Round these parts for entertainment watching a Pheasant called Percy flirting with a mirror is second only to guessing how many Sugar Beets there are piled up in a field.

At the moment I am trying to get on top of all those jobs that I couldn't do whilst I had guests as we are now well and truly in the 'fallow months' as far as business goes. With no money coming in I plan to take a leaf out of my sons book from when times were hard at University and make this Offal month...   Liver & onions, Liver& Kidney (a variation on Steak & Kidney but not so steaky), Stuffed Heart, Tripe & Onions, Tripe and no Onions (you may know this as just Tripe.), Steak and Liver Turbego (which is a dish made from Steak, sausages and Liver, except this one will have no Steak........ or sausages......  just the Liver then!).  But don't feel sorry for us as I have saved up and I plan to suprise everyone this weekend with fried gizzard and chips!

I really need to write a list, room by room, of every job that needs doing but for the moment I have been ploughing into the urgent tasks like insulating a small loft over the guests bedroom and some temporary repairs to gutters etc. I think I shall start this list tomorrow, I know it is going to be massive but at least I can prioritise the tasks then.

I've also been dealing with more engineers as the brand new immersion heater had developed a leak and today the company that actually manufactured it sent out a guy to repair the thing. Luckily it was a very slow leak and one of my guests happened to spot an odd drip of water. I have also started a deep clean in my kitchen so I am totally ready for next season, the cooker is next.... Yuk!

So I may have no guests at present but I am very busy thank you very much. That said we have already started getting bookings for next November! Of course the great thing about working here is the house itself and the garden. As I work in the kitchen I can look out to the garden which means I get to see a lot of what's happening out there and this week alone I have seen two birds that I have never ever seen before, Bramblings and Redwings both of which are coming in to feed on the food that I have put out for them. Oh and as it is me I obviously try to photograph them......

Bramblings

Redwing feasting on an Old Bakery apple

Then there's that pesky Pheasant whom, it seems, cannot get enough of himself in my garden mirror. He returns every day to check it out, the bird appears obsessed by the thing! He always enters over the same bit of wall and one day I was sitting on the swing seat near the spot when I heard him rustling through the dried Clematis leaves , if I hadn't have moved in time I swear that I would have gained myself a hat fit for Ascot.

He then goes and has a feed and spends a good couple of hours in the garden of which AT LEAST half the time is in front of my mirror! He does a lot of looking then starts to wander off and just as he leaves the mirror he quickly doubles back to see if that other Pheasant has gone, which of course it hasn't because surprise, surprise the other bird has done EXACTLY the same manoeuvre. 
Then once in a rare while he will get spooked by the image and suddenly jump up as if someone had said BOO to him or he will have a little go at the other bird with a small display of ruffled feathers. Then off he will trot back to the food and have another snack before returning to the mirror for another session.
Naturally I am concerned that the cat may get him but he does have the advantage in that at least he can see what is sneaking up from behind him as he has a blinking big mirror to help him. That said he has had two encounters with cats the first being with the large Tabby mouser that lives in the B&B across the road. You may remember me mentioning him as once whilst sitting in our lounge we observed him wandering back to his owners B&B with the biggest Rat that I have ever seen hanging from his mouth. Can you imagine the scene as the guests sit down to breakfast and that walks into your dining room!
Well we saw him in the garden at the same time as the Pheasant, whom we shall now call Percy as it is quicker to type than 'Pheasant', and he starts to nonchalantly walk towards him. We are all thinking that this is going to be a blood bath, but no, for Percy just took a couple of paces out of his way and he strides straight past Percy, clearly he was not to the cats taste. My cat however, well I think she would try to take on a Grizzly given half the chance. Scribble (our cat) must have been sitting close to the house and Percy drifted a little too close because just as I was about to open the door to the garden there was this terrible commotion and hoo-haa and Percy comes shooting past me closely followed by Scribble. Percy flew up and over the wall and was gone. That was yesterday and I haven't seen him today so I do hope he wasn't offended.

Percy is not the only one with an interest in the mirror, as several blackbirds like to spend an hour at a time chasing their rivals. I say several but it may be just one bird making repeat visits, I cannot say for sure as, well... they really do all look the same to me!

The other day Percy was in front of the mirror for a good two hours and when he left a blackbird took over and was fuffing around off and on for another two hours.  I really don't get it, because just yards away several other Blackbirds are all eating food that I have put on the lawn without any territorial nonsense going on. Then after the Blackbird came our stupid pussy cat who also got pulled into trying to workout whom the cat was on the other side of the window.




Perhaps I should think about moving it but just for the moment it is simply too intriguing to get rid of it. You see round these parts for entertainment watching a Pheasant called Percy flirting with a mirror is second only to guessing how many Sugar Beets there are piled up in a field.





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