Gradually, Ian washed his hands of that house and by default Shirley and I ended up as a landlord and landlady - not something we had ever wanted. We used savings to pay off the mortgage and for the past seven years we have rented the house out to strangers.
When Ian lived there I used to cut the privet hedge at the back and mow the little lawn. This carried on right through to 2017 when the current tenants moved in. He is a Canadian academic working at The University of Sheffield and she is amongst other things a translator, specialising in Spanish.
When they moved in, I told them about the previous gardening and hedge-trimming arrangements but Dr Maple-Leaf said that he would be happy to do it all himself. Oh yeah! Right.
It is amazing how big a privet hedge can grow in five and a half years. Today, Shirley and I went over to the house to trim that hedge right back following a plea from Dr Maple-Leaf.
We took over everything we would need - including stepladders, sweeping brush and big heavy duty builders' bags for carting the massive pile of trimmings to the nearest recycling centre (i.e. council dump!).
It was a hot morning but we soon got stuck into the job and all was going well until I came across a robin's nest on the higher part of the now twelve foot hedge. It contained four bright blue eggs and later I spotted the mama robin hopping around. Naturally, my work on that part of the hedge ceased and I moved along. Then three feet later I discovered another nest containing three or four hatchlings - baby wood pigeons with their eyes still closed but they were squirming around in their downy birthplace.
I left that area of the hedge and moved to the very end where I discovered a third nest. I don't know what was in there for I could not see in and it might have been an old nest but I left it all the same. That was three nests in a hedge that is only twelve feet long.!
We gathered all the hedge trimmings, squashing them into the builders' bags and headed off to the recycling centre. They pretty much filled the back of Clint - my South Korean automobile. He was none too happy about being used as a refuse vehicle.
I was determined to get that job done today but it remains only half-finished because of the nests. We will have to go back in a couple of weeks to try again. Meantime we hope the birds succeed in raising their young in spite of our unwelcome disturbance.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/HyKpwWf
