Two of My Favourite Things…but I’m not happy!

In front of me are a few items that have made it to my desk: a baseball, a rubber egg, a pile of old car tax discs, a Union Jack, three small champagne candles, a small clay pipe, and a photo of my daughters.

All these things carry associations that represent their true value to me, like Oscars for Oscar-winning performances. This post, however, concerns two of my favourite things at loggerheads with each other. One is threatening to evict the other, whilst the other claims to hold the moral high ground, heels firmly dug in.

I’m talking about (i) a log burner, and (ii) jackdaws.

I can’t remember when my love of jackdaws settled in my thoughts. Maybe a long-forgotten story from childhood, but through all the years in Kent, Exeter, then Bristol, I rarely, if ever, saw a jackdaw. Having recently moved to lovely Winscombe, I can’t say I’m tripping over jackdaws, but I do see some every day. And it makes me ridiculously happy.

Alongside jackdaws in the corvid family also lie crows and rooks. Fascinating as these clever birds are, it is the jackdaw that has lodged itself deeply in my affections.

The problem is that they are equally deeply lodged in the chimney; a nest of noisy Jackdaw chicks keeping their parents busy. Am I happy about this?

The truth is I’m torn.

My lounge has now become the dumping ground for large coils of elephant trunk-like chimney lining and a log-burner that can’t be installed pending the fledgling of all the young jacks…which could take over a month from now.

My other favourite thing is, of course, the log burner; a multifuel burner which has in-built ‘diversification’ wisdom…in case gas becomes hyper-expensive. I can incinerate just about anything and stave off hypothermia, but that’s not why it’s on my favourite’s list. I find that, even amongst avid environmentalists such as I, we all relish a ‘proper fire’. Who gathers round a pilot light in a boiler to watch the paltry flame? No one. We all like the combination of flickering flames, direct heat, crackling of burning wood, pulling the handle to open the grate, and feeding the flames with fresh wood.

So, I will have to just sit it out. The Jackdaws have legal protection and are staging a noisy sit-in. and the log-burner will have to learn the art of patience.

As will I.