Mice, birds, nests…
I sat at my tiny breakfast bar this morning, eating a banana and gazing absentmindedly through of the French windows at the ripening oranges on the tree outside; the radio talked of rugby and an impending heatwave. It’s been a beautiful morning – clear and blue, smelling of hot dust, old fires and the weekend’s rain.
I have an old string mop propped against the bars of my security grill, and as I watched, four fat birds landed on the bars and started to peck at the string. Mousebirds are comical – they’re fat and fluffy and grey, slightly smaller than pigeons, with bright pink feet, long tail feathers and crested heads. They remind me of pompous, stuffy businessmen, although I can’t imagine why this is the image that I associate with them. There are thousands of them in the oleander bushes and the citrus trees outside my house. At the moment, on a daily basis, they are demolishing my mop for their nests. Not that I mind; I hate string mops – they’re more work than they’re worth.
I’m trying to imagine what a nest made out of an old mop would feel like for all the imminently hatching mousebirdlets. I like to think: comfy.