Nature

 Take life one day at a time, they say but sometimes several days sneak up on you at once and you are left rocking in a corner, asking if someone could just stop spinning the world for a moment, so you can get off. Life can just be overwhelming.

Recently, whenever I’ve thought about writing a blog too much was happening, so I’ve written nothing and now my head is full of thoughts buzzing around my hornets nest of a head. 

Today I could write about the following topics:

1. How funny it is that the right wing press have got themselves into such a spin over Beergate.

2. Puppies (I am obsessed and worry too much - neurotic dog mum alert)

3. Amber Heard/Johnny Depp

4. Wagatha Christie

5. Borders or boarders in the Island of Ireland

6. The need to ‘register online’ for everything

7. Buying boots

8. CleanTok (I’ve watched hours and although it’s very calming and satisfying my house is still dirty)

9. Eurovision conspiracy theories (It’s just a singing contest!)

10. Sleep (who needs sleep? There’s a guy been awake since the Second World War)

11. Jack Monroe (brilliant person)

12. Champagne Socialists (I’m pro)

When you are overwhelmed then you should switch everything off and get back to nature. That’s the theory. Make your garden a wildlife sanctuary. Go out and get dirt under your paws. 

This is all very well but nature is chaotic. Life is precarious and anxiety levels can easily rise. 

Yesterday, I was a mess. Nature properly pushed all my buttons. Even tidying my sock drawer didn’t help.

The day started, as usual with taking the puppy in the garden. He likes to poo in the patch of long grass I’ve left under the tall beech hedge. He prefers the privacy. He goes back inside to get his donut while I pick up the poo. It’s not a very exciting routine but it’s one that works for us. 

“My goodness, that’s a huge poo,” I thought, getting the bag positioned properly on my hand. 

It wasn’t a poo. It was a blackbird. Just sitting there looking at me.

Now, the thing is, I don’t like birds. That’s not true. I do like birds. I like them from a distance. I like them when they are healthy and happy and twittering around at a distance. But if they flap at me or die then the bird that has lived in my chest since I was a child panics. It flutters and whips it’s wings, unable to free itself from the confines of my upper thoracic cavity. Why it chose to live there in the first place, I’ll never know but there it is. 

From the kitchen window I could see the bird had a broken wing.

“What do we do?” I asked the Long Suffering Husband, hoping that he would know.

“What do you want me to do?” he replied, helpfully.

“We can’t just leave it, can we? The dog…”

“No, I don’t suppose we can. Google it.”

‘Google it’ has become the solution to all life’s problems. Maybe there’s a YouTube video, a TikTok or a Pinterest Page of suggestions. 

The RSPB page said that you couldn’t just leave it. Moral duty. Contact the RSPCA. The RSPCA website said something similar but gave the instruction to take it to a wildlife rescue centre, with no further information on how to find one. Just as I was about to give up, a Facebook friend commented on a local wildlife rescuer’s page. I love coincidences like that.

“You can bring it to me,” she said on the phone.

“But how do I catch it?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t hear the terror in my voice. 

She gave me some tips like looking for the worst place for it to run to, cornering it, maybe throwing a towel over it but in the end you just had to pick it up with gloved hands. 

Oh no. 

The LSH took charge, barking instructions at me as the bird in my chest proved it had two properly working wings.

A bird with a broken wing might not be able to fly but it can hop and it’s very fast.  After an hour of chasing it round the garden the puppy was watching from the patio door, overly excited and ready for his next toilet break. It was a nightmare.

  My son spotted my distress and calmly stepped in. The LSH had a bracket to fix on my daughter’s car, so we were on our own.

“Let’s try luring it.”

We tried seed and bread and cake.

It liked my cake but it was still too fast.

The problem with making a garden that is wildlife friendly is that there are too many places for a frightened damaged blackbird to hide. 

Over the next six hours he got it into the box 4 times but it hopped out before he could get the lid on and I couldn’t take it anymore. The bird had buried itself in a little hole in the fence, next to a rose bush behind the apple tree.

I took myself and the puppy to the woods where we saw a deer (much less scary) and two old people with umbrellas (terrifying). 

When we got back my chest bird was still flapping and tidying the sock draw wasn’t working.

“It’s all fine, though,” the LSH tried to reassure, looking out of the bedroom window, to avoid eye contact with a woman who couldn’t get her socks straight in the drawer. “We haven’t seen it for hours. It’s probably……..bugger. Little bastard!”

“We can get it if we work together,” he said, but I couldn’t.

Luckily, my son had friends round playing D&D in the dining room. I directed from the bedroom window as it took 3 young men and one old one to wrangle the bird into a box.

“We’ve got it!”

The wildlife lady took a look.

“Oh no,” she said, “it’s an adult female. Keep a lookout. There will be babies.”

Nature: It could help your mental health or completely destroy it.