Dizzojay's Dean Dreams

These last few days have really shown off the vagaries of the British weather,

The last two days have been blistering hot; so hot I've barely had the energy to think, never mind move.  And tonight I'm sitting indoors in my cardigan!!

But as luck had it, over the two hot days Mr D and I both had the time off, so we spent most of the days out in the garden, which has been absolutely lovely.


Mr D spent the days working on a neighbour's bike and I was finishing off my Summergen fic.

Mr D learned an important lesson about wiping sweat off your face after you've just been doing an extremely greasy and messy bike chain repair:



He said he thought it made him look like he was on recon in 'Nam...



I think it just made him look like a twit!

As we sat and relaxed, we were also enjoying the wildlife that we encourage into our garden.  We have a healthy (and very noisy) group of Jackdaws (or a 'clattering' of Jackdaws to use their proper collective noun.  We also have a mummy sparrow and her very demanding/noisy fledgeling, a couple of robins, a pair of wood pigeons that nest in our big silver birch tree and a squirrel that pops in occasionally when the pickings are good enough.

We also have a pair of red Kites and a pair of Buzzards nesting in some nearby woodland, and every now and again we have the privilege of seeing them soaring overhead from time to time.

We also have the fish in our little pond who are cute and entertaining in their own fishy ittle way.

Over the years, we've developed funny little pet names for all the much-loved visitors and residents in our garden.  Anyone listening to us talking would think we're speaking a different language!  So just for entertainment, here is a brief guide to conversational garden-speak in the Dizzo household:

Birds (generally): Num nums (from a phrase 'birdie num nums' in the Peter Sellars film, the Party)
Pigeons: Pidge podge (sometimes also known as 'fat git', especially when they land on the fence with all the delicacy of a double-decker bus.)
Robin: robin bobbin
Baby sparrow: little fledge
Jackdaws: the hooligans
Squirrel: Scrat
The fish: (collectively): the Gonkies.  This just kind of evolved over the years on the basis that 'gonk' is a very mild and usually quite affectionate insult here in the UK.  I suppose you could say it's a nickname for them!
The mealworms we feed the birds: squiddly diddlies
Random insects: beedlebugs

So, if you didn't already suspect we were totally an utterly barkingly bonkers - here's the proof!