Through the Window

 I lived for 18 years at the top end of a cul-de-sac and looking through my large lounge window became a happy pre-occupation. I soon developed into an avid people watcher. I enjoyed their comings and goings. Over time I saw events happening that drew me into the lives of my neighbours. 

On one occasion I saw a car pull up in front of nearby house, very early in the morning. It was still dark. I watched as a man got out of the car and went into the driveway. He didn't go to the front door, so I was suspicious. I got dressed and went out, where I saw the man putting a clamp on the wheel of their car. I knocked on the door, even though the man told me to go away and mind my own business. The residents were shocked. It evolved that the couple hadn't paid a parking fine from Wyre Borough Council. A bit extreme to say the least. 

One of my neighbours was very strange. He once invited me into his house with an offer to look after our pet hamsters while we went on holiday. The floor of his living room was completely covered by empty crisps packets. There were dozens of milk bottles, some containing dregs on every step of the staircase. The man was obviously OCD. I learned later that he was on the on the sex offenders register following an incident involving a local child. I was shocked, some months later to see him in an upstairs room showing a young child a model railway set. Naturally I called the police. Better to be safe than sorry.

I wonder what happens if you witness something more sinister through a window. In the classic Hitchcock movie Rear Window starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, Stewart plays a professional photographer recuperating from a broken leg. His rear window looks onto a courtyard with several apartments and during the warm summer evening the residents have their windows open. Over time he playfully gives names to the people he sees. 

A young couple lives in one apartment. The wife is confined to bed. One evening he hears a shout and later sees the man leaving the apartment several times carrying a bag. The day after, a large trunk is carried away by a haulage firm. The next evening he realises that the woman is no longer there and becomes convinced that the man has murdered his wife and disposed of her body. Of course there wouldn't be a story if Stewart and his girlfriend didn't get involved and try to solve the crime. The movie won a number of Oscars and is often cited as Hitchcock's best. If you haven't see the film, it is well worth a watch. 

Another movie on the theme of 'seen through a window' is Girl On The Train, based on a book by Paula Hawkins, starring Emily Blunt. The plot is complex but again this is a movie that is well worth watching. 

Trawling the internet, I came across an album called Through the Window by an artist called Chris Cornell. These are the lyrics from the title song. 

Through the Window

The clouds that gathered turned to rain

The candles on your sill burned out
The weather on your face
Turned to match the mood outside

Reading through poems that you saved
That make the gloomy hours make sense
Or do they lose their power
With the yellowing of age

I saw you suffering
Through a foggy window in the rain
When you thought no one was watching, yeah
Going through your memories
Like so many prisons to escape
And become someone else
With another face
And another name
No more suffering

You sold the best of yourself out
On a chain of grey and white lies
One syllable at a time
You should have made them pay
A higher price

I saw you suffering
Through the cracked and dirty window pane
I was ashamed that I was watching, yeah
Going through your imagination
Looking for a life you could create
And become somebody else, yeah
With another face
With another name
No more suffering

I wish that I could find a seed
And plant a tree that grows so high
So that I could climb
And harvest the ripe stars
For you and I to drink
And spit the ashes from our mouths
And put the grey back in the clouds
And send them packing with our bags
Of old regrets and sorrows
'Cause they don't do a thing but drag us down
So far down
The past is like a braided rope
Each moment tightly coiled inside

I saw you suffering
Through the yellow window of a train
With everybody watching, yeah
Too tired for imagining
That you could ever love somebody else
From somewhere far away
From another time
And another place
With another life
And another face
And another name
And another name
No more suffering

Thanks for reading. Adele

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Seagulls - who are you calling stupid?

I have lived by the sea for almost the whole of my life.  I would like to say that I am immune to seagulls but I would be lying. They are so annoying.  They wake me up - shouting and bickering most mornings. I hate them when they sit on my chimney pot and screech.

Sea gulls come out of nowhere every time I put a few crumbs out for my garden birds. They can't be so hungry all the time.  They are greedy opportunists. I have seen them mob a heron who drifted into the wrong fly zone.  I have witnessed them stealing chips from an elderly man who was minding his own lunch on the prom.  I think I most hate them when stupid people throw food in packets onto the pavement and seagulls fly down to make even more mess. Why people don't respect our town and use a dustbin is beyond my comprehension.

I think the thing that really winds me up is that these flying shit-bombers always manage to use my lovely white bedding as target practice when it is hung on the line to dry.  I resent the double-whammy of losing a great days 'drying weather' and having to start again. I would like to think that is accidental and give seagulls a break. Unfortunately for me, their behaviour is not unplanned or in any way 'stupidly bird'.  Seagulls are among the most intelligent species on the planet. They learn, remember and even pass on behaviours, such as stamping their feet in a group to imitate rainfall and encourage earthworms to surface. A seagull's intelligence is clearly demonstrated by a range of different feeding behaviours, such as dropping hard-shelled molluscs onto rocks to break the shells open so that they can eat them.   They follow ploughs in fields where they know upturned grubs and other food sources will be plentiful.

Seagulls are attentive and caring parents. The male and female pair for life and they take turns incubating the eggs, and feeding and protecting the chicks. Young gulls form nursery flocks where they will play and learn vital skills for adulthood. Nursery flocks are watched over by a few adult males and these flocks will remain together until the birds are old enough to breed. And boy - do they breed. They attack too - especially if you go near their nest or chicks.

Gulls also have a complex and highly developed repertoire for communication which includes a range of vocalisations and body movements. Many seagulls have learned to conserve energy by hovering over bridges in order to absorb raising heat from paved roadways. What else would you expect from the descendants of the velociraptor?

Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds was probably my first 'horror genre movie' experience that didn't involve someone with sharp incisors biting the neck of a beautiful woman.  Seeing a seagull attack Tippi Hebron was shocking enough but the ' bird in the sky view' of the gulls amassing in preparation for an attack the seaside town was ground-breaking. My Grandmother had a caged budgerigar called Billy and I never looked at him in the same way after that movie. Being mobbed by a flock of seagulls would have to go down as my worst nightmare.  From what I know of seagulls, it is perhaps only a matter of time until they organise...

Seaside Rendezvous

Starlings have been meeting

for an Autumnal convention,

in the seaside town of Blackpool

for over twenty years.

Congregating in their thousands

in the evenings, as the sun sets,

their exquisite murmuration

never fails to draw a crowd.

Today’s events were different:

Dangerous and sinister.

The first attack seemed innocent.

It took us by surprise.

A child was eating candyfloss

while walking on the promenade.

Her parents were astonished:

they were walking either side.  

About an hour later, a copter 
heading for a gas rig,

flew into a flock of seagulls

and crashed into Morecambe Bay.

The lifeboat sent to rescue them
was mobbed by over fifty,   
the crew, both shocked and bloodied
say gulls were organised today.

People on the Blackpool Tower,

safe and undercover,
saw birds, converging
just above the golden sand.
Suddenly they launched themselves,
wave on wave at taxi cabs,

went crashing into windows

at passengers on trams.

Worst hit were those travelling

in open, horse-drawn carriages,

screaming as the seagulls,

scratched and bit their fending arms.

Then circling the structure,

they caused chaos on the piers,

striking at the drinkers in the
The Merry England Bar. 

 

Some swooped into MacDonald’s

and chased the kids with Happy Meals,
They didn’t steal their dinners,
they just pecked out all their eyes.
The Hounds Hill was a blood bath,
awash with screaming shoppers,
until someone in a clown suit,
jumped out and took them by surprise.

He was holding a Kalashnikov,

firing bullets everywhere.

Seagulls fell like ninepins
as the crazy gunman sprayed.
The air was filled with sirens
but the rat-tat-tat continued,
all day and in the moonlight  
until no living bird remained.

 

It is the last day of October:

We enjoy a little horror here
and crazy clowns are seasonal.
They entertain the kids.
I propose a little spin on this:
yes innocents have died today
but the seagulls were defeated
and by keeping Blackpool tidy
we can all do our bit.   

Please help to keep Blackpool tidy and perhaps the seagulls will go somewhere else!
Thanks for reading.   Adele

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