In Good Company: The Sounds Of Summer
...Leaning against the wash kitchen wall the other morning, my usual washing position since the miracle of automation, I had a slight shock. A shiny black beetle crept from behind the dustbin carrying a piece of spaghetti!...
Enid Blackburn tells of encounters with the untamed.
As I write this, the sounds of summer are all around me, a crackling fire dancing up the chimney, truculent raindrops battering the windows.
One day I am enjoying a blistering face-shrink in what feels like tropical sunshine, next I am shivering at the edge of a sodden bowling green watching players (men, naturally) paddle out to their woods, looking more like a lifeboat crew wading ashore, than merit bowlers.
Conversely, yesterday was one of those old-fashioned, balmy sun-filled days when you could leave the door open and allow the summer to drift gently in. One of those heady days when the birds’ songs sound so human, you get the unnerving feeling that impressionist Percy Edwards is lurking in the bushes.
We have a robin nesting in our ivy (sounds as if a relative is being taken advantage of). At first we were so thrilled, watching Mr and Mrs Robin build their nursery, we could not understand why our neighbours denied themselves this pleasure by giving their ivy such a close shave earlier on. After days of flying to and fro with their beaks packed, activity ceased and we had a short silence. Then four tiny mouths appeared and the symphony began. The din was such that daddy bird slipped out for a drink one night and never returned. The only time the incessant squawking stops, is when Mrs Robin throws in a worm. They start again the minute she leaves. If she doesn’t teach them to fly soon I’ll do it myself.
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Last week was blood donor week. You could either take your place on the bed provided or mingle with the vampire midges on our bowling green.
I love washdays when these nasties cling to the washing and I can sadistically iron them all out. This is also the time when busy little blue-bottles start dropping their babies everywhere. I am re-learning the art of murder. Fly sprays are OK but swiping them with a rolled Examiner is more satisfying I find.
‘Oh come and look at this,’ said one daughter the other day after I had served one a deadly blow which knocked over two cups of coffee and splattered the sauce bottle contents all over the sugar. She likes to give a running commentary on the death throes. ‘Its proboscis is hanging out but its legs are still moving.’
More furious swotting, fly not in good shape but one leg still alive. ‘Dying like flies’ has taken on a sinister new meaning in our house.
Meanwhile sister May is keeping her end up in the garden, doing all the cabbages in. Our gardener returns with an air of doom about him. Has he seen my supplementary wedding guest list I ponder anxiously? ‘Three more gone,’ he manages to tell us when speech returns once more and we hold a short sulk for the dear departed.
Leaning against the wash kitchen wall the other morning, my usual washing position since the miracle of automation, I had a slight shock. A shiny black beetle crept from behind the dustbin carrying a piece of spaghetti! I never did discover where he was taking it or what he intended to do with it because I inadvertently let my miracle of automation overflow and the poor chap disappeared down the drain with the water leaving his dinner behind.
