Old Neighbors and New Birds

Ditchfield Cottages is a row of attached brick two-and-a-half story residences, with adjoining front and back flowerbeds, and small garden plots out in a back field. It seems like it could be a place for lots of neighborly intimatcy as, upon first meeting him, my time-worn, stooped neighbor Tony made very clear. After a friendly greeting, he expressed the hope we wouldn’t be playing the boombox all day and all night long, like some previous inhabitants. (“Couldn’t even hear me own TV!!” he growled with a thick Midlands (?) accent.) Not bloody likely, Tony, I thought.

Yesterday I met Arthur and Denise, from Number Four. Arthur works three days a week for one of the remaining fine furniture makers in High Wycombe: Ellie says he’s a polisher. Denise’s uncle apparently was an upholsterer, so my conversation with them took me into waters for which Ellie has the family compass; not me. I was lugging a bucket of coal at the time, so Arthur volunteered he burns wood in his fireplace. Since it’s supposed to snow this weekend, I asked him about a good wood source.

Today I knocked at his door to get the name and number of the "timber merchant," and he of course invited me in for a cuppa tea. I declined, whereupon he asked “D’you eat. . . ya know. . . meat?” “Yes,” said the Yank. “D’you know how to fix a partridge?” Stunned silence. It seems that an old mate works on an estate that had a “shoot” on Wednesday, and had stopped by to deliver Arthur eight braces of birds last night. On the hoof. Right out of the sky. “Them’s French partridges; the red-footed kind,” said Arthur. “Some people skin ‘em, but I just lop of the head, feet, and wings, and pluck ‘em into a plastic bag.” We proceeded to the garden shed for a demonstration. The Yank replied: “No problem: we do that with our chickens back home. My wife will know how to cook them.” We’ll see how Ellie responds after a long day ripping down upholstery.