Catherine screams in her sleep. It’s a freaky, drawn-out, crescendo-ing type of scream, which gradually works its way up from a quiet groan in the pit of her gut to a blood-curdling, piercing screech that lasts for an eternity. This wakes me up every night, without fail. Last night, not only did I have my spouse’s yelling to contend with, I was also awoken by the cats running frantically through the house, clearly chasing something. In fairness to Dylan and Jay Jay, they had at least waited until a time when I should have been getting up anyway before bringing their prey home, but it was still indescribably unwelcome. I decided to deal with whatever was downstairs after I had a shower and got ready for work, but the problem was that I found myself running really late and I remembered that I had a meeting in Kirkcaldy which I had to get to first thing. I ran around getting ready and once I had sorted out what I needed for the day, boosted downstairs to see what all the fuss was about.
It was a bird. Not just a wee bird mind you, it was a huge, dishevelled blackbird that was still able to fly despite Dylan’s best efforts to end its fragile existence. I paused for a moment, not sure what to do with time being such a factor, but decided that I should really try and catch the poor creature and get it out of the house. This proved rather difficult, in fact to be honest, this proved impossible. I spent ten horrendous minutes chasing the blackbird from room to room, before realising the futility of my efforts and giving up. I had to get to work, and left hoping the bird would somehow survive until I got home.
No such luck. I’ve arrived back to find our living room with a new feature on the floor - a feather carpet. Dylan had won the battle and finished off the poor birdie, leaving a nice wee mess for me to clean up. It was a disgusting sight, nearly as revolting as my toes……nearly!
Andy
