This week Vicar Hornbreak has sent me in his Nature Notes as he does most weeks, unfortunately. First off, 'owd Peter Shuffle's cottage has been infested with Bramblings all winter, and the whole village has rallied round to get rid of the noisy little beggars. They're still there though. Surely they'll be off soon to sleep the summer through in the mud at the bottom of the village pond like they do every year along with all the swallows, swifts, bees, flies, fallen women and all the rest of them. Carter Higgs came round to the vicarage yesterday to show me something he'd caught out in Piggly Woods, but I told him to put it back where he found it. One of my flock, Miss Boniface fromSmallpox Cottage about 17 miles away called round with a melanistic Gannet she found on her roof on Thursday. I told her to put it back where she found it as well. I was disappointed to notice it later that afternoon swimming around on Hangman's Pool . I suspect she was just too lazy to carry it back home. [ Ecclesiastes, Ch 10, v 18] I've noticed that the church spire is almost full of Treecreepers. If you think about it, a church spire ... especially a wooden one like what we've got at St. Vogelschau's, is like an inside-out tree as far a Treecreepers are concerned. I've had to put up a big appeal notice on the church door ...what's left of it ... I would have put a thermometer on it, but they haven't been invented yet so I've made do with a shovel, and I've put the amount of money collected ( 7 groats) up the handle. I'm most disappointed to mention that I've only seen 26 Kingfishers by the vicarage lake this morning. I fear for them you know, because on this very day last year ( 3rd before Mafeking) there were 116. There have been a few strangers around the village of late and I do wonder if they have been eating them .... although it could be the other way round I suppose. They're vicious little sods. [ I got this report yesterday..... and it is only this morning that I learned that Vicar Hornbreak was found dead at 5am by his "housemaid", a Miss Chancer, and apparently his bedroom was so full of Bramblings that it is assumed he suffocated. We read of plagues in the Bible, but we don't expect them in these temperate climes. ][Numbers, 8,18] I will have to oversee the arrangements for "Miss" Chancer to get evicted after the funeral, and make arrangements for her to be thrown in the village well as a warning to other women who might wish to follow in her footsteps.[Ezekiel 16,29] Well readers, that was interesting in many ways. We all have something to learn from these country anecdotes ... though I'm not quite sure what. But now, music time looms as always .... here's the excellent Vetusta Morla with Un Día en el Mundo ...... you'll never guess where they finish up !!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
|