{"id":5207,"date":"2011-06-18T08:22:40","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T07:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=5207"},"modified":"2011-06-18T08:25:38","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T07:25:38","slug":"let-the-birds-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=5207","title":{"rendered":"Let the birds have it"},"content":{"rendered":"

As one of Witney’s leading vegetarianists, I’m often stopped in the street and asked for my views on animal cruelty.<\/p>\n

‘Oh, I’m all for it’, is never my usual response.<\/p>\n

Until now.<\/p>\n

I was woken at 5.15am.<\/p>\n

Look, I’m going to say that again.<\/p>\n

I WAS WOKEN AT 5.15AM.<\/p>\n

By the bloody birds.<\/p>\n

The weird scratching\/tapping\/knocking sounds that dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the arms of Morpheus, spooked the hell out of me.<\/p>\n

The noise seemed to be coming from *inside* the house.<\/p>\n

And that alone was enough to spook me.<\/p>\n

My bride slept on, unperturbed by the weird noises, drooling gently on her pillow.<\/p>\n

I eased myself out of bed and tottered downstairs, like a refugee ‘extra’ from the film ‘I was bitten by a Sleep Zombie’ (nb: this film doesn’t actually exist, but if any Hollywood producers would like to get in touch, I could let them have a draft script by the end of the month).<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

No sign, inside the house, either of damage, or of anything that might be the source of the racket – still quite clearly audible, in the lounge.<\/p>\n

I opened the double doors in to the garden and a flock, yes, a bloody flock of birds, flew away from the side of the house and disappeared in to the countryside.<\/p>\n

They’d been sitting on the bedroom window-sill, tapping, rattling and generally having an Avian Mother’s Meeting.<\/p>\n

At the expense of my sleep, obv.<\/p>\n

Regular readers will know that for some years I have been trying to *cough* discourage cats from the garden.<\/p>\n

And those in my circle of Tweeters (pun!) will know how much I’ve enjoyed the sight of birds, as they have hopped over the garden furniture, this year.<\/p>\n

Well all that’s about to change.<\/p>\n

The lack of sleep has turned me in to an irrational Meldrewesque character who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘moderation’.<\/p>\n

I’m getting the Webley out of the loft, and woe betide any life-form that dares to interrupt my sleep.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And I’m including cats who happen to stray in to the garden when I’m not asleep, they’re on the List of Doom too.<\/p>\n

Blame the birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As one of Witney’s leading vegetarianists, I’m often stopped in the street and asked for my views on animal cruelty. ‘Oh, I’m all for it’,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}