Bird Cottage

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Jacob flies swiftly into the house, calls to me, and then immediately flies out again. He rarely makes a fuss about things, and never flies very far from the nest once his babies have hatched. He usually visits the bird table a few times in the morning, and then stays close to the wooden nesting box on the birch tree. He is a placid bird, large for a Great Tit, and a good father.

I follow him out of doors and hear the machine even before I’ve left the garden. I run clumsily on clogs that almost slip off my feet. No. This can’t be happening. Not that hedge. Not in the springtime. But a stocky man is trimming the hedge with one of those electric hedge-cutter things. He can’t hear me through the racket. I squeeze between the hedge and the machine. The noise drowns out everything, crashing in waves over me, boring through my body.

It gives him a shock to see me there, suddenly in front of him. He switches the thing off and removes his ear-protectors. “What’s up, missus?”

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