As I write this blog there are men on our roof. It’s OK because I want them there. They are repointing the ridge tiles and replacing a number of perished tiles. For this they are charging me about £1300. Oh for the days when I would have thought nothing of shimmying (is that the word, indeed is that a word at all?) up the ladder, walking across the roof and doing the job myself. Ha, those days are long gone. And the problem with having three properties it means there are three roofs to maintain and as luck would have it all three roofs need attention.
Such challenges are no doubt to be expected. What might not be predicted is that having three properties (yes, I hear say well sell 2 then but they serve a purpose and paying for the pleasure is a price I’m willing to pay even at £1,300 per roof) has the consequence of being an outsider at two of them.
This situation became an issue in a surprising way last week when the children went up to cut the grass at the barn / vineyard (another roof that leaks and we’ve had so much rain this winter that there is plenty of opportunity for it to do so). There they made a surprising discovery. Now pay attention to this because it’s complicated.
There in the vineyard was a magpie in a cage with a dead and gutted rabbit and a number of eggs. I’ve tried to attach a bit of video, above, to show you what I mean, if my technical skills permit it (I think they did). And it’s got sound.
To say they were puzzled would be an understatement. They called me to ask if I knew anything about this strange occurrence. Were they perhaps remaking Wicker Man in Yorkshire? No, I was equally as puzzled. I called my handy man who lives down the hill, did he by any chance know why there was a magpie in a cage etc etc. Turned out he did.
It seems that my grape-growing neighbour, (also a gamekeeper) had placed it there as a country way of capturing another magpie which was attacking his chicks. He breeds them, the chicks that is, for shooting on his estate and had forgot to ask my permission to do so, which he told me he had intended to do.
Now this was where town met country and did not see eye to eye. Another example from way back. My daughter and her husband being townies saw a trapped animal and were about to let it go. My gamekeeper chum let’s just say, did not want this to happen. Or so he told me when I called him and explained I wanted the bloody bird removed cage, rabbit, eggs and all.
And this is where the outsider bit comes in in case you were wondering (or even cared). When we bought the land and the barn we realised we were outsiders* and it was not our place to come in and start complaining about their country ways. For example posh people shooting birds for the fun of it. Now if the roles were reversed that would be fun. Anyway we say nowt, as they say up this way. But I draw the line at these things happening on my land which I have bought and paid for.
So my neighbour came over and took away his magpie and the rest. Whether he speaks to me again remains to be seen. I hope so because, as I say, it’s not our place to interfere and also he has all my wine-making equipment. So fingers crossed that our sometimes uneasy relationship continues.
So this is another bit of a return to normality. Just life going on as it did before my operations – men on the roof and magpies in a cage with a gutted rabbit. What’s not to like about that?
*The manager of a restaurant where a friend’s daughter was working asked the staff if anybody knew what FIFO meant. First in, first out somebody offered. No, it means Fit in or fuck off. A bit like living in the country.