Despite my removal of the mirror in the garden he has continued to visit us most days but gets a lot less, shall we say, flustered as he no longer gets all excited at seeing his own reflection. You may ask how do we know that it is always Percy that visits us? Well, I'm glad you asked me that, yes well done you. Percy suffers from an injured right leg and walks around with a limp, in fact the Pheasant does a pretty good impersonation of Long John Silver, without the Parrot of course. That would just look stupid!
It is, was, open season for shooting pheasants so the way I saw it we had two options, a)we keep feeding him so he was safe and protected in our friendly walled garden haven in which he could enjoy the company of many other birds in a scene of harmony and tranquillity, relaxed and reassured of his safety in this tiny idyllic sanctuary. Or...
b) We shot him and had a game casserole.
Well I'm not that hard and so we elected to encourage his stay with us and at present he still pops up most days. Not a word of thanks I might add! But there you are that's Long John Silver impersonators for you!
Most car journeys around here are like a game of dodge the Pheasant, honestly they are a bloody hazard! Of course the general understanding of the law is that you are not allowed to pick up an animal if you were the one that run it over and killed it. My Mum was having a driving lesson years (and years) ago when her driving instructor made her do an emergency stop right in the middle of the countryside. She did so and he promptly jumps out (which can't be good for your nerves when your instructor bails out) and runs back a few yards where he picked up a dead Pheasant and then stuffed it in the boot of the car. Quite legal but not sure how appropriate. Oh and when I say he stuffed it in the boot of the car I mean placed it there not that he used breadcrumbs, sage etc, etc....l
This reminds me of one of my favourite incidents that anyone has recounted to me. I was told this by a colleague whom I have never known tell a lie or indeed a tall story so I give it full credibility. He was driving along when all of a sudden this deer flys out of the hedgerow and wallop, he knocks it down dead! Obviously a bit shaken (him not the deer, it was dead) he checks it out and then that little devil on his shoulder intervened and the thought of haunches of venison and sausages and casseroles came to prominence in his mind and he decided to take it home. Now he didn't have the biggest car but then this was not the biggest deer and he sized everything up and realised that the best position to place the beast would be in the front passenger seat. He then spent several awkward minutes, ever conscious that someone may see him at any minute, trying to manipulate this creature into a seat clearly not designed for the said purpose. Eventually he succeeded in placing the thing in an upright position so actually it was sitting up much like a human with its head up against the head rest. He then got in himself and started to drive off. I understand that he had only gone a short distance before he detected a slight movement from the deer and as he was driving along he slowly turned to look at the deer and as if looking into a mirror the deer did the self same thing towards him. Their eyes met, there was a moment of calm surreal disbelief from both of them as the deer tried to assimilate what an earth was going on, then all hell was let loose as the deer kicked off, my friend slammed on the breaks and desperately struggled to reach the passenger door handle through the intense kicking of the petrified deer. It must have been a sight to have seen, a Keystone Cops moment if you will, and after some considerable kerfuffle the deer was set free bouncing off into the countryside with a "You'll neve believe what just happened to me...." story that he'll probably never get to tell.
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Last weekend the kitchen lights decided to play up. I'd switch them on then after 20 seconds they would flicker and after another 5 seconds they would all go out completely. Having checked everything that I was qualified to check I reluctantly had to call out the electrician. No trip switches tripped and the symptom was the same each time, further more just the different light fittings within the kitchen were effected the rest of the same 'ring' carried on working fine. Once again the age of the property and maze of hidden wires made the electricians job a real challenge. Finally after an hour of testing and checking spurious electrical connection boxes he eventually found a burnt wire in a shaving point in the cloakroom off the dining hall. The last place that I would have looked! Apparently all shaving points run of the light rings. I did not know that.
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I guess the big news this week is that once again my Father has come up trumps and updated our web-site to include our cottage which after much consideration we have chosen to call "The Bakehouse". This is because David, whose farm is two houses along from us, could remember the building when it was used to house the ovens for the bakery. He can show me exactly where they were positioned. Also one of our old photographs shows the bakers shop which was part of the same building, we can still see the space for the shop window and door in the garage and the shops shelves are also still there.
Have a look at the site......
You'll find the cottage under the accommodation tab. We are also on a Cottages web-site which has given us quite a lot of customers already for our B&B so we are hoping that the cottage will work just as well. However we are quite prepared to add on to other sites if need be but they all charge a lot more because they mainly take a 20% cut which seems to me quite a chunk.
Remember tell your friends, we're now in the holiday cottage business!
A wintery sunset ahead of warnings of snow...............
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