The Second Squirrel War

 

When I came home from Newport back in June I really hoped that the memories of my ignominious defeat at the paws of the local grey squirrels would be left behind. Not only did they make feeding the local birdlife completely impossible and thereby depriving me of a form of entertainment infinitely more satisfying than what passes for television in the United States. They also invaded my house,  breaking in through some of the unsound woodwork just above the roof gutters and heartlessly scampering around on my bedroom ceiling. I swear that from the nearby treetops, they waved a triumphant goodbye when I left.

Well, they seem now to have communicated my vulnerability to squirrel attack to their cousins this side of the Atlantic. Of course I should have been more prepared as we've had trouble with them already. There are four good hazel trees in the paddock and one big walnut tree. One year, a long time ago, I actually had some walnuts. They were excellent. Really thin shells and large delicious kernels. But nothing since - and no hazel nuts in 20 years; just loads of empty shells. Adding to the insult, the stupid thing(s)  knock(s) the walnuts off the tree weeks before they are anywhere near ready so they fall to the ground and rot. Really irritating.

For a couple of weeks I have enjoyed the window bird feeder on my study window, but noticed that the fat balls were not lasting long. This was explained early one morning. There was a big scratching thump and a squirrel appeared on the window sill, looking in at me, two feet away, nibbling away. Mildly contemptuously,  I thought. There then followed a brief battle of shifting tactics for the next couple of days, I  moved the feeder up the window out of his reach I thought. No such luck. I have absolutely no idea how he coped with that. Getting to it looked completely impossible. But he managed it. Next move was to cut up the fat ball into small pieces. Less get-at-able perhaps ? Then, noticing that he prefers to come for breakfast at first light, I resolved to empty the feeder every night, refilling it only for broad daylight. That's the state of play at the moment. I hope but doubt, that the outcome hangs in the balance. More communiques from the front to follow

The other main event in a quiet period was the weather. Snow, quite a lot of it. On my rounds the first morning I was intrigued by some mysterious tracks in the snow. It wasn't just that I didn't know what they were, it was that the two strangest ones seemed to have no beginning and end. They were just there - in the middle of an unbroken expanse of snow. Maybe the smaller one was a bird that had flown in and out.  But that didn't explain the big set. Which I also couldn't identify at all. A deer, vaulting in and away  ?  A big dog - certainly not next door's spaniel. The Hound of Pewsey Vale, perhaps.

And then came the rain. Although we normally have no running water anywhere near us, except for the winterbourne called the Gog two hundred yards away in the village. As the name suggests it only appears in the winter and is now in full flood but a long way away. However in heavy rain, the water comes down from the hills, flows down the field behind us, into the paddock and on five occasions has passed through the Granny annexe and eventually out onto the road. Over the years increasingly  sophisticated (and expensive !) drainage systems to deal with this threat have had only partial success. The result - five floods mostly on Christmas eve or New Year's eve, causing tremendous upheaval and cancelled festivities at the most inconvenient time imaginable. On one occasion our friends the Kennedys -coming for New Year celebrations found themselves shifting heavy wet furniture and carpets instead.

Finally I got the local framer to come in with his tractor and dig a trench across the paddock and various members of the dynasty to extend it through the little wood and to help construct bridges across it. Most of the year it's a dry as a bone, even faintly ridiculous overkill.  Not now though !  The path through the wood has become a small but free flowing stream and the various ditches are pouring water out onto the road. For sure,  that was another  flood averted. There's a folk memory of small pond once having been on the site of the fruit trees near the Granny annex so this was a new solution to an old problem.

 The whole experience reflects on the wisdom of our country predecessors. The house itself is built on a little knoll. Its hardly noticeable, but enough that such surfacing  ground water obligingly flows around it, but not inside - yet. No fools these village ancients. I find it totally absorbing just watching all the flood-water and finding excuses to tinker about with things rather as the children and I used to engaging in waterworks on the little freshwater streams that come down onto and though Cornish beaches on their way to the sea.

And it's a lot more satisfying than fighting battles with the local wild-life.             

Outlines of a Locked Down Christmas

 

For me as for everyone else, Christmas took a very different form this year. In fact, it was quite unique - the first time I've ever been  my own on Christmas day - providing a little bit of insight into the lives of people much less fortunate than myself. Although obviously not as enjoyable as it usually is, it was fine. I maintained all the usual rituals, with a big Christmas tree joining the small ( and I have to confess rather straggly) garden-based one that goes up at the end of November for Cherry's birthday - one row of lights along the wall and the wreath on the door, to show willing.  Each such gesture one in the eye for the pandemic. Sainsbury's even do a nice line in Christmas puds 'for one.' Inevitably there was a downside as well, of course. It wouldn't be Christmas without them. The blaspheming when one chain of lights on the tree suddenly makes a loud pop and goes out, completely upsetting the artful balance of the tree decorations. The last-minute Christmas card from  that  arrives from someone you've forgotten etc etc. Having to concede that they will have the moral high ground next year. But I suppose even those minor reverses reveal quite a lot of the reassuringly normal amidst the abnormal.

As a singleton with a bubble, I was entitled to a visit. Beth and Christopher came on Boxing Day for a couple of hours. They sat in the Annex and I sat outside - and we shouted at one another through an open door and ate our own sandwiches. Christopher took away a massive log I had procured for him from the local woodyard to use as an axe block for his spoon making efforts. I couldn't bring myself to wrap it. What with this and Beth's engaging in a virtual pottery class in their garage, I guess that the rest of us have a pretty good idea of what we'll be getting in the way of Christmas presents next year from this duo of Walthamstow artisans.

 I also met Team Powell on New Year's eve in the New Forest, and was amazed at how crowded it was at Turf Hill. Dog-walkers and families galore. I've never seen the car park so packed I had to park along the entrance track. We got away from everyone and had a virtuously socially distant pic-nic lunch of our separate providing. A sometimes thick mist enveloped the scene in the most atmospheric way. One expected Count Dracula to emerge from the nearest copse at any moment. Once we had tired of breaking the ice on various puddles and ponds, we did the walk past the various humps concealing the remains of World War II buildings to Millersford Bottom. Barney took being socially distant to the extreme of disappearing into the mist and getting totally lost. His mother teetered on the edge of having the last melt-down of the year. So everyone had a lovely time and we were able to re-unite successfully before going out separate ways.   

I took a bit if time off from my Newport commitments (which had the unfortunate consequence of bequeathing me a veritable torrent of e-mails awaiting me when I resumed normal business -like, as they say trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant). I had already decided that my special Christmas project would be to write an account of Cherry's last year, based on my diary entries, not least because this had always been a very special time for her. It made the season more of a shared experience. It  sounds morbid and unnecessarily harrowing, but wasn't. Instead I found it therapeutic - not an exercise in closure more one of a degree of thankfulness. Especially, perhaps, when so many other people were having a really hard time.

I managed a couple of local walks over the season. On one I thought i would do a little bit of unfortunately very squelchy field walking just behind the house. The photo shows some of the products of my no doubt deluded industry. Nothing very remarkable, one large this bit of glazed pot that was possibly late mediaeval. The rest was 19th Century, including the section of clay pipe, - mostly thick, plain cottage ware. But I couldn't quite work out what it was doing here so far from any village houses. One piece in particular was thinner and of significantly better quality. Who would bring a willow-pattern saucer, or even its remains, out to the fields ? The standard explanation for distribution of bits of pottery in fields is that things got broken and the bits got mixed up in the straw that rural folk used to put down on the floors of their cottages. When this got too noisome they would scoop it all up and dump it in the fields - but this wasn't the case in the 19th Century. So this was  A little mystery to think about on my rounds.

The last time I was in Devizes I invested in a window bird feeder for my study. Although they all prefer the more familiar types that hang from a  tree, it has been the source of much interest. The  clear plastic means you can see them literally on the other side of the window pane. I hadn't quite realised how fast birds are -they flash in and out, sometimes staying to use their beaks, into the fatball, like pneumatic drills, noisily banging away. Blue Tits mainly, but Great Tits, a Robin and even a rather bemused looking Chaffinch. There's obviously a queuing system of some sort. One Blue Tit in the feeder thumping away, and below him on the window sill, four of five more, their little heads just visible, squeaking their impatience. They don't seem to mind me moving around either. A distraction perhaps, but all good innocent fun.

So altogether my days get filled, and indeed, more often than not, overfilled, but mostly with things I like doing anyway so I can't complain.