in my garden and it is great fun to watch them flying in and out of the shrubbery where their feeding station is. Miraculously, the bigger birds have never discovered the spot. I divert their attention by putting the seed and fatball feeders elsewhere.

   One morning last week, the raisins must have been very quickly eaten. I was in my little writing room, beavering away when I became dimly aware of a blackbird running up and down on the top of the fence outside my window. As I say, I was only dimly aware, until he flew on to the windowsill and knocked on the window with his beak, to gain my attention. Numpty me - only then did I realise what all his racetrack activity was about and went out to renew supplies - and whilst I was at it wash out and refill the bird baths.

   I think one of the best sights in the world is watching a blackbird taking a bath. Sometimes I'm amazed that I get any work done at all, as I cannot resist watching the birds in the bath. Blackbirds are so thorough, as they  beat their wings to splash water over themselves. By the time they have finished there is very little water left in the bath and I have to go back outside to refill it. Thus I have become the bath attendant. And as of yesterday, a seagull has started visiting the bath fairly frequently and just sitting in it, only not just sitting in it but adding to the contents too.  Out I trot again to change the water Maybe his usual watering holes have dried up due to lack of rainfall. Let's hope that situation changes soon.

   As I mentioned at the beginning, Spouse has been working outside, working away with pickaxe, cold chisels and masonry drill to dig out a trench at the entrance to our driveway and then inserting kerbstones, to keep the gravel in the drive and not drive it out every time we leave home. The entranceway is wide and the work is hard, as lumps of old stone and concrete have to be mined and so Spouse works up a healthy appetite.

   It so happened that our young friend, Olivia, was with us on one of these days. The weather was lovely and to keep to the lockdown rules we had lunch in the garden. Spouse ate his lunch and half of mine as I wasn't very hungry and then he went indoors looking for a little snackerel to finish off with. Olivia knows Spouse has a healthy appetite, but by the end of lunch she was round-eyed in wonder. 'Does he always eat that much?' she asked. 'That's nothing,' says I. 'He's not on top form today, quite restrained for him, really.' She was quiet for a few moments and then exclaimed, ' Now I know what that huge brass spoon hangs on the dining room wall for - it's his pudding spoon, isn't it!'  Mmmn, might not share that thought with him.

​   Well, I see I need to go and attend to the bird bath again. Whilst I have been writing this, 2 blackbirds, a seagull and some sparrows have visited. No rest for the wicked. I hope you have a good week, dear reader and the temperature rises this month. I, for one, am ready to give the winter woollies a rest.