The Dilemma.

This pheasant issue really is a problem, you know. I watched him walk slowly across the lane this morning, and I was immediately concerned that he might get run over. But then I heard his thought processes, which went something like:

‘OK, OK, you win. I’ll be off now to die quietly of cold and starvation, alone and unloved, in that dreary, windswept field over there. The one with snow on it. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

If only he would talk to me and we could make a deal:

‘How about I put two handfuls of oats and two handfuls of seed down behind the bottom hedge every morning? Would you leave the bird feeders alone then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

As it is, if I don’t keep chasing him off, there are fifty or sixty garden birds – which are more susceptible to cold owing to their size – which will go hungry instead. So what am I to do?

His life is harder than mine; mine is more complex. Which is worse?