Magpies have a nest in a tree outside my parents' balcony (not the plastic bag tree, another one - a laburnum).
One for sorrow...
If I see a magpie, and it flies away and comes back, I have no way of knowing it's the same one, have I? No I haven't. And so I can say, with honesty and confidence, that I've seen two. Yes I can. And now, I'm going back to bed, because I'm still not well.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Harakanvarpaita
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15 comments:
Doesn't matter if it's the same magpie or not: two sightings = joy. Just as well, really. Sorry to hear you are not well. Have thought of trying to play a few word games to take your mind of it? I am not being flippant, just very, very clever.
god, the magpie dilemma! i stand at the window and shout at them to duplicate so i don't get back luck.
x
Ah, Signs, a few word games would be just the ticket. They just never seem as much fun on one's own, do they? Although I am finding myself increasingly a loner, not to say "people-hater" (see post above).
How do you pronounce sineehn, I wonder - I have always found Irish fascinating, but all guesses are off, my best approximations are laughable, in spite of my considerable (ahem) skills in Welsh.
Mwah right backatcha, sweet Signs...
Hei Ms Legs the Cyberfriend, you snuck in there as I was writing! Yes, after I'd posted this I started to think I may have actually read more or less exactly the same post over at your house not long ago. A subliminal synchro thingy, honey - I remember telling you in my first comment, I think, how much I liked your stuff but that I wouldn't steal it, do you remember? And don't mean to start now. It just was what I thought this morn...
Hope you are ok, though, honey. Plenty of even-numbered magpies into your garden.
xx
(Oh and Signs - thank you for reading my magpie(s) to mean joy. Appreciate it. Mwah x)
Psychic Finn - have just spotted the other comment from you over at mine but thought I'd just come here for a change of scenery. I remember now about your grandma from Lapland and I like to think it is this that gives you ethereal insight rather than things that go bleep.
I am not clever enough for wordgames - used to play dotto, noughts and crosses and, oh, something called Hangman :)
mfucw - nope, can't think of a single thing.
Awwww... hab doo god duh sniffoos? I'll stick the kettle on for you... though by the time you get over to sunny Surrey, the tea/coffee/hot honey and lemon stuff might have gone cold.
dielavmi "David loves me", said the girl from the valleys...
Mutta xx
Signskins - I am sorry but that word ver, to me, suggests just muffled rudities, no two ways about that (I am whispering this, so My Sami Gran doesn't hear - I bet she'd never have thought me capable of thinking a rude thought. Then again, with her psychic powers, she may have seen right through me and into my future, whilst in my past. Or worse, she could be listening in on me now. Oh dear).
Hangman's the game, though, sweet Signs, is it not? Here's one for you:
B_ _ _ A _ O _ _ C
mwah and mwah
xx
Mutta - thank you, cold honey and lemon in sunny Surrey sounds just the ticket. Expect me at any point between now and then. (It's really only a fever I've got, though, not so much the muffled consonants all rolled into a d or a b. Which is nice, in its hot clammy way, because my writing would be pretty difficult to decipher otherwise.)
It took me a moment to grasp the full depth of your word ver - it is the Welsh valley girl speaking, of her one true love, Dai the Pie, the baker's young son...
x
Muffled up rudities - I knew that of course but my two grannies "on the other side" are definitely listening in so I just pretend to be stupid.
Apropos of which, there is no such word as biblaholic - just biblioholic. So Mwaaaaahahaha!
Signs - mound.
Mwahaha right backatcha.
mound? mound? woddat?
and mwahaha right backatcha
(and hope you are feeling better, ms Penguin)
Mound, sweet Signs, is the first thing you get when you guess wrong in the hangman. Word.
(Flapping around gracelessly, gathering speed to plunge into the sea of translation, where my graceless waddle turns into flight-like swimming, thank you for asking me dear)
x
Can I tell you one of my deep dark secrets? Hopefully no-one else will spot it here but you.
You see, I have a horrible habit when it comes to magpies - I won't call it a superstition because I don't really think anything bad will happen if I don't do it, but I definitely don't like not performing my little routine. I remember reading as quite a young child that if you said hello to magpies it deflected any of this "one for.." trouble, so if I saw one on its own I'd say "hello magpie". Then I read that you should salute them (honestly, people must just write this stuff to get giggles out of poor people like me). So now I salute magpies and say "hello magpie" to them. It's a little embarrassing on crowded trains, or if you're walking and talking to someone, but luckily no-one seems to notice. I think it's probably a combination of me mumbling and other people filtering out the mad woman. I've even had people not notice when I've done it half way through a conversation with them... but maybe that's because no-one listens to what I'm saying.
Anyway, that is my guilty secret, that I've only told before to one other person. I feel silly doing it, but on the other hand it seems so polite it would almost be rude to stop now. And I don't want to be rude, even (especially?) to magpies.
But please don't tell on me, will you?
Hope you feel better soon.
x
Hei Amanda - sweetie, what a charming story and a brilliant way of deflecting the sorrow brought on by single magpies. Your secret will be safe with me, but only relatively speaking - you see, my dear girl, I really won't need to be telling on you, because at the very least the very nutty Signs (hello, darling) will be here within hours and read all about it. On the other hand, you really mustn't worry about her, as not only does she do far odder things herself (I feel sure of this), but she really is a good sort and part of my inner-circle-beloved-blogpals-triumvirate (I am D'Artagnan).
Please also consider yourself now formally introduced, dear ladies... and Amanda, please don't mind if I steal this habit of yours, because, as I said, it really sounds better than some of the other tricks I've had to employ to sort out the single magpie issue.
On the mend here, slowly but surely, thank you...at least in the body, if not in the maddy mind.
x
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