Those ‘Buxom Vixens’?

I have to be amused about the number of ‘hits’ my blog has been receiving where the search line includes those fateful words, buxom and vixen!  Now I can only guess at what the hapless searchers are looking for when they enter those two magic words.  Sadly I am still only able to guess at their frustration when they only find my observations of the local fox population (Vulpes vulpes) – Link

Sorry boys from wherever you are!

I am still mystified about who my visitor is from Plano, Texas who visits quite a lot but consistently ignored my small appeal to know more about him/her and Plano. Come on, let me know?

On the subject of buxomness I have to tell my readers, even if they are not interested.  I have been on a diet, in fact I continue to be on a diet and have lost several pounds!  From my 164 ponds in February this year ( I had been heavier prior to then) I am now a mere shadow of myself at ….. drum roll….. a svelte and almost slim-line 151 pounds and still falling!!

How did I do it? No, no fancy diets, not diet drinks and no, not even starving myself.  I have counted calories and reduced my intake of most things.  Yes, even alcohol.  There is a downside though, I have had to have all my trousers altered to suit my new physique but I will not get so thin as to end up looking like Iggy Pop!!  This is to say, NOT not what he is today although in his hay days, that would be OK.

‘IP’ Then                   ‘IP’ Now      Me, Left-Right ?

My birthday is soon so I will be relaxing my diet for at least a day to accommodate my intake of food and booze!

Finally, my pet hate. Poor ‘speeelin’ …..

Will the illiterates who can’t spell or even understand the difference between THERE ( as in over there) and THEIR (as in it’s theirs ) get it right AND remember if they are not too addled that it is spelt THEIR and NOT THIER … heavens it even looks wrong!

They know who they are but they hate me so much they don’t even read my blog. So those who know who they are, please, give them a kick for me!

Spotted: My latest laughable ‘speelin’ (One of so many I’m sad to say) is:-

AMBALANCE

No words necessary.

 

I have eye for the birds!

I never thought that expression “pulling a few birds” in retirement would be so easy given the number of visitors I am having at home right now.  All shapes and sizes and degrees of “friendliness” and all sorts of colours too.  OK, to be honest they are the feathered variety of birds but nonetheless they are welcome visitors given the time and effort that has gone onto attracting them to the garden.
So far we have seen three varieties of Tit, blue, common and coal, a Robin, a host of sparrows of course and at first a lone Starling.  At first we thought that this poor lonely looking Starling had got lost, was abandoned or had been brought up thinking it was a Sparrow.  So my plan to “discourage” it was put on hold which with the benefit of hindsight was a mistake as now we have six of the flaming things thrashing about among our little garden birds like a gang of thugs.
I tried all sorts of ways of deterring these unwelcome guests but somehow each time they managed to outwit me and take most, if not all, of the suet block I had put out for the tits etc.  I think I have found a partial solution now (omitting the Facebook suggestions I got involving my already discounted 12 bore and a new one, “get a Sparrow Hawk” ) which is to hang a peanut feeder ball that is not so attractive to the Starlings as they are rather ungainly in flight and find hanging or flying upside down somewhat difficult.  Added to this is a new cage type feed with tube for seeds in its centre.  So now I hang a square of suet in its small cage inside this larger bell shaped feeder cage.  This doesn't stop the Starlings feeding but it does limit the amount that they can take and they soon get bored and clear off.
These arrangements have not gone without problems though and I have been forced to go out in all weathers to re-hang the feeders, top up the peanuts, the suet block that has broken and scare off the cats that are sitting underneath the feed area in hopeful anticipation of a bird supper.
We have had some very funny moment watching the hapless and greedy Starlings, perched on a metal rod that keeps the inner suet block away from them, spinning round desperately trying to leap from the rod to the peanut feed ball that is hanging nearby.
Our highlight though this week was to see our first of now what has been several visits of this little colourful chap!

Meanwhile my efforts to thwart the starlings are almost as epic as the efforts I made a few years ago to deter the cats of the neighbourhood when they were using our garden as a cat public toilet and battle ground.  I spent a fortune on cat repellent potions, condensed lion dung and an electronic device that only worked once before I gave up on that little purchase.  The first night I installed it we had gone to bed and at about 10:30 I heard this blood curdling caterwaul indicating that the unfortunate cat from next door had triggered the device.  From then on “Bob” the cat from next door still came into the garden but walked all around the edges keeping his distance from the detector.  One day to our astonishment Bob came into the garden peered down the length of the lawn and then bunny hopped over the beam given off by the cat deterrent device!  I gave up after that and was shocked to learn form our paperboy that he was the one that could hear the painful subsonic sound given off by the device and it made him want to run away!   In the end the real and as it turned out the cheapest and most successful was the positioning of three or four 2 litre mineral water bottles half filled with water at strategic points in the garden.  These it seemed had the effect of “dazzling” the cats and deterring them from using our lawn as a toilet.
These days the cats are kept at bay by simple vigilance and a sharp clap of the hands but my latest attempt at blocking their route under the fence at the side of the house has caused a minor mystery which I think we may have solved.  The other day I laid all sorts of entanglements in the shallow dip under the fence knowing that the cats would not be bothered with trying to negotiate the tangled maze and would climb the fence if they wished but it would limit their access to the undergrowth directly under where the birds were feeding. Today I saw a cat shooting out of the garden using the old escape route and on investigation found that all the tangled branches and thorny twigs etc had been removed and the scrape made completely clear.  Now no human could have done this as the scrape is inaccessible to any path outside.  We think it is our old friend Mr Fox who has been along and cleared his pathway given that we blocked one of the three that featured in our garden when we moved in.  Clever devils foxes!

New Neighbours

We have now lived here in our new house for nearly eight months and so far we have had no trouble whatsoever with the neighbours, except perhaps for the only very slightly irritating behaviour of girls in three student houses. Having said that though it was only poor parking and a couple of occurrences of leaving rubbish bins in the wrong place, all very minor and now not a problem.

So, having settled down to quite rural tranquillity I was shaken out of my peaceful slumbers at around 2am by a terrible row outside the house. By the time I had struggled out of bed and got to a window to investigate, without waking my slumbering partner [her wrath is legendary] I was unable to spot the rowdy villains so crept back into bed. By this time however I was suffering badly with a painful shoulder and wasn't able to get back to sleep readily so when the commotion started again outside I was able to get downstairs and get to the door before the row had stopped.

Wrenching the door open ready to demand a quite night, having not fully recovered yet from the change from British Summer Time to GMT, I was confronted by the noisy pair as they fled across the green in front of the house. The smaller member of the noisy duo was just dashing up to and past a nearby car pursued by her much larger male friend into the area in front of another terrace of houses where their noisy row started over again and as lights started to switch on in the distance I decided that bed was becoming and it was time to ignore these irritating neighbours and get some sleep.

However, I did manage to get a photograph of the pair and will be seeking an ASBO if they play up again outside our house!

Photo courtesy of : moonlightblue.co.uk