A flock of pigeons, Evil Mr Fox

Just a feathery fantasy. They aren't actually doing this. Just perching on opposite terraced roofs and aerials coo-coo-cooooooing unendingly!

YES, my pair of pigeons appears gradually to be forming a flock. I'm pretty sure we now have three if not four of the portly pigeons gathered on my road. No hot pigeon pash though. No paired-off coo-banter. It's like one of those 1950s dances: boys one side, girls the other. Nobody daring to be the first to hit the floor ...

Other points: here is a really good feel-good blog post.
Statistically X people love you in the world... x people rely on you... you are unique and valuable...



HORROR IN HACKNEY THIS SATURDAY!!

A not-so-fantastic Mr Fox ~ sneaked from a back garden, through French windows, into the dining room of a "posh £1,000,000 house" in innercity Hackney, North-East London, padded silently upstairs and savaged twin toddling little girls so badly they are still in hospital today covered in bites and lacerations to face and arms.

A "humane" fox-trapping cage, baited with food, placed by the fateful patio doors has already "retained" one furry suspect...

Police say the bushy-tailed reprobate is in custody of the RSPCA, waiting to be punished and killed.

Foxes are perhaps our British equivalent to North America's raccoons, though I would say they are considerably more wily and a little standoffish compared to those catfood-guzzling 'coons.

It is not at all unusual to see a slim red dog trotting down the middle of the road at 4am. Look twice and you realize this is no doggie, it's a fox!

Foxes are notorious for raiding farmers' chicken sheds, where instead of selecting one choice, tasty bird they slay every single one just to be sure ~ and make trips back and forth over and over to stash the dead hens where they hope other foxes won't gobble them down first.

The vulgar vixens also attack pet rabbits, cats, even small dogs. They rip open rubbish sacks, strewing the street with tin-cans which the rats then clamber into. Soon there is a wildlife jamboree with blackbirds, starlings (in season) blue tits, great tits, nut-hatches, greenfinches and even Flapper the wood pigeon and his kind fluttering down from neighbouring cherry trees for a peck-about.

Residents of Hackney say the usually reserved-but-bold critters are becoming increasingly daring. Sneaking into living rooms. Raiding kitchens. Nudging open refrigerators with pointy noses to emerge coleslaw-footprinted and yoghurty-nosed, garlanded with strings of chipolatas chomping on piri-piri roast chicken legs à la Attila the Hun.

OK slight word-painterly exaggeration but the gist is true. The neighbours said they're sneaking into houses all the time.

I hope those poor little girls are going to be OK. The red-furred robber apparently left the two girls' younger brother sleeping peacefully in his cot in the next room... Thank Heaven for small mercies..!

STOP PRESS: 7PM MONDAY one twin transferred to Great Ormond Street, specialist paediatric hospital this evening "for further treatment". Both girl's condition is said to be serious, but they're out of immediate danger.


Here's a good read:
There is no Hero in Heroin blog.
I've been reading about addiction "from the other side" quite a lot of late... An Addict in my Son's Bedroom, Mom vs Heroin, Hurting Parents: Addicted Son, Mom Trying to Detach with Love... and so on... searing stuff...


Re my promised Druggie Post, you'll have to wait till tomorrow, you'll surely be glad to learn :-)

PS the Cute Overload blog is good today ....

PPS: blog of the day ~ here's a good one. Tina B makes her own beads fired in funky glass... but how does she do it... and how does she sprechen such gutes Deutsch? I've no idea.... handmade-by-b-tina.blogspot.com