Birds and clocks

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Hi everyone, CstM here. I hope you’re all doing amazing. Okay, I swear I haven’t been locked up in the attic like some Mrs Rochester. Time just seemed to get away from me. I’m just out here doing my thing, and suddenly it’s been a few months since I did my last blog post. So, how’s everyone doing?

I’m doing pretty good. I had a week of reading a while back. I read pretty much anything but the book club book. I’m somehow still only about halfway through The Help. I don’t know why, I actually quite enjoy it, I just can’t seem to stay with it. I did manage to read 3 YA romance books, The burial hour (book 13 in the Lincoln Rhyme series) and Killing floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series. I saw the Jack Reacher show on Prime and it was really good. Much better than that old Tom Cruise film. So I figured I’d start reading the books. I didn’t realise that there’s like 27 books in the series, so that’s going to take a while. So far I’ve bought up to book 5. You guys want to read book 2 with me? It has fisticuffs and boobs. What more could you want from a book? Well maybe dragons, but let’s not be greedy.

What have you guys been up to? I’m not entirely sure what has happened, but I’ve started working out. To be fair, I guess with all the deaths within family and friends and all the illnesses going around in the world, it’s just made me want to get healthier. During lockdown we already have been trying to implement more greens in our diet, so the next logic step is to move around more.

Leggy thinks I’ve gone borderline insane, which to be fair I don’t blame him. I haven’t been in a gym since school and I was never super athletic. But I’ve found these videos on YouTube, like Jane Fonda, but dance cardio and walk workouts, all to my favourite music. For once in my life I’m actually having fun exercising. It’s only been about a month, so it’s still early days, but I’m having a blast. There’s still some of them that make me huff and puff like an asthmatic seal, but I’m slowly getting better and better.

I got one of those smart watches too. Young people and their tech! It has been quite a big help in making me walk around more. It’s a bit embarrassing when you realise how little you walk around in the beginning. So far I’m aiming for 5000 steps a day and about 20-30 minutes of workout most days. I usually take Sunday and Wednesday as a rest day.

The worst thing about the watch though is the sleep tracker thing. I knew I had pretty bad sleep, but I didn’t realise how bad until this watch started showing me. So I’ve been trying to get that back on track too. Going outside more for fresh air, trying not to drink to much before bedtime and such. The watch also tracks your blood pressure, oxygen levels and all kinds of things that are fun to keep an eye on but I’m still not entirely sure what I’ll ever need it for. But hey, now I know. You can even control your music from the watch and it shows you your text messages. So even out in the wild, you can read that text saying “bring back milk!”

Now another thing Leggy doesn’t understand is my want for workout gear. Like I’m so excited to buy a cute outfit to work out in. But holy bejesus, some of these things are expensive. Leggy keep telling me that I workout in the living room and no one is going to see me. But I just want to look bomb in my outfit and have the lyrics of I’m sexy and I know it going in my head as I strut around. But heck no am I paying 70£ for that privilege. Especially when I’m hoping to go down a dress size or two. That would be a great bonus to getting fit. I shall save and wait, and one day my vision will be real.

Did Leggy tell you about the woodpecker? I’ve been feeding the birds and we have been visited by a woodpecker. He’s a cheeky one. His favourite is the peanuts and when the feeder is empty he will land by the window and knock on it, until I come out and refill the food. He’ll even come to different parts of the house to knock on windows. Leggy put up a camera and he was at the feeder for ages, before a sparrow chased him away. Sometimes he comes and sits on the windowsill and just watches me when I work out. We also have a white dove, Leggy named it Honky. It’s been come around for the last week, getting fed. He did almost become Chompy a couple of times when Gloom dog saw him on the patio.

I hope you’re all enjoying your summer. See you soon

26 thoughts on “Birds and clocks”

  1. The birds are lovely, and your woodpecker is bright and canny. So much for the expression “bird brain” for a thicko – it’s definitely completely wrong.

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    • Gloom Dog has not really gone for birds before. She’ll mostly just lie on her chair and look at them through the window.
      She did once catch a wild baby bunny. She didn’t harm it, just picked it up and tried to bring it inside. Maybe she thought it was one of the guinea pigs, or she wanted a pet of her own.

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  3. As to what I’ve been up to, I’m tidying up my novel for your Old Man finally, when he can get around to it. Also I’ve started the sequel (takes place in and around 1936) using most of the same characters, which I’ve developed more complex personae for in the meantime.

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  4. Hi. Workouts? The only working out I do is whether to stretch out on the sofa or the armchair. My workout kit is rather nice. It’s a Terry bathrobe, maybe a bit short, so I wouldn’t want to have an audience while I’m working out. My legs look like two sticks of celery poking out of a paper bag.

    I spent much time watching the birds in the back garden at my mother’s. She lived next to woods and open countryside so there was an amazing variety. A few tidbits would entice the nesting starlings down first. Then the wood pigeons would arrive until they were chased off by the magpies. Some days the crow policemen would come down to get the magpies to move along. Wood pigeon time again, until dusk when everyone would disappear into the woods for a evening of bickering. One day after I had cut some overgrown undergrowth and had exposed ant colonies we had a visit from a green woodpecker. I think he enjoyed snacking on the ants trying to rebuild their homes. Looking at that huge beak and the bright green plumage I could well believe they are descended from dinosaurs.

    I’m back at my house now, in the middle of town. We don’t have the same variety as at mum’s but the wood pigeons have followed me for the daily offerings. A cock robin stares at me accusingly from the fence if I dare to disturb him pecking around my garden. A gaze upward will often be rewarded by seeing a kite floating on the thermals, they’re everywhere now. I actually saw a buzzard once. It’s nice to know that these things can survive and thrive.

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    • I do enjoy a good sofa workout in a robe. The dog will even join in on that one. She’ll happily sleep through a film, tv series or book.

      Your mum’s house sounds like ours. We have fields on 3 sides and wood on the last. Two of the fields are fallowed, so we have cows roaming around, which is a fun but loud experience.
      The green woodpecker sounds beautiful, I haven’t been lucky enough to see one yet.
      We have crows too, one time one of them ganged up with a pheasant. We had a fat ball feeder at the end of the garden and the pheasant would run out to the feeder and squawk like mad. The raven would hear the sound, come flying down to peck at the fat balls and the pheasant would eat whatever dropped on the ground. It happened several times, so I’m sure it wasn’t just a fluke.

      Oh we had a hawk or something chase a pigeon into a window. There was a massive thump, we looked out and the hawk was just sitting on the ground looking fairly confused. So I went out to make sure it was okay, and it flew away leaving the dead pigeon behind. It was not happy with me. Leggy was just telling me “this is why you don’t leave the guinea pigs unattended outside!”. I think the local fox ran away with it in the end.

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      • The old boys on the housing estate behind us reckoned that the green woodpeckers had been in residence since they were nippers. I grew up playing in those woods and never saw one of them until I was in my sixties. What goes on around us, close enough to touch and we remain ignorant unless it punches us in the eyes. I think that as we get a bit older we slow down and that allows us to notice things. We never have time to stand and gaze as youngsters. Our minds may be off on something far away when all of a sudden the world springs a surprise on us. Can we ever say we’ve seen it all? Humanity is still in it’s youth, what wonders there are for us to discover as we age. That’s if we are allowed to get much older.

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  5. We’ve been adopted by a fantail pigeon. They don’t fly well, so easy feeds on our bird table look as though they’re going to encourage him/her to stay, roosting on the back bedroom window ledge and shitting on the deck below. On arrival the memsahib dubbed him/her “Bradley”. Further research proved him/ her to be an Indian fantail, so the full name is now “Bradley Patel” . . .

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  9. Nothing wrong with workouts. I’ll openly say they have saved my life. Slightly more times than red wine has.

    As for feeding the birds though, around my way it’s all ducks! When I do chuck a bit of bread and seed out though, the coots and squirrels clean up. Clearly I need a more moderated form of feeding 🙂 And the seasons (of mating) do matter.

    Fact is, birds do matter for good mental heath, no matter what the BBC prescribes,

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    • I’m glad exercise really helped you. My email is up in the top bars somewhere, if you ever need a stranger to talk to.
      I was never super athletic. My arms and legs never really cooperated with each other all that well. Group sports was just never my thing. So it’s been really fun to find a form of exercise that I actually enjoy.

      I love ducks. They’re some of my favourite birds. They were quite common back in the motherland. Ducks and swans.

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      • My good lady is really big on owls. People (myself included) even buy her owl-related stuff! I got her something from the shop at Warwick Castle… Well a couple of things actually – one, a snow globe with an owl in it, and the other a glittery fridge magnet in the loose shape of a peacock’s plumage.

        So it’s fair to say we’re united in some ways by affection for various kinds of birds. But when she once asked me “Can ducks fly?”, I nearly flew… head first… into the nearest brick wall. But then she is originally from Croydon. Look up Croydon – not many ducks around there 🙂

        Thanks for your kind offer, btw. I am doing well now, but some moderate intensity workouts will make your life so much better. Like all things, we can have too much of anything – if you’re not looking forward to your exercise, you’re possible doing the exercise too intensely or too often.

        P.S – Swans live life so gracefully. Feels like it takes decades to build up a good population of them in any given area.

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