I was folding sheets with herself on the landing when I heard a coo from a pigeon which appeared to come from the fireplace in my room. Something about the acoustics of the chimney makes pigeons up on the roof sound like they are cooing in the chimney breast. I find it peaceful. It reminds me of the pigeons in the huge lime tree that grew in the garden of the house I grew up in. You could hear them right up on the third floor, cooing softly as you went about your important childish business. “Can you hear the pigeons from your fireplace too?” I asked her thinking how this might also one day be one of her beloved childhood memories. “Yes,” she said “and, I think, filthy sky rats up my chimney.”
The Princess would get on well with my mother, who is convinced that the lichen prettifying/defiling her roof is, in fact, encrused pigeon droppings, and that the pigeons are only there because the neighbour has a bird table. I might add the pigeons are of the wood, not feral variety and that, at other moments, she bemoans the dearth of garden birds. It seems pigeons are the only birds that poo.
Well, I am not sure about pigeons but have you seen the shocking publicity seagulls have been getting recently? I just heard a farmer on the radio talking about how a seagull took out 2(!) of his sheep.
I know someone whose pasty was snatched out of his hand by one. I’m quite fond of them – I like the evil look in their icy blue eyes. And they’re always much bigger than you remember – and more statuesque, except when swooping down for a pasty, or the odd sheep or some other exploit.
Yes, I do too, I love their superciliousness (sp?).