Yesterday afternoon, after spending 5 annoying hours on fixing my websites, I went down to the woods in order to get some air and sun and to put a deer fence around one of my prized Xmas Trees. This one is in a little wooded strip next top the fields where we used to have our horses, and also unfortunately next to a busy road and opposite its layby, where nosey tradesmen sit in their white vans taking your car registration for some reason.

After I'd cut the stakes (really badly) and hammered them in I put the wire fencing around them. This took some time as there were four different pieces of wire that I had to loop together. As I was kneeling down tying this stuff into one piece around the tree stakes I heard a rustle of the leaves behind me. I thought "That sounds like an animal - or a very light person..." The obvious candidate was a pheasant, who are "a-stepping" at this time of year. I looked round ever so slightly so that I could see out off the cormner of my eye - I seemed to see a birdlike shape. I carried on tying the wire so as not to frighten whatever it was away, and sure enough I heard the rustle of the leaves continue towards me.

Then, these two peacocks came strutting past me about two feet away, and stopped and looked at me. I said "Hello", they looked at me, and carried on walking, up to the fence by the road, then round to my old hedgecuttings heap and the grave of our old cat, Lutard. Fascinating they were. They disappeared off into the tangled wood further up the strip and then eventually came back, walked past me again and off round the small pond that forms there at this time of year. Fascinating. What a pleasant encounter next to Paranoia Layby Hell.