… and then, bingo bongo – there went your happy day! There is a grevillea right outside our front door, and I sit near that door, typing this blog. A noisy miner bird also sits there on said grevillea, and chirps it’s little heart out, day after day after day … endlessly! It is always there – right when I am typing, and it is not there – when I am not! These birds are permanent, persistent, utterly piercing, bossy boot-type natives, and they are not easily dissuaded from harassing one of my favourite native birds — the lorikeet. 

The local lorikeets also love our grevillea. This means we often have a bird-sponsored turf war in our front yard. It’s like ‘ringside-with-the-wrestlers’ only with birds!! Now, you might perhaps think that a dear little bird singing sweetly to me daily is a cheery thing. It’s NOT! Actually I’m pretty sure this bird would be in with a chance to play the didgeridoo – it can chirp and breathe all at the same time! On and on and on and on, for hours!!  I wish I had a great BIG gun! I’d shoot the blasted noisy miner stone dead. OK, OK – that’s a wish thought! Please don’t climb on your ecologically-sound, avian high-horse!  Despite my wishing this bird would drop dead … Hmmm… no.

My dear trusty, loving, helpful husband … who totally understands how strident and interrupting to my thought processes this bird’s chirp is … … mainly because it annoys the living daylights out of him too (!!!) … My dear Hubby stealth-walks outside. He sidles along the edge of the door and he sneaks up on the little darling and shoots at it with a … (wait for it) …water pistol! 🐦🔫!!  BTW, in case you are concerned we are hurting it, it quite easily chirps it’s head off in the rain undeterred, so it does not, ap-par-ently (!) dissolve in water … More’s the pity.

Instead it simply flies away to return to annoy me yet another day. It may seem like a dumb bird, but once it has been squirted, boy can it learn! The minute hubby’s hand hits that front door again, all pistoled up and ready to fire away… off it flies …And then it comes back quite quickly when he goes back inside, to recommence it’s torment. Yaaay. Meanwhile, it also successfully chases away my real-true-fav-friend, the lorikeet. Yes, I know the aptly named noisy-(I’ll-say)-miner, is not as pretty as the lorikeet. It’s call is definitely right in there with whiny little kids who want an icecream 🍦 …  but I totally refuse to feel sorry for it – ordinary-looking or not. Instead, I quite often feel provoked into bird-icidal thoughts about it!

My not-friend, the miner bird, reminds me of how easy it is to lose one’s cool. Everything is fine and dandy and suddenly … you are on your last nerve ready to thump the next human being who innocently says ...”Good morning!” cheerfully. Hmmm…. apparently today is going to be …complain about the wild life day … and once commenced on my current totally irritated course I cannot escape.🏃 Run for your life!

Perhaps I have been slightly brain-damaged by a rampant noisy miner. So now, let’s move on to my next least-fav indigenous thing, possums. One paid a visit to us last night, plus the night before. It’s a sociable little furry thing …it comes over to practise it’s high jumps for the Olympics at 2.00am. Apparently it is possum hoe-down season again. Wretched little monsters. They are either ON your roof or IN it – either way … grrrrr!. Way over in New Zealand, our southern cousins have more sense than we do – they kill possums. THEY actually think they are a pest. In Australia, of course WE must not harm the little darlings. But our friends, across the ditch, the New Zealanders, are very clever, sensible people. They make wool and knit socks out of their fur. (True story!) 

Back to my critter rant … presently, in our semi-tropic summer, we currently have millions of mosquitos the size of a small dog and they are more aggressive than a black-mamba. My dear hubby has to take our normal-sized dog outside regularly, to do what a dog’s gotta do. To get this mission accomplished, he has to wear even more clothes over his normal clothing – it IS over 30o here! Then he sprays himself with 3 different repellants and puts on his trusty mosquito repellant wrist band … and yet!! …don’t’cha know … Those nasty legalistic little blighters still manage to bite him…Somewhere the repellant wasn’t! 

While we are briefly on about things that irritate the living daylights out of me – I also hate, loathe and despise spell-check … it does not like my informal way of writing, so it yells at me, and bullies me all the time. I’ve yet to figure out a way to yell back at it … but I’m working on it! Now, in case you haven’t already guessed, I thought I might write about a blog about whiny irritations today, because, in the anti-climatical aftermath of Christmas, I’ve very cleverly found some. Actually, I found them when I wasn’t even looking! Meanwhile that stupid bird is ba-ack doing it’s thing.

Have you ever noticed that once you are irritated it is hard to escape from it? Me too! It’s kind of like a whirlpool, and you go round and round and round – gathering in even more stuff … while you are going under. Aha! I think I’ve worked out where I was amiss … I let sin reign. So now, I will depart, before I get totally sucked under and ruin this entire day. I pray you are more successful than I am in fighting off irritations. I just gotta go and find that water-pistol … bye ..👋🏻

Romans 2:12 ESV “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to MAKE YOU obey its passions.” … Now there’s good advice. 😂