Wednesday 20 January 2010
Well shit and corruption, and if that upsets people, I am past caring today!! I am cold and tired and have achieved bugger all in the last couple of days. Monday was lovely, everyone was back, we flew some birds, although all are showing loss of fitness because of their enforced rest. Charlie finished off in the shop and we started the big clear up and Richard came and I now have lights again in the scullery, the utility room and the loo. Of course now I have no excuse for poor washing up – again! The downside was that we can’t get any oil for the heating and hot water until Friday!!Yesterday – was it only yesterday, Holly went to Hales to get some stuff including some Pine coloured stain to stain the new shelves, so I was fairly pissed off when they palmed her off with a large tin of brown gloss, which does not resemble the pine doors in the slightest, but more baby**** brown, and to add insult to injury they put the roll of lead in the back of the van with the paint, and consequently the van is now an interesting brown colour as well!! Then the new credit card machine would not work, and still would not work, so I got a little hot under the collar about that. So I finally got round to flying some birds, the lanner flew straight into me! And then Casper – the white hybrid falcon who said on his block he was starving and why was I not flying him, and then once down in the field, buggered off at a high rate of knots. So off Holly and I went with the telemetry, we finally found him, with help from Adam who arrived after finishing everything off with Simon. We climbed a fence into an incredibly muddy field with a large sign that said Beware of the Bull, hoping that it was not accurate, and found Casper sitting happily in a tree, watching the traffic passing on the motorway about three fields away. So we drove back to Adam’s van which by complete coincidence and very good luck was parked outside a pub, and so we had a G and T before going home.
We arranged to meet at 7.30am and go out and see if he was ready to come down. So at 6.30am I got up, looked out the window to make sure there was no snow, and went to feed the dogs, imagine my comments when they all came back in from outside looking like reverse Dalmatians, with huge flakes of snow all over their coats!
Holly Adam and I got in the van with telemetry, gloves, bags, meat etc, and drove through now very heavy snow fall, with the road starting to be risky (of course my bloody range rover is still not fixed!! Its so useful having a four wheel drive for snow!! Or it would be if I had been able to drive in on the damn stuff). As soon as we got close we picked up a good signal, and so parked up and started up the muddy hill in a whiteout!! Hoping that the bull could not see us, because we could not see it, we trudged up the slope in the snow, which was now a good two inches, and there was Casper, sitting in the tree, so now we have a white bird in a white snow covered tree in a white snowstorm – great. He came down to the lure or at least started, but veered off, and that happened about six times, he moved to a better area to get him down, and kept looking interested, but still would not land on the snow or catch the lure, which by this time was looking very frozen and unsavoury. We tried clearing the snow by making snowballs and rolling them to pick it up, but apart from getting freezing hands, that did not work and the snow covered the grass about as fast as we cleared it. We tried all sorts and he was chupping away in the tree, and coming out and going back in again. So eventually as the rest of the collection had to be fed and Simon was away, Holly and I left Adam to it and drove back through the snow to get life at ICBP sorted, check the dogs and staff and get warm again.
About 1.5 hours later armed with fresh lures, tea in a thermos flask (bad idea that), a bit of carpet for the lure to land on, I drove back and climbed the hill again, got caught up on the barbed wire fence, again, and found Adam in the middle of the wood this time. This is not a good place to get a falcon down, so we tried for a while, but as by now Casper was sitting fluffed up with one foot tucked up we decided to leave him for a bit and come back later. Down the hill again and this time we saw the bull, well several of them!! Highland Cattle with huge horns, but not that scary I have to say.
We did stuff back home, sorted out a few things, I did some emails and then at 3.30 out the three of us went again. The snow was still lying but the roads were a nice slushy mess. As we came over the hill we got a signal and then suddenly it went – just the worst feeling – no bleep!! We drove around in larger and larger circles searching for a signal and then dropped Adam off back at the wood in case we had problems with the receivers, and yes we did. Holly and I went back and got the third receiver, she left to take Robin back to the train station, and I took the last receiver out again. The first one had by this time started to make a very odd noise and we discovered that the tea from the thermos had leaked all over it!! The other one started to do the same thing and we think that the wet snow had got in somehow – a learning experience.
I picked up Adam and a signal and we then drove around in the pitch dark down impossible lanes trying to pinpoint it. By 7.00pm we had it down to one area but as we could see nothing we decided to go home and start again in the morning. And that is what we are going to do – great three days!! Joan – I am thinking of you, Casper your name is mud, and I can now hear my warm (I hope) bed calling me.
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