It was previously occupied by a bunch of slacker junkies and has definitely seen better days. The plan is to fix it up and sell it, or fix it up and rent it.
Work has already started and we think we have found the last of the hypodermics.
In other property news, we moved last weekend from my house to her house and the next step is to sell my house. Or rent it. Making up our minds is 90 per cent of the battle.
What, I hear you cry, has been happening in the garden lately?
I am glad you asked. Here are a couple of news items:
A wedding
The Robin has a new wife. Or the Robin has a new husband. Either way, I have two Robins where I once had one. I am assuming I originally had a male, since he is fat, and his new companion is skinny. That's how it works with humans anyway - the obnoxious fat git gets the skinny bitch.
Interestingly a second male appeared on Sunday while the other two were chowing down. Robins are fiercely territorial so I got ready for a bit of a ruck but nothing happened. They managed to co-exist within a few square feet. Menage a trois?
A christening
Two young blackbirds have fledged somewhere very near by and have adopted my garden as a good place to learn some basic skills, such as pecking at stones, hiding in bushes and crash landing. The parents occasionally check on them but are probably hoping they bugger off soon so that they can start on the next brood.
Congratulations to all concerned.
Since last fall I have been hanging a fat cake from the bird table to provide my feathered buddies with fuel.
It took a while for anyone to notice, but eventually the tits did and the word got around – blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits and coal tits. Not a bad turn out.
Then the greater spotted woodpecker appeared, and what a handsome chap he is – like the one in the photo but prettier. He flies in, latches on to the pole, looks around for a couple of minutes, then walks up the pole and starts filling his face with lard.
He never walks on the ground – when he leaves, he flies into the tree, walks along a branch to the end, then takes off.
And that was it for a long time. No other birds could manage either balancing on top of the fat cake or walking up a pole. But that doesn’t mean that the other birds weren’t interested in trying.
In January, after a few months of study, the robin finally figured it out and joined the party. Despite his otherwise antisocial tendencies, he has even accepted that the cake has to be shared and waits his turn.
In March, a male blackbird got in on the act. Robins and tits are small, a male blackbird is big, but somehow he has mastered the art of balancing on the cake – feet spread, wings slightly open and constantly moving to keep his balance. In short, he looks like he is surfing. Ungainly though it is, I haven’t seen him fall off yet.
And now, a female blackbird. One of the black dude’s bitches. She has totally not mastered the skills required but is certainly willing to try. This is her modus operandi:
As a spectacle it is as heartwarming as it is pitiful.
More on lard later on the week. I know dear reader, I am spoiling you.
"GnomeWATCH have captured a garden gnome and plan to execute the evil little shit for crimes against humanity - unless you save his worthless life by ransoming him in their eBay auction. Everyday during the ten-day auction GnomeWATCH will be publishing the top bids and most amusing comments. Plus, GnomeWATCH will keep you up-to-date with daily News Bulletins and amusing pictures of the gnome as he attempts to escape, is recaptured and finally brought to book. Remember, unless you ransom him they'll kill him slowly and painfully."
---
Initially I was thinking, 'kill the wee chappy, and kill him bad', but now I am feeling a little sympathy for his plight.
Anyway, it is all in aid of Amnesty International, should you be tempted to join in the fun.
We love the old and familiar, and so we should, but the new is always more exciting.
We fool ourselves into thinking that the old will always be around, and happily allow ourselves to be distracted by the new, running to the window as they arrive.
So while I still dearly love the Greater Spotted Woodpecker, the Song Thrush, and even my antisocial Robin, the new bird in my life is the Grey Wagtail.
I didn't even know such a bird existed but my trusty bird book solved the mystery of the yellow and grey birds that arrived on Saturday. There are two - either a breeding pair, or just really good friends.
It pleases me that they travel as a pair. The only other bird in my garden to do so is the Collared Dove, bane of period drama film crews.
The other thing that pleases me is the way that their tails are constantly wagging, giving them a firm place in the list of bleeding obvious bird names.
And the third thing I like about them is that they keep returning. Other new visitors in the last month have been a posse of Long-tailed Tits and a female Black Cap (see that list again, except that the female has a brown cap. Sneaky.) But the former was a one-off and the latter doesn't visit often. My new best buddies, on the other hand, can barely keep away, although I guess it is only a matter of time before the Robin takes umbrage.
The other feathery excitement this week is two Barn Owl sightings while driving home.
An owl would be a neat pet.
The Blackbird war is over. Or at least the battle for this little piece of territory is over, and the war has moved on to another garden.
Since they all look the same I am not sure who won, but the tactics became quite interesting.
Initially it was simple antisocial behaviour - one bird would be feeding and the other would chase it away, and then vice versa.
Over time it developed and at its finest involved one of them hiding in the crook of a branch waiting to dive-bomb any tresspasser. The other chap would prepare himself in the garden next door, out of sight of the sentinal. Then he would fly up and over the fence, skimming the top of it, before dropping down toward the feed area. He would literally hit the ground running and eat as much food as he could before the sentinal fell out of the sky like Zodiac Mindwarp.
More drama than the average action movie.
There were occasional civilian casualties - usually Wood Pigeons, who are (a) ever-present; and (b) pussies when there is any violence going down. The tiny birds took it all in their stride, remaining focused on the seed-feeder relay which seems to occupy most of their waking hours.
As one war ends another begins - the Robin has taken great exception to the arrival of a Dunnock and is being quite unpleasant about it. No Christmas card cuteness from this particular red-breasted psychopath.
After over 3 months living in two houses I have become tired of a split existence.
The original plan was to have my house sold by now and be living in a rented place, but the housing market is deader that a bacon sandwich shop in Tel Aviv and realistically my house won't sell now until March/April with completion a couple of months after that.
So rather than waste money I am moving back to Wycombe. The downside is a one hour commute instead of thirty minutes - it's annoying but bearable. The upside is a more money and having all my possessions in one place rather than split across two.
I will, of course, be back in Cheltenham for the National Hunt Festival.
Recently I have developed the habit of feeding my garden birds on Sunday morning. This has been the case for around 8 weeks, and the birds have quickly recognised the pattern.
I guess it makes sense that birds would notice a simple seven day recurring event. They are well equipped for pattern recognition, such as seasons, other birds, and landscape. Homing pigeons are known to follow major roads, which is pretty nifty, especially when they don't need to stop at lights.
Last Sunday I rolled out of bed and looked out of the window, and the wildlife was waiting for me.
The squirrel was atop the bird table, just sitting. The squirrel never just sits. He is always busy, only ever stopping on his way somewhere else. Busy busy, things to do, place to go. As a human he would have two mobile phones and would suffer from road rage. But last Sunday he was just sitting and waiting for the Sunday buffet.
The robin was also there. Another of my guests that doesn't like to sleep on the job, but he was on the ground where the food wood be with a look of disbelief on his face.
Suitably shamed I got dressed and fed them - peanuts, sunflower seed, oats, sultanas, dried insects, fat cake (and negative karma to me for feeding them animal fat - I am still looking for a veggie equivalent,) and the feast commenced.
This weekend, it being Christmas, I decided to feed them a day early, and... nothing. The tiny birds were there doing their relay thing, but they always are. Otherwise no-one. I should have posted advance warning or something. Perhaps there is a Saturday buffet in one of the neighbours' gardens. Or they were last-minute Christmas shopping.
But next morning, Christmas Day, the whole gang were there, either eating, squabbling (there is some kind of blackbird turf-war unfolding in my garden this winter), or burying food in my lawn (the magpies do this as well as the squirrel.)
I watched them for ages - the perfect Christmas gift from them to me.
After a robust session of gardening on Sunday morning, I restocked the bird feeder and added a variety of food to the table and the ground, including whole peanuts for the squirrel to save him having to hang upside down on the feeder. He must get headaches from hanging like that.
Fifteen minutes later all hell broke loose. Four jackdaws, three wood pigeons, three magpies, a blackbird and patchwork of tiny birds were all looking for a piece of the action.
Meanwhile the jackdaws and magpies were eating, fighting and doing some rilly neat aerial stunts, and the tiny birds were watching from the tree and twittering. Possibly they were giving a running commentary.
The magpies showed the most forethought - burying food in my lawn. A couple of stabs of the beak, drop the food and then cover with grass. Saving food for winter? Er, no. They dug the food back up fifteen minutes later. No attempt to repair the divot either, the gits.
And then as suddenly as it had started, the garden was quiet again. The pigeons returned to the tree, the magpies and jackdaws returned to the woods and the tinies returned to the feeder, flying relays.
And the squirrel? Well, he missed out.
This weekend I will be appointing a new estate agent, and trimming the price, in the hope of sparking some interest at what is typically a very quiet time of year.
Of course, all houses can be sold for a price and I need to find a balance between getting a price I am happy with and not bankrupting myself while I wait for a sale.
I am living in a shared house in Cheltenham during the week, returning to Wycombe for weekends, so I am paying for the luxury of two homes.
The weekends mostly involve sprucing up the garden, feeding the birds and clearing out bits of junk. I do miss the daily soap opera of the birds and the squirrel, but will make sure I get myself a decent garden when I finally buy a new home next summer (presuming I don't go bankrupt in the meantime).
Working on the basis that my house will sell before I enter bankruptcy, I will be moving sometime in the next few months. Moving home is a cast iron bitch, and although I am an idler, I am a smart idler - time spent decluttering now will save me more time later on. Which is like getting paid interest on time.
I am also quite good at being ruthless (whoever she might be) when it comes to determining what should survive the cull.
My great ally in being ruthless is Freecycle. The Freecycle network is all about giving stuff away that you don't need. It's like E-bay without the hassle of having to charge money and mail stuff out. The point of Freecycle is to keep stuff out of landfill - far too much perfectly good stuff gets buried every day. Groups are set-up and run for local areas so that its easy to match up someone with a spare item and someone that wants it. When I first learned about Freecycle I didn't have a local group, so I volunteered to be the person to set one up and run it. Hurrah for me. Much more detail at freecycle.org.
Of course it is easier to throw stuff in the bin than it is to Freecycle it, but the latter has one big advantage beyond the obvious environmental one - when you have something that is perfectly good, you don't like to throw it out because it might be useful one day. By giving it to someone else it is becoming immediately useful. So rather than feel bad for throwing stuff out, you feel good for giving it a new lease of life.
Thus Freecycle makes decluttering a lot easier. Lined up for this weekend's clear-out are carpet and vinyl off-cuts, an old digital camera, PC speakers and a suitcase. All currently gathering dust and in need of a loving home.
I also give away my books through Bookcrossing.com which follows a similar principle. Any UK readers - check out my available books here. If there are any you want, let me know and I will put them in the post.
Life in the flânerie garden continues to meander its way through a cosy summer. The blackbirds, having raised two families, have deemed their job done and moved on. Or they got shot and eaten by a Frenchman. Either way, they are no longer around.
The wood pigeons still dominate and the sparrows, who arrived late, have stayed. Bless 'em.
But occasionally something arrives which gives rise to the phrase "what the fuck is that?!"
In June it was the Greater Spotted Woodpecker. A handsome bird if ever there was one, and now an infrequent visitor to the peanut feeder. When last observed he spent some time investigating how the feeder is attached to the tree and appeared to be figuring out a way to remove it. Without success so far.
Last week, (s)he was trumped by a Red-legged Partridge (Alectoris rufa), or so my bird book says. It was either a juvenile or a female. The Red-legged Partridge was introduced to Britain in the 1600s by Charles II, having brought them from France to provide target practice for guns (its says here,) which is a bit of a bum deal. Hopefully he or she will return.
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