GULLS ON TOP

It's that time of year again, and we have at least one herring gull chick on our chimney stack constantly "peeping" at 5-second intervals. I really hope we don't have a repetition of last year's (and another earlier year) bird-down-chimney disaster and subsequent fly plague. It's awful because the gas fires are all cemented in and even if we knew when it happened we couldn't do anything without demolishing the fireplaces. The flies seem to find a way out, though. We really need cowls or cages over the chimney pots but our house is three storeys and we have to have scaffolding for any work to be done on the roof. However, it's possible we may be moving on before too long so may not have to face the dilemma again.