That was me yelling obscenities

Whilst their own house is being extensively renovated, friends have taken on the lease of another dwelling in the next village. Several planters in front of the house drooped with the remains of spring daffodils.

Time to freshen up my friend Angie thought, so after a visit to a local garden centre, she filled the planters with summer annuals.

Eight pairs of avian eyes watched with interest from the roof of an adjoining property. Lurking amidst the foliage of the flowers were potentially tasty, nutritious and highly edible and desirable plants.

Time for a visit.

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“I heard Stig going mad,” friend Angie said. “Stig ( a Jack Russell) was throwing himself against the conservatory window trying to get out.

“There were eight peacocks pulling the plants to bits. It was a nightmare.”

I had completely forgotten how destructive peacocks could be. Once I yearned for some stately peacocks to strut around the farmyard, but regular raids by a neighbours peacock and peahen dimmed my enthusiasm.

They are voracious. Any young, tender plants in the veg patch were demolished (that was when I had time to have veg in the veg plot, now it is just weeds), and all my flower troughs were seen as handy, takeaway sites for hungry peacocks.

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Peacocks are the jump jets of the bird world. They can be aloft in seconds. Amazing for such big birds. This pair would head straight for the barn roof and then trumpet ( they sound just like elephants ) their defiance. Once I chased them onto a haystack and threw a heavy feeding bowl to frighten the pair out of the barn.

All I succeeded in doing was missing the peacock by miles. The bowl disappeared over the edge of the haystack, immediately followed by a dull clang and surprised quack. A terminal quack. The bowl had dropped onto a duck and killed it. I hated the peacocks even more.

For a long while though I persisted in my dream of peacocks, cadging eggs off my brother in law to put under broody hens, but with no joy.

Now the eggs we are attempting to hatch are at the other end of the size scale. The partridge eggs from the disturbed nest. We thought by now they would have hatched, but although several are floating to the surface of a bowl of warm water when we test them, only one is rocking to indicate it is close to a hatch. We shall persist however. That same dog that disturbed the partridges was again in our fields this weekend chasing the sheep.

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It was by pure chance that I was out there, checking for mushrooms under some oak trees. A fleeting movement a couple of fields away caught my eye.

It was the sheep racing around followed by a flash of black. The dog was back. By the time I got to the field the owner had the dog under control, into her car and driving off. If you heard someone shouting obscenities at a disappearing vehicle, that someone was me.

Mrs Downs Diary