The dragons are keeping well (2)

Dear Landlord,

The conservatory’s lovely. Well it is now I’ve got rid of the pigeon. It was walking up and down the patio all one Saturday afternoon, at first sight nothing wrong with it but not going anywhere. I gave it some crusts of bread but it walked away. Walked. After three hours I thought the ring on its leg might tell me something, so it was shepherded into the conservatory and I got close enough to read it. And after some research, sent off an email to North of England Homing Union : URGENT – HAVE ONE OF YOUR PIGEONS, and gave them its number, and mine. The left wing was slightly lower and looked dislocated, but far from broken. And its appetite was pretty good, although it wasn’t impressed by rice and split peas, as recommended on website. It preferred best birdfood and sunflower hearts. And water of course. It could sort of hop up on to the easy chair, and from there to the table. Flying was out of the question, except once when it panicked and tried to get through the glass wall. Bit upsetting, that.  But since Chocolate was having fantasies about an early Christmas, pigeon was safer in there with the doors shut.

I think it was Wednesday when the courier arrived with the special box. Turns out our little friend was lost coming home from France, and the pigeon people were up to their necks in lost birds because of the sudden storm which blew up over the weekend. So there was a bit of cleaning up to do. Have you any idea how sticky dried pigeon stuff is? Amazing. Especially when welding rice and peas to a ceramic floor.

At least two moles have turned up deceased near my car. Which means next door’s cat is in good form, and your lawn will be a bit flatter from now on.

Your gardener arrived today, to do the fortnightly bash. So glad he was tracked down, because he knows what you like and what you don’t. Today he’s trimming the beech hedges up to the door, and weeding around the boat.

The boat. Have a funny feeling I didn’t mention that. Sixteen and a half feet of clinker–built larch on oak. Upside down on the gravel bit.  Although you do know I’m a qualified boatbuilder, so that’s a start. Unfortunately it has a hole in the hull, put there by a well–meaning trailer–towing idiot–person near Inverness.  I’ve decided the boat could be useful if the river flooded, me and mother going round in circles, but a fat lot of use it is now. And I love rowing, and the reservoir would be perfect. And I should have been out there on brilliantly hot summer days, fixing it, but what few such days there were, I spent in much more emotionally profitable ways, like eating calamari outside, reading Andrea Camilleri novels and dreaming of the Mediterranean.  And being coated with midges. That is some class of midge you have here. These marauders can arrive at any time, at any dewpoint, infallibly at any stage of afternoon/sunset/evening and with any old excuse. At least mozzies usually patrol at night. And you did warn me, what with there being miles upon miles of heathland beyond this oasis.

Oh and about the electricians having to be called out. Sorry, again.  I just didn’t know about the leaky radiator quietly filling up the five–gang socket for my computer, and the fact that every single plug in the house including the boiler and the oven were all on one ring main. And of course it coincided with my running out of oil (I’m getting to that bit) so I was reliant on electric radiators and worried the pipes would freeze and me with them. I can sleep on the floor in front of a log fire, but I'm not sure about mother. Who was staying here at the time. (Last occasion we slept through a deep freeze was Easter in Maine, 1970s, beach house, each of us taking turns through the night to stick another log on. And going out to pee in the snow, even mother. No running water until the Spring thaw.) 
And anyway the oil tanker couldn’t deliver here because of the snow.  I was so lucky to find an electrician on a Saturday night in a blizzard and he didn’t charge much. I hope you’ll agree the bill was pretty reasonable, especially since he and his nephew had to walk half a mile down from the road, through 2 feet of snow.

Now about the oil engineer. Well I am really, really sorry about that. And there I was, thinking that the system was incredibly efficient, hardly using any oil. Didn’t know I was looking at the orange stain on the plastic tube.

Until the system shut down, and could not be restarted by pressing correct buttons in correct sequence. And despite the tank getting filled that morning. Manual said it had an airlock, and DIY was forbidden. As if.  Proper engineer required. Phone the letting agent. There was a red button on the pipe outside but it said Do Not Press This Button! Lord, I’ve never been so tempted. The engineer kindly replaced the plastic tube and I saw at last that the oil is virtually transparent.  I was of the understanding that oil was brown, like the stuff they burned on the old North Sea car ferry to Shetland, the oil I was privileged to watch bubbling through a sight–glass in the engine room one day. (It’s who I am, a maritime person.) The marine engineer said the shipping company (I will not name because of the lawsuits) used something one cheapskate step above tarmac. And it smelt like it, as older passengers testify. So that was my entire experience of oil burning. And I was, since we’re on the subject, also privileged on the same occasion to watch the prop shaft  – twenty visible feet of unprotected steel rod, a foot thick, spinning and hypnotising you horribly. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but made my day.

So, anyway, the dragons send their love, and so does Chocolate, and so do I.

Yours sincerely,

Scary Tenant.