1 Mo-Vember 2009 (Sunday) - Return to the Duck House

I woke feeling surprisingly chirpy today. I went to bed last night feeling decidedly ill. Not the beer (for once), but I had a temperature, and my tonsils were like tennis balls. I was suspecting I’d finally gone down with swine flu, having caught something dodgy off of someone dodgy at yesterday’s record breaker. But whatever it was is in abeyance (at least for now), so I shall be grateful for small mercies.

Up earlier than I would have hoped on a Sunday morning, but next door’s dogs are noisy. If next door isn’t up and about by 7.30am, their dogs start screaming. They don’t bark, they actually do scream. They made that noise for about forty minutes until someone next door finally shouted at the pups. By which time I was wide awake. Mind you, I don’t really mind the noise. Or that of the piano on the other side. I feel it gives us licence to make as much racket as we like.

Another video of yesterday’s extravaganza has been brought to my attention. You might want to see it here. Dave H appears at one minute twenty two seconds into the clip, and is visible for a good ten seconds– look out for the top hat. Simon, Tina & me can be seen (fleetingly) at one minute forty nine seconds.

Despite the torrential rain, a duck house and a mallard house were ready to be floated, so braving the elements we set off to the farm, loaded up the trailer, and off to the pond we went. The duck house was going into a pond in which there had never been any king of avian residence, so we needed to install a rope arrangement across the pond. There’s only one way to do that, and this year was someone else’s turn to swim the duck pond in November. Me – I just shouted helpful comments and sage advice. The mallard house was (in theory) easier since I’d installed the ropes last year, and all we had to do was put the mallard house on the water, tie it to the rope and pull it across. A shame that I fell in, really….

P.S. - It’s that time of year again when the razor goes into the cupboard for a month. Charity moustache growing is the order of the day. Or month. This year I’ve decided to go for the full beard. I know that’s not in the rules for Mo-Vember, but I’m claiming some poetic licence. Feel free to sponsor the thing by clicking here. And should any of my loyal readers click on the link, they will be forgiven for wondering who “t Styles” is. The Mo-Vember website isn’t what it was last year. It’s lost all my details from last time, but recognises the email address I used and won’t let me use it again. Then the re-registering thing kept crashing, so after an hour’s struggling only to end up as “t Styles” I thought I’d cut my losses and make the most of what it would allow me to do. So hand over your cash, or start growing your own moustache, or both….