Heres looking at you!

I had the day off work today as man flu had rendered me incapable of sitting in an office and looking at a PC screen so I took the sensible option and lay in bed feeling sorry for myself. That was until I remembered there were over 70 odd (some very odd, see above) animals waiting impatiently around the smallholding, each dependent on my bucket carrying ability for their calorific intake. So I manned up, donned a favourite woolly pulley and sloshed around in the mud and rain dropping off food parcels to the impatient horde.

By the time I had finished my head was pounding so hard and fast it could have been used as a bass line by Metallica.

I lay on the bed wishing Tracey was here to mop my fevered brow and sincerely wishing I had not spent so much of my previous life at Heavy Metal gigs standing by the bass bins soaking up the decibels that has given me a permanent whistling in my ears. This varies from time to time from a slight high pitched whistle to the dull roar of a jet engine. I pulled the pillow over my head, the roar was too loud to sleep, I pressed the pillow tighter and groaned. The noise was getting louder.

And louder. A noise that was akin to a hoover sucking up gravel being thrown downstairs attached to a pig. This was a new one. It was very loud. I sat up. Even with the pillow attached I was able to ascertain the decibels were external not internal. I stood at the window and leant out.

A very nice man, called Steve (obviously) in an extremely large tractor had reversed up our lane and was in the process of cutting the hedge with a flail trimmer. I had asked him to come and do it several weeks ago but had thought he had forgotten about it. It was a nice surprise to see him. Equally I feel he was surprised to see me which probably explains the sudden dip in the hedgeline opposite the cottage, probably caused by a momentary lapse of concentration after the sudden appearance of a half naked fat bloke clutching soft furnishings to his ears at the window.