Sheer Meanness

I dreamed it was WWII and we were fighting the Russians so I suppose we must have been nazis. We'd captured a monument- decorated with huge murals and statues glorifying the victory of the proletariat- the work of one of Russia's greatest artists. It had no strategic value- so when we started destroying it we were acting out of sheer meanness. The statues were made of some pliable, stretchable material. I took the craggy head of a Soviet hero in my hands and twisted it back so that- if it had been a living creature- I would have broken its neck...

Nesting

Ailz cuts my hair, I cut Ailz's, then I sweep the clippings up and put them down the bottom of the garden for the use of nesting birds.

There's a lot of nesting going on round here. The seagull who has adopted us- and swoops down on me when I'm putting out leftovers- and chases away any other gulls who challenge its hegemony- is nesting on a neighbour's chimney stack. We watched it the other day as it came and went with beakfuls of building material, while its mate, perched on one of the four chimney pots, kept watch. We think it may be getting its twigs and grasses from the recycling centre. There's a sparrow who I've twice spotted sourcing fluffy little white feathers from our garden. Who is dropping them? Could be the gulls, could be the pigeons. There are five pigeons who hang out on the roof and come- as a group- to eat the seed I scatter on the path. The sparrows are suddenly all over the shop. One of the gardens that backs onto ours has a pergola with climbing plants- and I think that's where they're nesting.