I was dropping the Caddy over to Barry last week for a once over. It’s old and motoring hard so I get it checked out every four months, regardless. Passing through Kilnaleck I spotted what I thought was a wild duck sitting in the grass beside the road. I was in a hurry and couldn’t stop, but when Himself picked me up from Barry’s I drove back, and as we approached the duck I swerved in to the grass verge. Himself thought I was losing control and crashing and nearly wet himself as he grabbed the dashboard for dear life. I hopped out and found that the brown birdie was actually a hen pheasant, not a Mallard duck. She was obviously injured, although it didn’t stop her trying to kill me with her beak. Yet another case of no good deed goes unpunished! I plopped her into Himself’s lap for the homeward journey, where needless to say she promptly scuthered all over his leg. There’s a fella down the hill from us who rears pheasants, so I WhatsApped him and said I had a hen pheasant in need of a home. Barney replied saying that he was in the yard if I wanted to drop down. I landed the birdie into a cardboard box and sailed down the hill where I had the most enjoyable hour and a half drinking tea and nattering. It was after a similar gossiping session in 2021 that Barney’s wife Siobhan approached me to see if I’d join the Covid vaccination programme, which resulted in one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had.
