Dry January? Let's Try Pigeon-Toed instead

I went out to look for what I thought must be - judging from its tracks in the snow - a one-legged pigeon. Or at least a hopping pigeon, with an injured foot too painful to walk on.

After a few minutes, I clicked that pigeons walk...er...clue's in the description...pigeon-toed. Which is what this two-legged pigeon must have been doing, in semi-circles on the paving slabs near the incinerator bin.

On the other hand, everything on the apple tree this morning was still. The white cat watching me. The crows in the higher branches. The blackbirds beside their respective apples.

The two apples, on different branches, have their flesh exposed. I've seen the blackbirds return day by day to convulsively munch their way through them. Whereas today, the birds were just sitting, looking at things, listening for things, being.

Because that's what nature decrees for this time of the year. She isn't running on our calendar. She's still, sullen, cold, inner, waiting to start her somethings in spring.

Post New Year we're compelled to join diet clubs, the gym; to volunteer - a friend recently described her day, 'Spin class, two hours in Oxfam, Palestinian Protestors for brunch, pantomime matinee.'

It's yet again trying to get that spring in our step when there would naturally at most be a shuffle.

Pigeon-toed, possibly.

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