Of mercy dashes and illegal avians

"Hi, I'm at the Minor Injuries Unit ..."

Just what every mother wants to hear. The Boy was with his grandmother while Best Beloved did her evening course. He had to feed the neighbour's cats. He managed to break some glass (apparently containing the cat food) and possibly get some inside him. Gran doesn't drive. This was a job for Ben the Vectra Driver! All very stepson/stepfather-bonding. As it was, he was in and out of the Minor Injuries Unit in 10 minutes, a little disappointed (I suspect) that he didn't have a bit of glass in his arm after all. And then off to Scouts - life must go on ...

But this was only my secondary act of mercy yesterday, for earlier Ben the Feather Duster Wielder had taken on a distant descendant of dinosaurs.

It was a bird and it flew in while the front door was open. Don't know what type because I'm not good in that department. It wasn't a robin, blackbird, pigeon, pheasant, chicken, turkey, swan, goose, peacock or penguin - those I would have been able to tell. It was small and brown, and flew up to the top landing and sat there, occasionally cheeping at me.

Pointedly leaving the front door open didn't do the trick, possibly because there were two floors between them. And so I reluctantly went to work with said feather duster (for prodding) and an umbrella (for poo defence). I managed to get it down to my landing, whereupon 60 million years of evolution told it that hiding under the wardrobe that is stacked there during the decorating phase with a lot of other furniture would be a good move. It had cunningly found that you can only get under the wardrobe from behind.

I moved the wardrobe, having first moved all the other furniture to get at it. It then flew back up to the top landing.

We repeated, with variations, for a while. I began to hope it might go under the wardrobe again so I could seal it in and leave it there. The average intelligence of the species would go up slightly. But righteousness finally prevailed and I got it under a laundry basket. Then I could slide a document folder in beneath that, and voila! I had a cage with a bird inside. I took it downstairs and released it, while all the time I could tell it was glaring at me and thinking "if I was still a velociraptor, you would be in such trouble."

On the whole, I prefer mercy dashes to Minor Injuries Units. You get a kiss and a cup of tea after those.