Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Closer and Closer
by admin - 23:29 on 17 October 2010
The Nutella and nuts left on the windowsill disappeared overnight; Master Marten's unerring instinct for free food had not let him down. I put out more tonight and waited.
And when I looked out, around the same time as last night, there he was again – chomping his egg, the Nutella on the gate already consumed. Matchgirl and I turned off the interior lights and television, to remove reflection from the window, and watched him by the illumination of the outside light.
He made a good meal of the egg, sniffed around for a moment, then moved towards the Nutella-smeared stone beneath the window. But he ignored it completely and leapt onto the windowsill, despite the knowledge that he had an enthralled audience of two. Or possibly three – Bess had clamoured to be let into the garden sometime earlier.
Another shot from Master Marten's archive, taken in June this year
This was the closest we'd been to Master Marten; if the window had been open we could have touched him. He didn't eat everything, so perhaps he's still a little cautious about humanity being so near.
A couple of hours later, I became aware of his return when I heard movement and the sounds of dining from the other side of the window, about fifteen feet away. Pine martens, I can report, are not the most delicate of eaters.
There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there's definitely a free supper.
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