The bird scene in London

London's best bird, seen on a side wall off the Essex Rd, N1

The birds of London are noisy – they have to be in order to hear each other above the traffic, the trains, the sirens and the ever present, but no one knows why, helicopters.

Among the noisiest, the most quarrelsome, are the crows and the ravens, large and black and almost impossible for a short sighted amateur to tell apart. One tip, if the black bird is smallish and making an agreeable sound, it is just that – a blackbird.

Of course, the most noticeable bird in London is the pigeon. This multicoloured bird, once un-amiably described as ‘a rat with wings’..is a joy to children and sedentary old people everywhere. The latter often feed them, leading to great numbers in one place. Then the children chase them with whoops of joy.

Sadly, pigeon shit is far from being guano, it is much disliked by motorists and owners of important buildings. That is why so many of them have spiked ribbons glued to window sills. The Royal Automobile Club even has a couple of imitation radio guided hawks that glide over its back garden to keep the pigeons away.

So far, I have not heard a turtle dove but will continue to hope.    After all, love is always in the air of London.

TV man saves old couple's lives

The headline is not a total exaggeration but very nearly true.   One of the major disruptions to our lives, now that we have come back to London after a two e- generation time span away, was our inability to manipulate the television.  We could not find the programmes we wanted, at the time we wanted.  Also most of them were totally incomprehensible: most the programmes concerned other people making food, doing up and selling houses, minor public personae making public fools of themselves; 'urban' characters starting public 'wars' over minor commercial services.  Forget the spy scandals or 'people' coming back from the dead.

It seems we are in the Voyeur Age of TV.

With desperate bravery I tackled Google to find someone local who could fix our TV aerial - it was the 'smart' TV that had told us this was the problem.   Enter David English and his son Alfie.  After some time lifting up shelves and opening up skirting boards to reveal vast viper nests of unidentified cables, the problem was identified.    

The previous owner of our house - may all the Gods look kindly upon him because I do not - had taken his SKY box with him, thus leaving the TV aerial cable unconnected to the aerial discreetly and perilously balanced on our (Grade II listed) butterfly roof.  Dave and Alfie re-connected the two halves.

Now we can see TV programmes as they are being broadcast, get the news of the last 12 hours in which it happened.  We can both operate the TV remote.
Not to exaggerate too greatly, Dave and Alfie saved our sanity, our marriage (oh, the squabbles because we could not work 'it') and very probably our lives.
Absorbed in watching the moving screen, rather than crossly pondering over many times read books and newspapers, has somewhat reduced our consumption of wine - a.k.a 'alcohol'.

Of snails, spiders and chalk trails

Back in London after an exhaustingly hot summer in France, so hot I did not even feel like lighting the new tandoor oven outside. The sheep grumbled and sought the shade and Roger the ram gave up jumping over fences.

Our return travel took over nine hours, door to door via train and plane, even allowing for the catch up hour between France and UK. Unlucky, no one really to blame (apparently) but at least we got to see the storks’ nest at Coutras station and then the darkened countryside between Gatwick and north London – the latter cost £111.00

To cheer us up our favourite toll-gate spider is back. So we have carefully to lift his single thread that spans the path and put it back near his starting point in the ivy each time we pass. Some weekend we must go away if only to see whether he manages to make a multi-strand barrier across our steps.

Here he is, in his ivy departure point - how do you apologise to a spider?

London is still a-building. A near neighbour appears to be digging out not just his basement but also a large part of the garden – sack after sack of rubble piled up along the front garden path. Tender memories of the time we did the same in another part of London. So far, it is all happening quietly.

Unlike the immediate future for my beloved Club, the University Women’s in Audley Square, Mayfair which is facing years of noise, dust, lorries  and general disturbance.All to create another n number of high value apartments  complete with underground parking and pool. The demolition contractor explained that the car park, which takes up about half of Audley Square would be taken down ‘by hand’, gently sliding over the fact that those hands would hold pneumatic drills. Let us not even think of the noise made  when the rest of the site is knocked down by machinery. This to be followed by the joys of building it back up again. 

hieroglyphs that can be seen all over central London

A small pavement sign makes me wonder whether possibly negative implications of Brexit for the London property market are beginning to be considered. London pavements, in areas of building work, are well decorated in coloured chalks with meanings only for initiates. They are skilfully executed in quality red, yellow, blue and white chalk by people who have obviously learned to draw circles freehand but who are may not be future distinguished graffiti artists. The local scribbles in N1 – and Audley Square – are roughly drawn in chalk that can be scruffed or rained off. They are tentative, impermanent signs….it’s just a hope.

Rub it out and do it again!

One sad note on our entry into the flat: a snail had died trying to get into the jar of black truffle pesto - what was it thinking?

The one below, at least, was joining us for a drink.