Mystery solved?
People who have been visiting this blog for a while will remember the mysterious story of the rat in the kitchen. One morning I came downstairs to find a dead rat, not a mark on it and the two dogs looking as confused as me! No obvious holes for a rat to enter in and no sign that one of the dogs had smuggled it in on their last trip out of the night.
On Saturday we were all sitting around the kitchen table for breakfast when something flew from one end of the kitchen to the other. At first I thought it was a bat as we have a few of those in the garage and one has been flying around at daytime and getting a bit confused. I ran off being a bit scared of fluttery things.
Husband Graham and the kids caught what turned out to be a really beautiful Blue Tit and released it outside to where its mate was waiting.
How did it get there?
Later I was boiling the kettle and I heard a lot of tweeting. The same birds were making a nest in the roof space above the kitchen. They were getting under the roof eves.
The bird had kept flying up to the holes where the lights joined the ceiling which was odd.
I looked closer and there was a bit of a gap between the plaster roses of the light surrounds and the ceilings - the lights are very heavy - previous owner of the house was a bit theatrical - so we have three chandeliers in the kitchen!!!
One of the birds must have wondered what was the other side of one of the holes in the ceiling and got a bit of a surprise.
So if a blue tit could get through that gap - and could get into the roof space in the first place, could a rat? And did it freefall to its death - explaining the total lack of teeth marks?
Must say I do tend to look up before entering the kitchen now!
For those of you following the Our Dogs Forum I'm beginning to think I've done all I can and its time to move on. There are a few people totally entrenched in believing that inbreeding is good, and nothing is ever going to change their minds!
If anyone wants to take over, please do! Pip is doing a great job by the way. Patience of a saint.
On Saturday we were all sitting around the kitchen table for breakfast when something flew from one end of the kitchen to the other. At first I thought it was a bat as we have a few of those in the garage and one has been flying around at daytime and getting a bit confused. I ran off being a bit scared of fluttery things.
Husband Graham and the kids caught what turned out to be a really beautiful Blue Tit and released it outside to where its mate was waiting.
How did it get there?
Later I was boiling the kettle and I heard a lot of tweeting. The same birds were making a nest in the roof space above the kitchen. They were getting under the roof eves.
The bird had kept flying up to the holes where the lights joined the ceiling which was odd.
I looked closer and there was a bit of a gap between the plaster roses of the light surrounds and the ceilings - the lights are very heavy - previous owner of the house was a bit theatrical - so we have three chandeliers in the kitchen!!!
One of the birds must have wondered what was the other side of one of the holes in the ceiling and got a bit of a surprise.
So if a blue tit could get through that gap - and could get into the roof space in the first place, could a rat? And did it freefall to its death - explaining the total lack of teeth marks?
Must say I do tend to look up before entering the kitchen now!
For those of you following the Our Dogs Forum I'm beginning to think I've done all I can and its time to move on. There are a few people totally entrenched in believing that inbreeding is good, and nothing is ever going to change their minds!
If anyone wants to take over, please do! Pip is doing a great job by the way. Patience of a saint.
Comments
Again and again, I see the comment that they are breeders so they know best and will not be told what to do. Unfortunately being able to breed dogs does not make somebody and expert in dog health or genetics. More to the point, they prefer to ignore anything that they don't like, as it may mean changing the way they have bred for years.
I agree that there is little point in continual fighting against these individuals. It would be nice if legislation were not needed, but obviously it is.
On the Our Dogs issue, sometimes you just have to say, "I will no longer bang my head on your wall."
It's very difficult because there's a hard core of breeders that don't want to know.
A few weeks ago I went on to another dog forum as some people there were getting very heated over the "Nazi" link in Jemima's programme, saying it was "sensationalism". I tried to point out what I thought was the very obvious connection - ie, that of the concept of "pure breeding" - and how that idea was prevalent in the 1930s here too, which was how the KC got hold of it. One of the people running the forum even told me there was no such connection so I even laboriously spelt it out again for him, thinking he probably was too young to know recent history, but you could see he was livid and I was wasting my time.
I'm sorry for the poor Jewish man who was called a Nazi and don't know what to say about that. What appalling behaviour.