Casement

22 Mar 2010

I don't have a window in my room; certainly not a horizontally hung one. I do have a set of French doors, so if I'm particularly keen to look out at the bottom of a set of stone steps and the garden drain, I can get the portrait equivalent of wide-screen. There's occasionally a squirrel. In fact two at the moment. I think there's a been a bit of a winter truce lately, but that will probably all be over soon. Unless I'm missing an important detail and it's actually a beautiful squirrel romance.

The squirrels around here do have a tendency to be completely mental. I once got menaced by one on the way to Cross Street. It was guarding the gate of the local school as I passed, and I briefly wondered whether I was witnessing a prototype anti-pedophile security measure in reaction to the latest Daily Mail scare stories.

One of the ones in my garden has a little spot on a tree branch about 15 feet up where he sits and emits endless squeals like someone hitting a priest in the face with a squeaky rubber hammer. The patch where he sits is a different colour to the rest of the tree. I don't really want to think about why. Why would you go back and sit there again? I'm never licking a squirrel, and I advise you not to.

The other downside of the French doors is that on a hot summer's night it's not all that simple to open them and let in a little air. if you do you run the risk of an entire menagerie entering the bedroom. Discounting the mosquitoes and moths that wander in in the hope of a new life and a cup of tea, I swear a fox strolled in one night. Either that or it was a fucking big hamster.

I think God owes me a more interesting word next...