Barracked from the sidelines

I have written before about how important my garden is to me.  I see it very much as my territory and it is my sanctuary.  When I get out in the garden whatever else is going on in my life is left at the garden gate, I can just concentrate on what I am doing and lose myself in the planty wonderfulness of it all.
Time slips by when I am outside and sometimes I stop and take a break which will involve a steaming mug of tea and, depending on my mood, either sitting on the tea-break seat or sometimes when I really want to lose myself in the garden and the moment I sit at the top of the garden on the Portmeirion bench.  Time then stops for a while; I sit and look around, sometimes plans and tweaks for what I want to do next come into my mind; sometimes I realise what I need to move from here to there, sometimes I work out what needs to move from there to here.  If I have some planting out to be done I can work out where it needs to go and in my head pictures form about what it is going to look like.

Doesn't this all sound great?  Well it is most of the time, but the other day whilst mid-tea break I realised I was being shouted at from the hedge.  Someone was furious with me and hurling all sorts of obscenities in my direction, ok I admit I did not understand the language that was being used, but seriously there were rude words involved I could tell (I grew up watching the Clangers, it trains you for such things).  I turned around to see who I had offended in such a dreadful way to be confronted with.....
..... a furious squirrel, and when I say furious I am pretty sure if  Malcolm Tucker was being reincarnated (or should that now be regenerated?) he would be this squirrel.  I think I was getting between him and the bird table.

I confess here that before I lived in this house I was not even aware that squirrels made a noise never mind that noise.  There are lots of squirrels here, I routinely see five or six around the bird feeders and they leap around the trees and hedgerow constantly.  It was a real surprise to me when once I could hear a tutting noise, that I could only describe as a bit 'Skippyish', (yes that dates me as well, I know), and I looked up to see some squirrels bouncing around the trees in what is best described as a frisky manner.

Rather than just apologise to the squirrel I proposed a deal, a bargain, a pact, a way forward that would suit us both.  I would go and get on with some weeding and let him and his compadres have access to the bird feeders if he and his merry band of squirls (yes that is the proper pronunciation), promise to stop digging up and eating newly planted bulbs.  He squeaked his assent and so the deal was struck.

I just hope he didn't have his fingers crossed behind his back.

Comments

  1. hee hee, excellent. Good luck with the bulbs! I have my fingers crossed for you...

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  2. Lovely post I also have my fingers cross for you I managed to plant some soft fruit this morning before it poured down with rain

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  3. Yes, they do make a noise when cross, as I learned when we moved here. Hope your new bulbs are safe from digging paws and will soon flower for you.

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  4. A small red squirrel scolds us regularly, and quite as loudly as your squirrel seems to have done. It's funny to see and hear him (why am I sure it is a he?) on the deck outside the kitchen. It's his territory, at least in his mind. Sometimes I quarrel back at him but language incompatibility is the only result.

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  5. We have no squirrels in our surroundings, no fun they dig up your bulbs but they look very cute and I did not know they can be so furious when something goes wrong, in this case you were in front of the bird feeder, haha.

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  6. Hah! Squirrels never keep their word. I know exactly what you mean about "garden as sanctuary" from the rest of life. I find it hard to remember how I coped before I had one. I think I was living too fast to notice the lack.

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  7. I once left some macadamia nuts out for my Squirrel which he buried. I them dig them up when I created a new bed. He went crackers. I can only assume he'd promised them as a treat to mrs squirrel.

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