You might wonder why we have a pigeon in our chimney. It’s definitely not a pet. It fluttered its way down the chimney and had been stuck there for a few days, until we managed to free it. Turned out to be quite a ‘to-do’ but we got there in the end.
In our sitting room, we have a simple open fire place. The gas fire is one of those open flame types (cosy in the winter). Just above the fireplace is an aluminium funnel, which narrows the chimney and that’s where the pigeon got stuck. It was about 1 metre up, just out of reach.
We considered a few options:
- Coaxing it down with food, recorded pigeon noises and some little branches – not a bad idea
- Leaving the room so it was always quiet, so it could find its own way out of the open window – again, possible and we thought a good idea
- Removing the aluminium funnel – would then lower the pigeon and easier to grab – possible but a bit involved
- Start removing brickwork, make a terrible mess and find we can’t get a builder to repair it for ages – risk of bigger structural damage, no flippin way
- Leave it there to fade away and die – a sad but possible reality
My Facebook friends were very helpful with their ideas:
- Vacuum cleaner to suck it down
- Light the fire
- Get a cat
- Chimney rods / hose pipe
- Borrow a gun to shoot it down
In the end we borrowed a litter picker from our friends Bill and Hilary. After a few attempts Hannah was able to grab the pigeon and pull it down – but it wasn’t coming without a fight! It was scared and its tiny brain couldn’t make sense of us trying to help it.
So it flapped around our sitting room, hit the ceiling and a wall, crash landed and then flew out through an open window. Once outside it crash landed again, panicked, looked around and managed to take off, heading off into the sunset.
We were so pleased! It had been there for a few days and we were becoming increasingly worried about it. Our passive approach just wasn’t working and we needed to take some action before it starved to death and fell back to an inaccessible part to stink the house out.
Now we think we can see the same pigeon, with its mate in the garden. We had clocked these two pigeons a while back, always snuggling up together on the same branch in the back garden. All’s well that ended well.
As for my decluttering attempts….
At the start of our Lockdown, I was full of optimism about having a good sort out at home but instead its been a start-stop process.
A few days ago I trained my decluttering spotlight towards the garage. We have a couple of shelves with odd tins of paint, varnish, rust proofing stuff etc. They were all bought years ago, half used and stored because one day they might be ‘useful’.
I was quite pleased by almost filling the wheelie bin. Some of the other tins which might have been vaguely useful were placed on our garden wall, so anyone could help themselves.
Rachel clocked what I’d done and springs into gatekeeping mode, checking the wheelie bin, plus the selection of paint tins, old toys, bubble blowing gizmos I had put on our garden wall. Apparently there’s something called Oleo which is a local neighbourhood app and puts free things up for grabs. Not a bad idea. So I admitted I’d bow to her better digital networking achievements on this. I know she’s far better at this than I am.
Also appearing in my decluttering sights will be my hifi system in the shed. I am thinking my Garrard record deck, with its charming wooden case from the 1970s, might be appealing to a retro hifi geek out there.
Keeping fit
With this decent weather I have been enjoying running three times this week (as per previous post). Also I have made use of our garden as a bit of an outdoor gym, even simply using a little step in the garden to go up and down umpteen times.
I like cardio best of all but I’m getting better at flexing and balancing. But again it’s a start-stop process as I found out yesterday when trying to do some impromptu yoga on the decking. There I was, standing and balancing on one foot (don’t ask me what the position was), with my other foot tucked in at the top of my leg. Arms up in the air, breathing deeply as I exhaled and brought my palms together. I felt quite chuffed, I kept my balance, might even have looked a bit graceful until, half a second later, I lost balance and nearly ended upside down in the veg patch.
“Onwards and upwards” I always tell myself, ever the optimist. If this Lockdown wasn’t happening for such a serious, grave reason out there, I would be thoroughly enjoying it. As it is, we make the most of it.
Related: other weekly updates