Songs You Get Stuck With

I think our fox is blind in his right eye

I spent the later hours of the last two nights watching the magnificent Roy Orbison on Sky Arts. To me this was four hours of pure undiluted bliss.

I was, as ever, to be found intermittently with my bum sticking up and the top half of my body hanging through the window flashing at Mrs Badger and Mr Fox ... at least this position doesn't induce me to pass wind like a certain bad photographer I know. I will upload my photos as soon as we're home because I'm fast running out of t'Interweb here.

Then as it was a clear night, I went and squished through the moat (hosepipe ban?) that surrounds our tin hut to take some moon, planet and stars photos, I did get a - presumably - amateur radio satellite going over, well at least it was definitely something man made.

I could still hear the music, there's no-one else within hearing distance daft brave enough to live in a boggy old turnip field so our tin hut had been turned into a glorified boombox and it was rocking.

Managed to evict this pair with two minutes to spare before Mr Fox arrived

I soon went back in because it was a bit chilly around the ankles and I'm sure me and the tripod were sinking. I thanked grumpy for coming out to see if I'd been kidnapped, sucked down by the bog or worse (he said he was just on his way - yeah right), and I resumed my earlier position - warm spot - in front of the telly.

After we'd finished singing along in a totally tone deaf - but not caring a jot - kind of way, I sat fiddling with my increasingly annoying android - I've run out of battery juice, but not really - phone, and grumpy decided to watch the next program ... It was chuffing awful!


After two whole minutes of this dreadful row grating on my eardrums I asked himself what it was I was being subjected to, and would he please switch it off!! I was informed it was 'The Troggs', I had vaguely heard of them in my dim and distant past but was fairly certain that I wouldn't voluntarily listen to them.

Being the good egg he is, he promptly hit the off button, switched half the fairy lights off (not as bad as it sounds, you can't see 'em but they give off a lovely glow above the pelmets) and tootled off to bed, leaving me to switch the other half off after I'd done fiddling with my phone.

This I eventually did, and I was just scrubbing the old gnashers and realised that I was humming through my toothpaste ... no, not a wonderful Roy Orbison number as you'd expect, but a bloody Troggs record - 'A Girl Like You'. This caused much hilarity in the bedroom when I told grumpy of my dilemma. Obviously this was because I only know four words of the song, yes, them's 'em  ... and I quite dislike it.

Of course this afternoon I'm still singing 'A Girl Like You' - well, mostly dum de dums - this is despite the fact that I've been listening to Roy Orbison again all morning while I work ... 'dum, de dum de dum, de dum dee dum, de dum de dum, with a girl like you, de dum de dum' ...

Foxes, Cats and Birds

My neighbour told me the Sunday before Christmas that she’d looked through her bedroom window a few nights before and seen a fox on the street. That same night I was gazing at the snowy expanse of Heanor Haulages back yard when I saw what I first assumed was a large cat, then realised it was a fox.

I know foxes are quite common in urban areas so it should come as no great surprise to see them. At my last address - which was described as ‘semi-rural’ we saw a fox virtually every evening at 9.00ish going back towards the fields.

Last night, I was again looking through the back bedroom window waiting for my computer to power down when I saw two foxes together, then one went towards Dean Street and the other turned to go toward the railway lines.

So not only do I have to worry about whether or not the birds are getting enough to eat - and it’s a constant battle on our back yards with the robin chasing away all comers including blackbirds, house sparrows, hedge sparrows, a wren, collared dove, 2 bullfinches and a chaffinch. All, that is except the great tits and blue tits who are too nippy for him, and the pigeons who just sit and ignore him as he keeps dive bombing them, I wonder, does he get enough to eat after all his exercise? - I now have to worry about the foxes starving, oh dear.

I harboured notions of secretly feeding them but that would put next doors guinea pig at risk and anyway the minute our back door opens, next doors cat is in like a flash. Every night just before we go to bed he knocks on the door for a snack and a drink of milk, he knows I'm a soft touch. I usually put my cat's barely touched food out for him or on the rare event that she is entirely happy with the food she’s been offered and hasn’t left most of it in disgust I'll give him cat biscuits.

Cat food that was her very favourite - yum, yum, more - only a couple of weeks ago, now merely gets sniffed at while I receive a glare that speaks volumes about ‘bad cat servant, expecting her to eat such utter garbage’. Garbage which costs 68p a micro-tin for her pussy-ship to turn her nose up at!

She knows that after three days of this ‘why are you trying to poison me with this reject dog food?’ [her thoughts not mine, it smells and looks delicious], that I’ll give in and say the magic word ‘TUNA’ while waving the tin opener at her. I have to give in to her whims because she literally wastes away before my eyes - unless she deliberately breathes in whenever I glance in her direction - she is cunning.

Of course I’ll be glued to the window tonight in the hope of seeing both foxes again, I didn’t expect to see two together as I thought they were loners, just shows you what I know doesn’t it, but I live and learn …