Easter Eggs
This morning in Mrs Blackbird’s nest I spied at least two blue eggs. I peered furtively when she’d hopped off to pick up a sultana or two. She spent all last week building it in a tub of ivy. It’s a metre away from my balcony glass doors so if I turn the tele round she can watch it in bed. I marvelled at her industry. I helped as much as I could by unravelling and cutting up bits of waxed garden twine. First she constructed a mud foundation, on top of this she did basket weaving with twigs and twine, then she carpeted the whole thing in what looks like astroturf. She’s used the back of the tub as an rsj and wedged the whole dwelling into a branch against the wall to keep it secure and out of the wind. Mr Blackbird didn’t lift a beak. Wouldn’t you know it. But today when I went out to try and sweep up he made a noise like a scud missile and dive bombed my ankles. Which is a cheek seeing as how it’s my balcony and my pot and my ivy and my sultanas… It clearly says in my lease that the outside area contiguous to my flat belongs to me. I signed no agreement permitting squatters to set up home and raise a family right in front of my living-room windows.
I can see her sitting out there, in there, now and there’s a hailstorm. I kind of wonder if she’d like me to put a brolly up for her but I have a feeling she’d rather I ignored her completely and just relinquished all territorial rights. I guess I’d better leave her be. You can’t teach a blackbird how to hatch eggs.