I've been reading Pete Dunne's brilliant book "Small-headed Flycatcher" ....rather, I've been dipping into it. It's the perfect dipping-into book. Lots of short chapters full of birding common sense, uncommon sense, adventures, expeditions, frozen moments (In both senses of the phrase), odd experiences and good humour. This morning it's been the chapter entitled " With love and squalor" ... and here's why it cheered me up immensely ... because it is all about his car ..or rather, what's in it. Everything's in it. Basically. It has taken him 5 years to get it into its current state .....and it's called Pete's Pit. I think you get the idea. Here's a summary ... "..it's the latest in a proud line of dumpsters on wheels.Everything ...I mean everything ..I might ever need in the next five years is stashed in that car." His previous car .. "Pig Pen" is described thus .. ...... "whose deposition of tracked-in debris was so thick come trade-in time tha it had formed geological strata. The top several layers were dry, desert-like. But the underlying sediments, from middepth down to metal core, had characteristics consistent with you basic Pleistocene swamp." Well... you'll never guess. Mine's like that too ... except that it sometimes gets sorted out by The Significant Otter. .. and I hope yours is. And where I'm writing right now, I'm surrounded by massive heaps of ... well, I've forgotten what a lot of it is. We're back to geological eras here . It's the "logical" part of that word that I like. But the good thing is ... that Significant Otter can't get up here ... the stairs are too steep and dodgy.... so it stays as it is. Ha !! And anyway, she can't argue ... because quite a bit of it is hers .... she hoards things like ancient black-and-white TVs ... there's at least 3 of them up here .... and I suspect they're breeding.... and boxes and boxes of kid's stuff from way back when they were 3...4...5....12...and boxes of old NME's and vinyl records and .... and it's ME that has had to cart them all up those steep and dodgy stairs to put them here. And sometimes, down again. And of course, an hour later, up again. So ... if you, dear birder, have a nice neat car ... that's fine. But ..... I like mine as it is. As you know, it is now heading for oblivion.... .... and no doubt I'll be finding lots of interesting stuff deep down in all the layers of junk when I empty it out for its last journey. .... and the same process will no doubt happen to me just "down the road a way." Just down the road a way as they say in the USA there's a land that's full of unexpected birds that we can watch all day. They'll all be bright and colourful like the Jabirus, the Juncos and the Jays and though we're all dead we won't dwell on that, instead we'll scope and bin and tick for all our days ! Readers ... I thank you for your attention. So ... if you are thinking of tidying up your car ... you don't need to right now ... because ... it's never too late ....
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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