Thursday 16 April 2015

Murder in the garden

Not the title of a new Agatha Christie novel, rather a reflection about life on the edge of the forest.  During the day we'll regularly spot foxes (but these days that's nothing unusual even if you're a city centre dweller), multitudinous cats, the odd hedgehog and much bird life...all seemingly as happy as Larry.  But once the sun goes down, the garden becomes a dangerous place to be.  The evidence is normally seen in the morning with feathers spread all over the lawn, and usually preceded by a few squawks as some pigeon gets its head ripped away from its body.  But a couple of times over the last week or so we have heard noises that would scare even the hardiest of horror film aficionados...it's bad enough just as you're going to sleep, but worse still to be woken up at 3.00 am.  The noise may be squirrels who can make the most hideous of noises when they're a bit pissed off, or foxes whose screeches can curdle milk...but we're both too scared to look and hide under the duvet.  There's no evidence in the morning...even though the noise is accompanied by by the sound of scuffling.  So no body and circumstantial evidence only...but I don't doubt there's a serial killer on the loose and a bit too close for comfort...

I had a lovely time skiing thank you very much, even though I did arrive a day early...diaries are never my strong point, but this may be my worst yet (although I may have done something similar when traveling with Fred six years ago).  Usually skiing at this time of year means starting and finishing early before the warming sun has turned the snow to porridge density slush, but on this occasion we had fresh snow pretty much every day, and a glorious time was had by everyone.  As usual I traveled by train there and back -- its as quick as flying and infinitely more fun...when not watching the scenery fly past the TGV, I can catch up on a film or two - this time I managed to see Two Faces of January...sadly a bit disappointing, but at least it's been ticked off the list.

I came back with a horrible cold...they really do knock me for six...I had hoped that being fitter now than I have been for a long time would stop my catching anything, or at least make it go away quicker...nothing could be further from the truth.  Anyway, I returned home to find both Fred and The Cat there which was delightful...I think it's been a very, very long time since they've been under the same roof and getting on well...so that made me extremely happy indeed.