Grout

Last weekend I was rudely awoken by a bird, which sounded just like some sort of early warning siren. It didn’t go tweet, it didn’t sing, but it certainly knew how to stir a sleepy widow from her Saturday morning slumbers. It circled around the house, making sure there was no chance of me returning to the land of nod, before flying off to disturb the other villagers. I’m sure Bill Oddie would have been able to identify the little feathery claxon, but I’m not about to ask him because he irritates the hell out of me. He’s like one of those smug little boys at school that few people liked, all baggy shorts, marbles and bits of string and, ‘My Dad’s got a bigger car than your dad, and he took me to the Science Museum last week, and look at this scab on my knee, if I lift up the corner you can see green stuff inside.’ And you wished his dad had left him in the Science Museum, because then he might not have grown up into an annoying little bearded twat who spends way too much time looking at birds and talking about looking at birds and striding about, taking very small steps in very big, baggy trousers, all pockets and bits of string, all ‘look at the size of my monocular’, all too dull for words.

So I shan’t be asking Bill what kind of bird it was, and so I’ll have to assume it was a very bright goldfinch who saw the local farmer erecting a bird scarer in the field on the hill and decided to give the badass crows the heads-up. The claxon finch hasn’t been back since, but I’m still not getting any sleep as the cockadoodie bird scarer now goes off at about 6.30am every morning and at regular intervals thereafter. And just in case I’m not fully stirred on a balmy Saturday morning, the crows come and sit by my house in the great ash tree, and caw, caw, caw me out of bed.

I’m on Tippi Hedren’s side when it comes to the joys of ornithology. I had a bad experience with a demonic jackdaw when I was a girl; it was beaky, black and menacing, and took to waiting at the end of the lane for me as I returned home from school. I’d get off the bus and hear it calling from a tree, and the sound made my blood run cold, because I knew that as I started to walk home it would dive down at me repeatedly and chase me until I could reach the safety of my front door. It was the longest run of my life.

I never knew where it would be, or why it had singled me out - maybe it was my Bacofoil twin set, or perhaps it was the hat made from crusts and bacon rind, but whatever it was, I didn’t care for the attention. Random bird attacks are scary, but to be deliberately targeted was the stuff of nightmares. It was all pretty distressing for a young girl, as you can imagine, but on the morning I opened my bedroom curtains and found the jackdaw sitting on my window ledge, tapping at the glass, I knew I’d had enough. My father found the malevolent bird and shot it. Now that’s the kind of crow deterrent that I like.

I’m so glad we’ve had a bit of sun at last. May was cold and wet and shrouded in gloom. My beautiful wisteria came into flower, and promptly had all the stuffing knocked out of it by the continual rain and blustery wind. My lettuces were a no-show, and now I face the horrible prospect of having to buy seedlings from the garden centre. Last year I was writing about glorious May weather, idle days lazing on my swing seat and trips to the beach, but this year it’s been so miserable I’ve had to ignore what’s outside and write about what’s inside. No philosophy in this entry though, just the usual idle musings and the story of what I did on the hottest day we’ve had this year.

I was expecting Colin to start my lane renovation, but in true Devonian fashion, he decided to come along ‘directly’, which basically means that he’ll come when he feels like it, and not before. That left me with a free morning, and you may be wondering what I chose to do with it. Did I spend the day sunbathing? Did I go to the beach and frolic in the spume? Or did I potter in my garden, feeling the cool grass between my toes and watching the goldfish swim lazily around the pond? Nope, I didn’t do any of those things, what I chose to do was give my friend Nellie a hand. She had offered to do a bit of re-grouting for the school, after a plumber had let them down, and had asked if I’d like to help out. I’m always happy to give a friend a hand, but this wasn’t any old grouting job. A kitchen splash back or a shower cubicle would have been a breeze compared to the task that lay before us. I’ve never tried to re-grout a swimming pool before, and after Wednesday, I don’t think I’ll ever try it again.

I’m not afraid of hard work, but kneeling in the deep end, pushing grout into each and every crack and crevice of an endless expanse of tiny blue tiles, a ceramic sea which seemed to stretch to the distant horizon, and beyond, is enough to make a woman turn to drink - only there wasn’t time to drink, because the grout was setting, and after the grouting came the sponging, the endless sponging, followed by, yes, you guessed it, more grouting. No wonder the plumber did a runner - any tradesman worth his salt would have taken one look, shaken his head and walked away. We were up to the task, but after four straight hours kneeling in the baking sun, I threw in the towel. I know when I’ve had enough, the skin on the palms of my hands looked like sea sponge and the sun had burned a sliver of skin between my waistband and the bottom of my t-shirt. I staggered home, collapsed onto a sun lounger in the shade, and stayed there until the girls came home from school. I was looking forward to a peaceful evening, with a cold beer, but then Nellie rang and asked us if we’d like to come down to the beach for a barbeque, so my peaceful evening was abandoned. I was reluctant to go, as I was totally exhausted, but it would be the first time we’d had a trip to the beach this summer, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I didn’t want to squander such a beautiful afternoon.

The trip to the beach was magical. We ate home-made burgers, drank cold Grolsch, and sat and watched the girls frolicking at the water’s edge. Devon is God’s own county, and days of sunshine are too precious to be wasted, especially when the beach is such a short drive away. I fell into bed later that evening, and not even the banging of the bird scarer or the cawing of the crows was enough to wake me.

I’ll finish today by writing about seeds and nuts. Last entry I wrote about alfalfa, and how it was making me feel, but I have to say that the novelty has rapidly worn off. You can dress it up any way you like, you can write flowery prose on the packet that makes it seem appealing, but the plain fact of it is that alfalfa is neither interesting nor tasty. In fact, on a scale of blandness I’d say it was way up there with Finnish rock music and plane spotting. I’ve had my fill of it and I’m going to leave nuts and berries to the birds and Ray Mears. And, talking of Ray Mears, I may be an old cynic, but I’m not entirely convinced that he really does live on a diet of nuts and roots when he’s out on one of his adventures. I’d like to bet that he has a secret stash of cream cakes and doughnuts hidden in an old oak tree somewhere in those woods. I’ve watched him for several years now, and it’s clear to me that he’s currently experiencing a bit of difficulty in the trouser region. You could light a fire from the friction of his thighs rubbing together, and whenever he squats down I fear for the stitching around his gusset. But I love him and his woody ways; I love his dexterity with withies and his skill with a knife. He’s the man I ‘d like to take with me in the event of an Andean plane crash, not because he could light a fire, or skin a rabbit, but because he’s a walking Big Mac. You could live for weeks on the contents of those trousers, and when you were rescued, you could tell the world that it was Ray Mears who saved your life.

Now that’s what I call survival.