war zone

There’s a new kid on the block.  We call him The Squirrel.  Actually we call him much worse than that, but this is a family friendly site.

When Dan came back from India, he brought us some Tibetan prayer flags.  We hung them from an old dead Birch tree in the garden to cheer it up a bit.  

It gave us much pleasure.  Folks passing by on the canal would look up from their tillers, or pints of beer (or both) and point out the flags fluttering in the breeze to their passengers.  

The local wildlife that visits our garden from time to time - birds, squirrels, the odd rat, would  happily hop or scramble along the fence and up the tree, completely ignoring the colourful flapping.

I take from this, that these creatures must have some sort of Buddhist sympathies.  They may not be aware of it, but it’s there I’m sure.  Indeed birds often sit on our statue of Buddha and anoint him in the time honoured fashion.

But now we have a new visitor to the garden who clearly has no truck with Eastern philosophies.  Or Spring bulbs for that matter.  Having ensured that we will not see any Tulips in the coming months, he’s turned his attention to the flags.

Twice he’s tried to chew through the string that holds them in place - each time we’ve fooled him with more sophisticated fastenings - but this time he’s beaten us.  The tree is bare as flags lay strewn across the garden. 

We’re licking our wounds, while wondering what do next to beat him.  He’s probably licking a Tulip bulb and wondering how to reduce our house to rubble.