Bird Battle

Bill is in a fight with a bird.

We sit out on the patio every evening. Usually we are grilling our dinner, but sometimes we just sit out and have a glass of wine. It’s cooler there than in the Priest’s House once the sun starts going down.

The patio is at the base of the bell tower of little San Benedetto Church (to which the Priest’s House is attached). Inside one of the large cracks in the side of the tower a bird has built a nest. I presume she has little baby birds safe and snug in the nest, and she has no interest in us messing with her babies. So she sits on the roof of the church every night and scolds us for being there. She nervously flies back and forth from the church to the tree that the priest planted and back to the church. She occasionally goes into the crack to check on her babies to make sure we haven’t done anything to them when her back was turned. Then she comes out and scolds some more.

She drives Bill crazy. I admit that her chirp is somewhat irritating. I’m not sure what kind of bird she is, but clearly she isn’t a songbird. Or, if she is a songbird, she is not singing a song to us in her quest to make us go away. Bill nags at her and she nags back. He jokingly asks me if we have a slingshot, and she chirps even louder (she clearly doesn’t find humor in his joke). At any rate, once the sun has set and dusk has come, she calms down. Then we watch the bats fly around and blessedly eat the mosquitoes.

We got neighbors last night. A couple from Denmark has settled into the other residence that is part of the Priest’s House.

When you enter the door of the Priest’s House, you go up the stairs to get to the residences. Our apartment is the largest, with a kitchen, bathroom, and separate bedroom on the first floor and two little twin beds in the mansard above our kitchen. There is a separate residence next door, now occupied by the Danish couple, which appears to be only a bedroom and a bathroom. They are supposedly only staying for a week. They speak English and seem to be very nice.

We had a quiet day yesterday. At lunchtime, we drove into town, parked our car at the train station, and walked up to Certaldo Alto. Certaldo Alto is the old part of the town that is up on the top of the hill, separate from the newer Certaldo below. Certaldo Alto is a perfectly preserved medieval town with a castle, a church, a few residences, and some stores and restaurants. We had lunch at one of the restaurants – a meal that consisted of local meat, cheese, bread, and wine. It was very delicious.

We spent the remainder of the day reading, trying to cool down our apartment, and fighting with a bird.