Swapping Cars, Dentists, & Baby Birds

I may or may not have mentioned in my last blog post that my car’s MOT was due. Well, as per usual, Pretty failed it. Sad times. She didn’t fail on much, but it was the fact that she failed on rust that has encouraged me simply to get rid of her. As Howard Bear pointed out, once I start paying for one lot of rust it will just continue.

Of course, this means it’s time to get a new run around. So I should probably introduce Alba the Almera, who is getting picked up tomorrow night.

Isn’t she quite pretty? She’s got a bit of a bigger engine so she’s a bit more costly on the tax and insurance front, but she’s also a bit roomier, which might be nice for future plans.

I’m hoping I get to keep Alba for a while, if I can.

Naturally, I’m now pretty strapped for cash. That means that I’ll have to be careful on expenditures the next few weeks until I build back up the buffer in my account. Today has been the day for these expenses and sorting almost everything in regards to the new motor.

It was also a day for going to the dentist – one of my favourite things to do, as you know…

I had a filling replaced. Joy of joys. At one point he tightened something around my tooth and I thought he was just going to yank the whole thing out using brute force. I’m not exactly the best dentistry patient at the best of times, but that was pretty much the worst moment for me.

Please don’t anyone use that against me in some Kathy Bates style horror scene.

And then I got back home to find a certain little monster had raided a sparrow nest.

But did he do it just the once? Oh no. Of course not. So I ended up with two dead baby sparrows on my doorstep.

Lovely.

And yet he somehow manages to look handsome and innocent on the above picture. Naughty little cat he is. But, of course, he didn’t stop with just two birds. No, he brought a third.

However, the third one was miraculously alive and, when Barley was trying to run away with it, he dropped it. Of course, he’d plundered them from their nest ridiculously early so the poor creature he dropped was featherless and couldn’t even open its eyes yet.

Here are pictures of Beaky the sparrow baby:

I tried to keep him warm with a microwaveable hand warmer and was feeding him wet cat food off a cotton q-tip, but little Beaky needs to be fed almost constantly to help him grow. I can’t be around to do that. Then there’s the fact that I have two cats who would be pretty interested in him.

So, I definitely couldn’t keep Beaky.

As such, I called my local Pets At Home store & was given the number of a local man who looks after wildlife. When I called him it turned out that he lived just up the road – nice to learn in case I need to send any more baby birdies his way courtesy of Barley. Beaky is now with this man who assured me he’d put him in an incubator and look after him for me.

Sadly, Barley went back to the nest and destroyed another of the sparrow’s little nestlings. Poor things. At least one of their babies is going to survive – even if they probably won’t see him again.

Thus, today has been a damn well eventful day. I’m hoping that tomorrow will be slightly less eventful and therefore allow me to get Forgiving Zander finished.

| [Did you enjoy this post?] |
| [Why not leave a comment or check out my books?] |