I had a nice time feeding the animals today. When I got there a family was walking around the place. I heard the mother say “I think it’s all closed now”. Then I told them I’d be opening up for the animals to be fed and they were all happy.

It’s always nice when you can help others have a good time there. And especially help kids have fun with the animals. They had a little boy and a little girl with them. The boy helped me feed the bunnies. As always, it takes twice as long to do when you get “help”. But that’s okay. There’s plenty of time. And I made sure to thank him for his great help.

It was also nice to see the gruesome threesome together again.

Now that Poul the buck is gone, Mads is back with the girls. There was a note from Per saying that if Magnethe gave birth then we should “make a bed” for Mads in his own booth. But that wasn’t necessary. No kids from Magnethe yet. And I have to say I’m okay with that. As lovely as it would have been to find a “litter” there today, I would rather if she waited till Monday when there’s more supervision. I would be scared to leave them alone if they had come today. But it can’t be long. I’d be surprised if nothing comes this next week. I think Magnethe is good and ready for it too!

Other than that there is not much. Quiet weekend, quiet life. The storms have died down. I have to say I was well pleased with myself last night as I listened to the stormy winds and the NOT banging of the boards next door. You never appreciate the quiet until it’s not there. But when it comes back? It’s twice as good.

Tomorrow I shall hopefully be visiting the parents for a pot of mama’s brilliant soup. If they have been able to procure the ingredients at least. I saw on the news a couple of days ago, the national news no less, that people don’t want soup hens anymore. To cook soup from. So now the hens are being destroyed by a fancy machine that travels from farm to farm. And instead of being sold as soup hens they are ground into a bloody pulp and sold as dog food, or something like that. So that explains why my parents have had a hard time finding soup hens indeed. Luckily there are other things that can be cooked soup from, so I’m crossing my fingers for tomorrow.

All work and no soup makes Plume a skinny boy.

I feel sleepy, oh so sleepy.

Must tell you about my big triumph today, though. See, for a while there has been this noise outside when it’s windy. And by a while I mean months. For ever. Whenever it’s been windy outside this noise, like a door smacking or something, has been there. And today I found out that it was a board of some kind. On my neighbour’s porch. Flapping in the wind. Now I had a bit of a dilemma. Because that noise is really annoying. Especially at night. It was like right outside my window almost, where my bed is. Not enough to keep me up all night, but enough to disturb my sleep often.

So anyway. The dilemma was this: do I go and knock on my neighbour’s door and ask if they could do something about it? Or do I listen to the phobic voice in my head that says “no no, don’t say anything, people are dangerous” and live with the noise for the rest of my life?

After much debating in my head I finally decided to go next door and ask. I was a little worried that maybe the door would open and there’d be a gang of disillusioned youths who would want nothing more than to start some riots and fires and violence. But all there was was a nice, old lady. Her Danish wasn’t too good, but I explained the problem and she nodded and said yes and I said thank you and smiled. I wasn’t sure she understood what I was really talking about. But she must have, because the noise has stopped. Outside there is a fierce wind blowing but no boards smacking around. What a sweet silence. And what a sweet feeling, to have done something that was really hard for me and have gotten a succesful result. And such a silly, little thing. For months that sound had been there whenever it was windy and all it took to stop it was a litlte knock on the neighbour’s door. Silly silly. I have had virtually no contact with my neighbours, and that’s probably the way it will stay. It’s just too hard to socialize. It’ll probably happen accidentally in little steps. Meeting in the hallway etc. And that’s okay. I don’t feel a need to be best friends. I think it’s a rather big family. Immigrants. If they were to invite me to dinner then it would likely be very spicy and full of garlic. Sometimes the hall fills with that smell. And that’s not good for me. It’d be awfully impolite of me to vomit at their dinner table.

Anyway. Sweet silence of the storm.

Tomorrow: feeding animals. Sunday: Soup at the parents’ house, most likely. Not too bad.

We finish with a study of Magnethe.

Any day now. She must be bursting.