Cloudbursts, Creatures and Compliments.

We had monsoon conditions for a short while in Ashbourne today – hot air, torrential rain, and a very loud thunderstorm going on directly overhead. Only two of us seemed concerned, and we were both worried about our gardens being flattened. Nobody else turned a hair, and the anticipated appearance of secondhand saris in the charity shops didn’t materialise.

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I had a conversation this evening with the little vole that comes out onto the greenhouse windowsill and helps itself to the birds’ oats.

‘Why do you keep running away from me?’ I asked. ‘Have I ever shown the slightest inclination to do you harm?’

A thin voice came back to me from behind the wall boards.

‘I run away so I don’t get the chance to find out.’

‘OK, if you insist.’

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Harry and Hermione Hedgehog were out in the garden again tonight, but it’s so difficult to tell which is which (or whom, if you prefer.) Mel says I should look for signs that one is more resourceful, adventurous and generally capable than the other. That will be Hermione.

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I realised today that I have a serious aversion to stains, whatever they are and wherever they appear. It probably indicates something about me that isn’t complimentary.

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And on the subject of compliments, I had another reply to my comment on Glen Campbell’s Witchita Lineman on YouTube. It said:

You are a douchebag!!!!!!! (I counted the exclamation marks.)

I’m not sure what a douchebag is and I suspect nobody else is either, since the urban dictionaries I consulted were all rather vague. But I gather it isn’t complimentary. I thought of several replies, some clever and some dismissively disengaged, but I think I’ve settled on ‘Up yours?’ By all accounts, this will at least contain some ironic reference to the word’s etymology. (I think I should add, for the sake of my reputation, that the correspondent was a woman.)