Corinna Downes spent much of her life as a headmaster's secretary and full time mother, bringing up her two daughters. Then she met the director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, and her world was never the same again.
Further
to my last diatribe with reference to the kitchen bin, I can now reveal the
culprit (s). It is 4.00 am and allisquietin the house,nota creature isstirring,not even a mouse. Not in the kitchen anyway,
until – that is – Morticia appears on
an evening pad around the joint. Completely ignoring the bin at first, she is
soon back to remove a scrunched up kitchen towel, then back for something else,
and then on the third not-so-delicate pick, down the bin goes.
But she doesn’t do much after that except for
investigating the folded up empty fish and chip box.Then into shot comes Lilith.Hmm has this whole exercise merely been a
training session for Lilith to learn how to hunt kitchen bins? Nearly an hour
later Lilith appears slightly bored and wanders off, but comes back, listens to
a few more instructions on disembowelling methods, and then disappears again.
But
that seems to have been that – Morticia merely felled the bin and then just
kept sniffing around it on and off until 5.31 am, perhaps with the occasional
lick of an empty sachet of cat food here and there.Nothing occurred then until Morticia returned
at 7.30 am, to take a couple of cursory sniffs and then leave again.
So how did the contents of the defenceless plastic receptacle end up strewn across the kitchen floor? Move forward to 8.20 am, and in comes Archie. You can almost sense his excitement when he sees the felled beast. He does not waste too much time before getting to grips with the contents and out they come.
And
that is how the contents of the bin’s bowels ended up as a project of modern
art in a sleepy North Devon village.
PS: All precautions have now been taken to secure the safety of the bin and its inner
depths. A chair was placed against it
last night and one will continue to be
put there at night in the forthcoming future.
It looks like there are not only
two felines here that are possible ASBO material
after all.
PPS:
And it has since transpired that Morticia is a well-known felon and certainly
not new to this kind of crime. I have it
on good authority that the bin at her previous abode suffered similar indignities.
I have never been a fan of modern
art; unmade beds or a half-open, half-eaten can of baked beans in the middle of an empty
room, with one sticky bean 'artistically' left where it dribbled down the side of the can to stick itself on the floor, don’t really rock my boat. However,
as can be seen from the photos, it does appear that we have an exponent of such
artistic ‘talent’ here. Yes right here, in a kitchen in deepest, darkest North
Devon.
Whodunnit? Well I do not believe for one minute that it
was one of our resident ghosts. So there
are three humans, four cats, and two dogs that are in the running. We know that it was not Poppy McGregor, my
cat of aged years, who likes nothing more than to sleep and then pop outside
for a natural break and sniff round her ‘hood. We know that it was not Prudence
the dog, because she was on our bed, and although she came downstairs at one
point in a huff (apparently she tried to boot Jon out of bed and went off in a
sulk when he chastised her for her impudence) she soon returned when thunder
rumbled in the distance.
So we are down to six possible
offenders:
Jon – nope he was fast asleep and
away with the faeries. He didn’t even hear the dogs barking, a foot away from
him, at the thunder
Me – well you know I am not a fan
of such art so why would I?
Graham - well he has been known to take odd photographs of things in the past, like chairs in the middle of a room, or drainpipes. These oddities, I must add, usually taken when he is supposed to be taking photographs of speakers, for example, at the Weird Weekend
The ginger kitten, Captain Frunobulax the Magnificent (aka
Peanut) – quite possible due to him being ASBO material
Lilith Tinkerbell the black
kitten – quite possible due to her also being ASBO material and being the sister of the
Captain
Morticia, Olivia’s black cat – a bit
of a quiet one and we all know they are always the worst
Archimedes Archibald the Archimandrite of Joppa (Archie for short) the
Jack Russell – the new boy in the ‘hood
Now, it is quite possible that
the two kittens could have ganged up together as they do tend to hang around in
a pair menacingly, flattening everything in sight, and then chilling as if
butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths like two spotty-faced kids around a bus shelter plotting their next act
of defiance against the system. However,
I do have to admit to have witnessed the bin going down under attack from one
of them in the past. But that was before
I was alerted to the bin’s vulnerability and began to wedge it under the
counter.
So who has the crowbar and the
weight behind them to un-wedge the defenceless receptacle?
Let us look at the psychological
profiles of the two remaining suspects:
Morticia: As I have already stated, she is the quiet
one. She stalks around the house like a black panther (no such thing? I beg to
differ – she is one). She has this ability to remain unseen while I
frantically search behind curtains, under beds and in cupboards in a bid to
check that she has not managed, somehow, to escape the house. Then she will arrive downstairs with her yellow eyes glinting at her own cleverness at hiding and relishing in her own impudence for ignoring my calls for her.
Being a black cat she is adept at putting the shadows and darkest
recesses to good use.
Archie: The new boy. Well his background his hazy. There is not much information on him to form
a satisfactory profile. We have given him a home due to him being under unavoidable duress at his last abode. However, he was definitely
upstairs with us, at least until I went to sleep. But he is a dog, and dogs are
always on the look out for a free scavenge (and some do have a penchant for bins as we all know). And he did bark at Poppy this morning - was this an admission of guilt? Was he scared she was going to dob him in?
So, readers, who is the perpetrator? I think I know who the guilty party is. If only I could speak ‘cat’ as Poppy may well have witnessed it all and I have a feeling she would be quite happy to squeal
on the offender (or offenders). On the
other hand, she was probably also away with the faeries and missed the whole
messy project as it formed itself on the floor around her.
Poppy: Fetch me Dr. Dolittle and I shall reveal all
Where is Hercule Poirot when you need him? Probably off on some cruise down the Nile I expect. I think, therefore, that this may be a job for our very own spymaster and sleuth, Graham. Tonight, I shall ask him to open his special box of tricks. A box containing, amongst other things, cans of lager, rollie dog-ends, the occasional mug growing its own special culture, and…hopefully …a trail camera. If all goes well, tomorrow we may have our culprit (or culprits).
So, with our Gonzo Multimedia hats on, we (Jon, young Jessica and I) were off to Kent to film Judy Dyble and others at the SOL festival, visit CJ Stone in Whitstable and then visit Mick Farren of The Deviants in Brighton on our way home. What started out as an adventure turned into a freaky episode of peculiarities, culminating in a very sad return journey.
There were so many odd occurrences that they cannot go by without a mention. Jess certainly had a baptism of oddities during this, her first, trip away with 'uncle and aunt'. She seemed to enjoy herself and we hope that any future trip she may accompany us on will be a little less full of such strangeness. She is great company, as are all of her family, and we hope she would like come with us again some time. Thanks Jess, you were a star.
Frustrating hitch number one: Jon wanted to try to get a replacement watch – but the shop in Bideford no longer sold them. Well it did, but for some odd reason it only sold ladies’ watches. Go figure.
Frustrating hitches numbers two, three, four…..ten: Then came some of those odd, unexplained stop-start traffic incidents – caused, presumably, purely by the sheer volume of traffic, with the M25 doing a perfect impersonation of a car park at Christmas time.
Frustrating hitch number eleven (although it was probably actually somewhere between four and eight): Well not really a frustrating hitch. Just one of those Jonathan moments – a bit like one of those old Fry’s Turkish Delight moments but with no Turkish Delight, seductive music, or desert scene. In fact, nothing like one of those moments, and I have no idea at all why Fry’s Turkish Delight popped into my head.
But whilst on the subject, and for those who don’t remember, or have never seen, that iconic advert of the ‘80s here it is:
Anyway, we were stop/starting over Salisbury Plain and asked Jess whether she had seen Stonehenge ‘in the flesh’ before. She hadn’t. So Jon explained that we would be passing by said monument very soon and that she should have her camera-phone at the ready. ‘Just after this hut’, he said confidently. Hmmm nope. ‘Sorry, I always get confused when it will actually appear,’ he explained. ‘Okay’, said Jess. ‘Actually I don’t think we will be passing it at all to be honest,’ continues Jon later. ‘Sorry’. ‘That’s a shame, never mind,’ says Jess, putting away her mobile. Stop/start. (I am so glad our car is automatic at times like this). ‘You know, I think we will pass it,’ announced Jon confidently. This will we/won’t we scenario continued along the A303; Jess remaining outstandingly unfazed by Jon’s long-drawn-out senior moment. However, you will all be pleased – and relieved – to know that we DID pass Stonehenge and Jess DID get her picture after all. Phew.
Frustrating hitch number twelve: Arriving at the festival, we discovered that the other act we were supposed to film had kindly gone on a couple of hours earlier, because those who had supposed to have gone on a couple of hours earlier had ‘phoned in to say that their transport had broken down. So, basically, we missed who we had supposed to be filming because when we arrived the people who had supposed to be on two hours earlier were actually on then, having managed to get their transport working again.
Frustrating hitch number thirteen: We mustn’t forget the ambiguous travel directions to our hostelry which caused our cranky sat nav to take us around the back-streets of Bexhill-on-Sea and to keep telling us that we had reached our destination, although eventually we found our actual destination about half-a-mile away. Then there was the missing key to our room facilitating the need for the inn-keeper having to be asked to lock the door for us after we had left each day. I am not sure how it would have worked if we had not returned before closing time on the Saturday, for although we had a key to the hotel back entrance, we would quite possible have had to bunk down in the corridor.
Frustrating hitch number fourteen: We had booked the hotel rooms online just like we always do. When we eventually got there we found that although they had taken the card details, these were just required to secure the booking. So instead of what we had thought was a good idea, thus avoiding the need of claiming back the expenses with Gonzo having paid for the booking, we ended up having to pay them anyway.
Frustrating hitch number fifteen: Then came the beer and oyster festival at Whitstable (plus road-closing carnival) followed by thunder, lightning and heavy rain drenching hundreds of festival-goers (plus us non-festival goers) and pubs being so full they looked like enormous cans of sardines. Then there was Jon trying to hold a ‘business meeting’ amongst the loud ‘chatter’ of revellers.
However, this frustrating hitch did give me the best seat in town to be able to watch the antics of one particular drunken attendee who was outside in the pouring rain as he stood in the road, stopped traffic and mooned splendidly at all and sundry, before intermittently gesticulating and then throwing himself on a bollard. Wow they make bollards of bendy plastic now – that’s brilliant. I know this because when he stood to pull up his trousers over his lightning-lit posterior cheeks, it bounced back up again. Amazing. They should get some of those in children’s playgrounds. It would give them practice for any future exploits they may undertake in those odd years of youth that would probably have - once upon a time - involved the beating of chests, body painting with woad or some other ancient ceremony that cannot be performed these days due to health and safety, or just simply because we have evolved a bit since then and are supposedly civilised. However, the painting of woad does still appeal to me on occasions. I am quite often impelled to daub myself, fling my quiver over my shoulder and take up my long bow, and a sword, and cause havoc in Barnstaple High Street or on one of those trains that are transporting that other group of ceremonialists – the football supporters.
I understand that new grandpa (or whatever he is to be called; granddad, grampy, grumps or even just plain Your Royal Highness, granddad sir) Prince Charles, is supposed to be visiting Whitstable Oyster Festival today (Monday). I hope Mr. Moonie is either still suffering from one-helluva hangover and is hibernating in his bed, or that he at least keeps his trousers on for such an auspicious occasion.
Frustrating hitch number sixteen: During the festival Jess and I somehow started discussing milk shakes and both then yearned for a McDonald’s milkshake (because they do make exceedingly good shakes). This was sometime during the afternoon of Saturday. So for the rest of our stay at the festival and the journey to Whitstable and back, it was at the forefront of our minds. Could we find a McDonald’s on the way back to Bexhill-on-Sea? You bet your posterior cheeks we couldn’t. So it seemed that the yearning on the 80-odd mile round trip was going to prove insatiable. Until, that is, we stopped at a garage shop not far from the hotel to buy some sandwiches etc., and a quick enquiry revealed that there was a McDonalds on our way back to the hotel. We found it. We were excited. It had a drive-through. And it was OPEN. Huzzah! Somehow, not one of us had noticed this establishment on the other two occasions we had passed it. But to be fair I think we were all side-tracked by the sight of the Big Top that had been erected in a ‘field’ opposite. Well I wasn’t that side-tracked of course, because I was the driver and had my eyes firmly fixed on the road, and after driving for so long I was firmly glued to my seat, with hands firmly wrapped around the steering wheel (basically set in that position) and staring out of the windscreen.
‘To McDonalds and milkshake,’ we cried. We didn’t really cry that at all, but that rousing untruth does add a little je ne sais quoi to the situation. After tackling the mini roundabout that had been placed so you couldn’t actually drive all the way around it in one go, facilitating a dodgy three-point turn, I then promptly drove right past the ordering station – you know, the metal thing that speaks to you. As I crawled along I heard the muffled, ‘Can I have your order please?’ as the sound trailed off behind me. Realising my mistake, and reversing back, I said something along the lines of: “Oh, I am sorry. I drove right past you then” – admittedly in a rather Joyce Grenfell, and ever-so-slightly vacant, way - at which point Jon started laughing. Anyone who knows the sound of Jon’s laughter will know it is not a stifled giggle, or a gentlemanly guffaw, but more of a raucous cacophony of belly laughs that echo around the area like ricocheting rubber bullets. At this point young Jessica started laughing and I was left to implore them both to shush whilst I started to give our meagre order. This shushing task I singularly failed to fulfil and had to shout down the thing, ‘One banana and one strawberry milkshake please!’ Fine… I had gotten the order out. But then came the reply ‘I’m afraid we have no milkshakes,’ at which point we all started laughing. The guy on the other end apologised profusely, and after saying, ‘Okay, never mind. Thanks’, I drove off. I didn’t notice, but apparently the guy gave us a really odd look as we crawled passed the window. Slightly confused, I then asked why Jon had laughed, and he replied that when I had explained (albeit unnecessarily I have to admit, but I put it down to a manic state of mind on actually finding a McDonalds after all that time) down the speaker that I had driven passed, it had sounded as if I was stoned.
Frustrating hitch number whatever it was: We thought we would take Jess on a shortish trip to Beachy Head, but the road was closed due to yet another annual event. However, we did manage to see a very large white horse and a giant....etched into hillsides I must add before you begin to wonder whether I was actually stoned after all.
There were other irritations too, for example: a) whilst there were coffee and tea facilities in the room, there were none of those handy little milk cartons/tubes, b) there were no instructions on how to work the shower nor was there any mention of having to flick a switch on, located high up on the outside of the bathroom in order to get aforementioned gadget to work, c) we realised at 9.55 am that we had to be out of the room by 10.00 am avoiding the necessity to pay for an extra day. This information, of course, causing a mild panic as Jon was still IN bed and I was still faffing around in my undergarments.
None of these peculiar and frustrating occurrences mean diddly-squat though. They were purely that – peculiar and frustrating, and part of the rich-tapestry of life; little things that just happened to occur all on the same weekend rather than being spread out. When Jon attempted to contact Mick Farren to confirm that our visit to see him at home in Brighton was still okay, the news that unfolded of his collapse on stage the previous night, and his resulting passing deeply shocked and saddened us all. Both Jess and I had been looking forward to meeting him for the first time, after hearing from Jon what a great guy he was.
Every Wednesday you will find me driving to
Barnstaple for an appointment. I leave the
house at 8.15 – 8.30 in the morning to be there for 9.30. Anyone who knows me really well, will realise
that this is not necessarily as easy as it may sound especially when you take
into account that I used to be ‘up with the lark’ every day for countless years
in order to gather up the sleepy daughters from their beds to get them to
school, and then get myself to work for an 8.30 start. However, since moving to
Devon my hours have changed dramatically and I now find myself working quite
often until midnight or 1 or 2 in the morning.
Combine that with my daily medication and problem of not being able to
shut down my brain for the day, bed is not an option until my eyes are literally
shutting before I even attempt to take myself upstairs at night. Hence it means that the lark has been singing
his/her heart out for many hours before I rise from my bed, so basically that
means that a 7.30 am start is more than difficult for me. I usually nap downstairs in the chair on the
evening before my appointment to make sure that I am present and correct for
such an ‘early’ start.
But why am I writing all this? It is actually not pertinent to the point
with regard to the incident that occurred two days ago on my weekly run, but I thought I
would just mention it. I had to stop off
for petrol in Bideford on the way – the easiest option being to divert to the
garage which, although more expensive, is more convenient to get to than
Morrison’s first thing in the morning.
Leaving the main road for habitation, and remembering to keep to the 30
mph speed limit, I found myself approaching a group of birds that had gathered
in the left hand lane and the middle of
the road to dine on something that was laying across the white lines. I have no idea whether it was roadkill, a
sandwich, or something the refuse collectors had left behind, but there was a
group of around 5 crows and a young seagull tucking in. As is often the case these days, the driver
behind me was acting as if they were trying to see what was in my boot and I
was conscious of the fact that if I had to perform an emergency stop for any
reason that they would probably end up actually in the boot of my car, so I found myself in a rather precarious
situation. If these birds did not move –
as their actions seemed to indicate – I would, quite literally, be placed in a life or death
situation.
Then the crows saw sense, and
decided to leave and flew to the sides of the road to await their next
opportunity. The young seagull, however,
decided that it was going to take advantage of this and stayed firmly put to
get a greater helping of the spoils, eyeing my approaching vehicle with disdain
as it continued to tuck in. I could
swear that the crow on the right hand verge was flapping up and down and
calling to the insolent, death-defying youngster to try to get it to move. Anyway, it remained firmly where it was so I
had to slow down without causing tail-gait Charlie to slam into me, and swerved
to the left. I think it was then that the bird flew off – at any rate on my
return journey past the spot after visiting the petrol station, there was no
sign of anything nasty having happened, so I can only presume it had flown to safety. I had always thought that seagulls had better
sense, but this one at least seemed to possess the same lack of intelligence
(or is it just plain ignorance?) in recognising the danger of us humans and our
metal boxes, as do pigeons and pheasants.
I was then treated to the sound of various
seagulls seemingly swearing at me all the time I was at my appointment in
Barnstaple. Or perhaps they were just
thanking me….I would like to think the latter under the circumstances.
But
that seems to have been that – Morticia merely felled the bin and then just
kept sniffing around it on and off until 5.31 am, perhaps with the occasional
lick of an empty sachet of cat food here and there. Nothing occurred then until Morticia returned
at 7.30 am, to take a couple of cursory sniffs and then leave again. 
So how did the contents of the defenceless plastic receptacle end up strewn across the kitchen floor? Move forward to 8.20 am, and in comes Archie. You can almost sense his excitement when he sees the felled beast. He does not waste too much time before getting to grips with the contents and out they come.
And
that is how the contents of the bin’s bowels ended up as a project of modern
art in a sleepy 
PS: All precautions have now been taken to secure the safety of the bin and its inner
depths. A chair was placed against it
last night and one will continue to be
put there at night in the forthcoming future.
It looks like there are not only
two felines here that are possible ASBO material
after all. 
