What is it they say? The devil makes work for idle hands? And fair enough too, s/he should do that kind of stuff, s/he is after all Beelzebub and s/he’s supposed to do annoying things. But hang on, as I explained in my last blog, my retirement years are anything but idle. They’re very unidle, if that’s a word. That said, this has clearly not gotten the message across to the prince/ss of darkness (maybe s/he doesn’t read my blog) because, whatever the cause, I’m doing very weird things in my retirement. I’m undeniably making unnecessary work for myself and it’s weird. I don’t mean really weird like living your life on the throw of a dice like I did briefly when I was an art student after reading a book entitled The Dice Man by Luke Reinhart I think it was. Or giving all my money away like my sister-in-law’s ex-partner who did so he would become a millionaire. Or an intriguing article in the weekend’s paper about a couple from Bolton who went to live in Venice. It was exciting but weird I thought.
This very afternoon I’m driving over to Boston Spa (not quite Venice I admit) to visit a taxidermist. Not only have I never had need of such a person but, I’ll go as far as to say, I’ve rather despised people who keep dead animals in cases or on stands or wherever. But now, with retirement time, supposedly on my hands, I’m going to see this chap, taking with me a dead bird.
This bird we found dead in our vineyard. We have no idea how it came to be there or how it died. There were no obvious causes of death. All I know was that in death it looked like a magnificent animal. It made me immensely sad to see it. How unfair I thought that this magnificent creature should have its life ended. And I say this as no particular kind of bird-lover. I don’t even know what kind of bird it is except it is big and certainly a bird of prey of some kind. But that’s all I know. I just don’t like things to die, I guess.
I moved him / her to the other side of our fence to keep it out of the dog’s way. This was on Saturday evening. Probably be gone in the morning, dragged away and recycled by some other creature of the night. It was still there in the morning and it was still there Monday morning. I felt it was sending me a message. Yes, I know I’m sounding like an insane, retired person. Anyway I decided I needed to front up and try and save it in some way. So it kind of ‘lived on’.
And that is why on this Tuesday, after complaining in my last blog that I was too busy, I’ve added to my ‘to do’ list. It’s not like I’m getting much support in this endeavour. Mrs Summerhouse thinks I have finally gone bonkers (it’s been open to question for a while). She point-blank refuses to let me put it in the fridge or the freezer. Fortunately it’s cold this week so I’m hoping it doesn’t go too manky before I get it to be stuffed.
Not only will she not find a temporary home for it, she isn’t at all keen to have it in the house (any of them) when he’s done. According to the initial phone conversation, he can be displayed by putting him on a log or, for another £100 or so, in a glass case. He’ll cost £300+ to be, well, stuffed. So here again Mrs SH questions my sanity. More money than sense, lad, my grandma would have said. I admit when Mrs SH enquired, a little sarcastically, where I thought he or she was going to go after stuffing, I was a little non-plussed. But I’ve got an idea now.
True it remains to be seen if the taxidermist guy (see workshop above) thinks it’s saveable and then, when it’s ‘home’, whether Mrs SH will agree with my location idea. You’ll have to wait a while to see how this pans out, but I’m optimistic. Apart from doing good works this will surely contribute to my karma. When I die I feel sure that my family will honour me in similar fashion. Well, maybe not the stuffing part.
So this is just another example of that question about retirement that confronts all us retired people – what should / could we do with our time, while we still have it? There’s developing our hobbies / interests / projects we had prior to retirement, developing new ones, learning new skills, working for charities, looking after grand-children, travelling (which we are going to do in a modest way this week – look out for photographic evidence in last Friday’s, as it will be, blog). All the usual suspects.
Apart from the grand-children option, which isn’t an option because we don’t have any, I’ve tried all of the above. But I never thought I’d be spending my pension on bird-stuffing. It just goes to show what an exciting and unique time retirement can be, if you keep an open mind.
This is not to say that there’s any real substitute for planning one’s retirement. A steady structure of activities is a good thing, in my opinion. Provides the bedrock for the more creative stuff that goes on top. And that’s how I’m presenting the bird restoration, a creative project. I’m not doing it of course but we’re off to meet a man who is.
Just back from the taxidermist man (see photos above and below), surprisingly normal. But the birdie turned out to me much bigger than he thought. It’s a red kite apparently and we have no idea, at this point, how it died. Although we do now know that it is illegal to kill them. As it’s bigger, the price has increased to £480. After a great deal of debate about sitting or flying, in a case or on a stand and what kind of stand, we made our decision but we’ll all have to wait to see how it turns out. It took a while to make the decision and, surprisingly, in the process, Mrs SH became a convert.
When s/he does finally make it to his new home s/he will be welcomed by both of us. We had planned to sponsor a guide dog as our charity gig at this time but I’ve sponsored a dead bird instead. We won’t get it for about 4 months, so maybe time to sponsor the dog as well. Retirement is a wonderful thing.
Red Kites are cool, if rather common in this part of the world (Wales) nowadays. Only because kindly people have intervened, of course. They used to be very rare I believe. Making your ex-red kite into a work of art seems like a great thing to do. It might inspire more kindness to inconvenient birds who don’t sing sweetly but remind us of the wilderness. They look fantastic soaring on the thermals over our garden or swooping down on dead things in the road – I’m lucky not to have added to the numbers of dead, red kites on my occasional drives through mid-Wales.
nice comment, thank you. I’m sure this bird used to soar above our vineyard. We will miss him up there but in 4 months!! he will be with us again.