Friday 9th May, 2014

Aujourdhui mon fils Bob, gagneur du prix Languages Modern a Rugby – il gets it de his pere - assieds son GCSE Francais. Bon chance a lui.

 

That apart, which has been exercising my mind, this has been a most frustrating week.  Well to be honest it started last weekend when Bob, on a leaveout, discovered a crow had made its home in a tree at the bottom of our garden.  It may surprise you to know that Bob loves practically all animals, but corvids ( with the exception of choughs ) are his bête noir.  All weekend he stalked this poor bird calling upon his sister and myself to help startle the thing out the tree while he stood primed to shoot it with his silenced .410 shotgun.  But these are canny canny creatures and it was a disconsolate Bob who went back to school on Monday eveningas the crow settled safely back in its nest.  Or so it thought. 

To diverge slightly for a moment, whilst we may not have got that crow, we did have a most successful evening getting in amongst a neighbours rabbits.  The first dish I ever prepared in the kitchen was, aged 15, after I had shot a decent sized bunny at our home in Kirriemuir.  I have my Penguin Cordon Bleu cookbook to this day and on page 299 is a tremendous recipe for Lapin a la Moutarde.  See how useful a bit of the French is.  And so I recreated this classic and quite delicious it was too, though I must confess we chucked what was left of it in the bin once Bob had left. 

The point is though my bloodlust was up gentle readers.  And so every evening this week, having battled the interminable roadworks on the A11 and made my way home, I have stood under the crows tree lobbing stones up into the branches and with Bob’s single barrelled gun pointed fixedly in the general direction of its nest.  I have had a few chances, but I’m ashamed to say I have not come close to hitting it.  It’s extremely annoying.  Bob would be so proud of me.   And the crow has a further reprieve tonight.  I will not be back till late tonight.  We are in London this evening and going to watch The Book of Mormon at the Prince of Wales preceded by a good old fashioned supper of Thai curry and pineapple fried rice.