Day of the Pigeons

 “I expect this will make tomorrow’s blog,” the Long Suffering Husband said after smugly rescuing me from my trauma.

“Oh no,” I told him, “I don’t think there’s much in it.”

He was disappointed. “It was funny though.”

You don’t expect a pigeon to fall down your chimney every day. 

That wasn’t what he thought was funny, though. It was my reaction, which is also what I wanted to avoid writing about. None of us really like to own up to our failings and insecurities. Also, people probably don’t want to hear them (look at how irritated we all are to hear the inner thoughts of the Archers characters). However, it turned into a full on pigeon day and this morning when I sat down to write a little fella trotted across the patio, looked in though the French windows and gave me the same look. So, here we go. Just for the LSH, this is what happened yesterday.

I was sitting on the sofa and I heard a scratching noise from the fireplace and some little stones fell into it. I checked out of the window. The weather was fine: no hailstones. Nothing else happened and I turned my attention back to my reading. Twenty minutes later there was a sudden noise from the chimney again and a pigeon landed in the fireplace with a thud. He was trapped behind the fire guard and gave me a shocked look that seemed to say, “Blimey, life is precarious. You just never know when you might fall down a chimney.”

If I had been any kind of rational person, I would have looked at the pigeon sitting in his new cage, stunned but resigned and have realised that if I opened the patio door before moving the fire guard he would free himself. Did I do that? Oh no, of course not. 

I thought, “A bird. A bird. Pigeon. Pigeon. Flappy. Fell. Chimney. Oh God. I could fall down a chimney. Flap. What if he flaps in my face? Panic.” 

Those thoughts were neither rational or slow and were quickly followed by my running up the stairs and screaming to the LSH, “Help! I need your help!” 

After I had explained. “Bird. Pigeon. Chimney. Can’t!” I hid behind the bedroom door while he opened the patio door before removing the fire guard. 

Later, as we were laughing about my extreme reaction, the window cleaner appeared, face fully framed in the pane of glass on the door and I jumped and squealed again. 

“What is wrong with you today?” the LSH asked. 

I didn’t tell him that it was the look the pigeon had given me. The look that said that none of us are safe. Unexpected things can suddenly de-rail your perfect life. One day you are there having flappy sex in your favourite place and the next, with absolutely no warning, you are sitting in a cage looking at a woman in yoga clothes who starts screaming at you.

Our errands for the day included dropping a car off for some repairs. I was driving a few cars behind the LSH when we slowed into a road works traffic jam. I was just beginning to relax into the drive and radio 2 was cheerfully and quietly playing in the background. Despite our direction of traffic being at a complete standstill the road on the other side was empty. I got my phone out and put it on the camera setting, well trained by my ‘breaking-news-daughter’ and remembering the look of the pigeon, thinking that the reason we had stopped might not have been caused by roadworks after all. The birds took the opportunity to check the carriageway for berries and bugs. I watched the sparrows dust bathe, starlings squabble and pigeons strut as if in a fashion show. Suddenly, a police car, flashing blues and twos interrupted their fun. The pigeon, completely confused and panicked, flew into my windscreen and gave me the look. 

“See! None of us are safe,” it said.