Shut those land foghorns up

Hi, grumpy Karen here and I’d like to speak to the manager of who the hell thought it would be acceptable to bring those feathered nightmares masquerading as land foghorns, aka peacocks.

Seriously.

Do not misunderstand me, it is a glorious fowl during the day with its iridescent plumage and to see a creature of its size flying is a simply magnificent sight.

However, when the two peacocks in my valley begin duelling for the attention of however many peahens may be between Johannesburg and what feels like Cape Town, one is less inclined to think of them favourably, and even less so of their owners.

In a job that runs from 8am to 10pm and with kidneys whose sole function is to break my sleep every two hours as they work overtime to expel the water I consume to prevent another bout of kidney stones, I don’t need help not sleeping, thank you very much.

There are also the late night messages from the various WhatsApp groups updating the news of the day so all in all, one’s sleep is quite fractured. Yes, the phone is on silent vibrate, but it also lives next to my bed so I can respond if there’s an actual emergency.

I do understand the need for bringing a little beauty into our surrounds but, seriously, I know a guy who turns wire and beads into a beautiful near life-size replica. And it’s quiet, doesn’t need feeding and think of all the fun you can have running around the garden with one under each arm making its eardrum shattering call, WAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

You could buy a dozen, have your own flock and when you shuffle off this mortal coil, pass them on as family heirlooms with eccentric instructions like Pearl needs to be under the eaves at night and don’t break the flock up, and Mike only eats sunflower seeds….

Seriously. Hadidas are bad enough.

Every Sunday afternoon, our Harold the hadida and his wife Penelope (Harold has a string tied around his foot but he’s too wily for us to catch, although he seems to be alright) will sit on our grudge roof and yell at the cats to move.

Except, of course, my orange boy Tigger is too fat, old, and lazy to give a rat’s ass and Cinnamon, our Scottish Fold, is too… well I don’t know if he doesn’t care or is too dim. We’ve had to stop
him hunting a couple of times – his breed’s large eyes make far too easy a target for Harold’s scimitar beak.

The big problem with Harold and Penelope shouting at the cats to move is one is oft flat out sleeping on the couch and it’s such a joy to be woken by yet another raucous connoisseur of racket – again.

It means coercing frozen knee joints back into action, bribing the cats inside with treats and then hoping the hadidas will come down and take care of any Parktown prawns lurking to kill me in my sleep.

Anyway, back to the fouls from hell (see what I did there?). You bought ’em, you own ’em, take them inside and let them squawk to their hearts content – and for the love of humanity give those
of us who need it a chance to wake up a little later than sparrow fart.

Seriously.

Amanda Watson.

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