Tuesday 17 October 2023
There’s a very pretty, thick frost this morning. I went outside to take a few photos and was reminded how much I love the smell of frozen earth. I am sitting at my desk and was just distracted by a male pheasant running across the frosty grass. Things are not good in pheasant world. We think that of the original family of Mr and Mrs Pheasant and their fourteen chicks, there may now only be Mr Pheasant, Mrs Pheasant’s elderly ex-husband (the neighbour told us this; the ex has distinctive neck markings and was on the scene last year) and a maximum of three sons, all of whom now look like adults. It’s a veritable soap opera out there now. Chris has just joined me, it’s that exciting. There are now, since starting to write, up to three male pheasants, no idea of which generation or which pheasant family, and a male pheasant just strutted across the garden with a chubby female walking alongside him. She is most definitely not Mrs Pheasant. And then another chubby female materialised and a couple of male pheasants went running over. It’s all go. I have no idea where they have come from but I assume they’re young and been brought in as teenage brides. Anyway, Mr Pheasant, according to the neighbour, who witnessed some of the earlier action, started attacking his sons and his wife. I saw him fighting with one of his sons. There was then a lame son and Mrs Pheasant had a strike to the leg. Then Mrs Pheasant disappeared, I think the lame son has gone … and now there are a load of interlopers. Never, ever could I imagine being so fascinated by the pheasant population of our small area of the world! Arguably, it’s a bit sad, I do know, but it is wholesome entertainment!
On the theme of entertainment, Chris and I have decided we may get a TV up here, largely for when either of us is here on our own in winter. There’s something comforting about being wrapped up in blankets (or, even better, a warm house) watching TV or a film when it’s dark outside. Ridiculously, it feels like a big deal. We have nowhere obvious to put a TV and we barely watched TV in London so it may just be a waste of time. Since last buying a TV, things seem rather advanced. It’s a bit of a mystery to us what we want or need from a TV that probably won’t be used that much. It’d be nice to pop over to a TV shop and look at a few, but I think a fairly basic smart TV will be perfectly adequate. I have done a bit of research and I clicked on a review report of “best mid-range TV”, which, in the context of the other categories, suggested price. It was a £900 TV. How did TVs get so expensive? On that basis, we’re going low-end. Or we’ll just set up wildlife cameras and stream the pheasant goings on.