Sunday, October 01, 2006

The birds and the bees...

...and the fish and the shopping trolley.

Nobody told me owning a house would involve all these things. Last Friday I came home to a dead baby parrot in my driveway. Now I am ornithophobic at the best of times. There is no way I could touch this thing. I decided my best plan of attack was to leave it and hope that a neighbourhood cat would deal with it for me.

I then went inside and discovered that some bees had decided to set up house in a hole in the wall next to the hot water unit, and were coming inside via a gap next to the window in the spare room. Again, I decided to leave it and hope they would go away.

I went out to an art exhibition (so chic, especially for regional Australia) and dinner, and when I came home the parrot was still there. So I made one of the people dropping me home remove it - he got a plastic bag out of the boot of his car and took the bird home with him! And then put it out in the rubbish.

The next morning I opened the door to the spare room. The bees were still there. I rang the first number under "bees and wasps" in the yellow pages, and half an hour later the bees were being sprayed. My vacuum cleaner is now full of dead bees. I feel a bit sorry for the bees.

That night (or to be precise, the following morning, 2am) I came home to find a shopping trolley in my driveway. I had to get out of my car and move it before I could drive into my driveway! I rang the supermarket and they said they'd send round their trolley boy to collect it, but it hasn't happened yet.

So those are the random things that have been happening chez moi.

In other news, I have a sizeable fish pond in my back garden, and I realised that without fish it will soon become a mozzie breeding ground. So I took myself off to the pet shop yesterday and bought three comets and two shubunkins. These fish are my first pets in Australia. Quite a commitment, I think you'll agree. The shubunkins I have named CD and BD (CD BD eyes...), but I need names for the comets. Any suggestions? If I can manage not to kill these fish then I will buy some koi (they're more expensive).

In other other news, I've been painting my kitchen red. It is gorgeous.

R

posted by flying kiwi @ 5:49 AM