Next time I go house-hunting (which is imminent), I shall make damn sure there isn't a tree anywhere near the bedroom window. Last year I had a thrush waking me at dawn. Now it's a magpie and robin combo.
The magpies couldn't have nested closer to my window if they'd tried. Next to crows, which have even louder voices, they are the noisiest of garden birds. They yap like the poodle from two doors away, they mew (in fact, they had me dashing out looking for the poor, lost kitten; then I glanced up and saw the bloody bird laughing at me), they squeak, creak, cackle and chat, they never shut up. And they start at 4.30 in the morning!
After reading Gerald Durrell's marvellous My Family and Other Animals as a teenager, I developed a soft spot for the Magenpies, as he called them. They have fantastic plumage, I'll grant them that, but as roommates - which they practically are, owing to the non-functioning double glazing (see early entry about the bullet hole) - they are impossible. Has anyone yet invented a sound-proofed bed? If so, tell me, please, before I go absolutely crazy and start wandering the streets in my nightie, red-eyed and wild-haired, screeching, "SHUT UP!"
BOOK WORD COUNT (had to stop early due to visitors): 38,682.
Tomorrow, with any luck (and no visitors), I should hit the halfway mark, 40,000.
No new characters have invented themselves today, apart from a large and unexpected horse and a knight in shining armour, in the rain. By tomorrow, if I don't get back to it until the afternoon, as per usual, his armour will probably have gone rusty. And as for the horse...
2 comments:
Sounds like the book's going really well, Hydra. Keep up the good work!
I always think magpies sound like machine guns going off. They not only sound and act like thugs, but also look like thugs - thugs in white vests. I wrote a poem about the Dawn Chorus many years ago. I'll have to remember to include it in my blog... when I start it.
I keep checking your blog to see if it's up and running yet. I'd love to read your poem.
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