Day 513: A&M Hawk Management

You can’t beat a hawk in a train station. I had the pleasure of one this morning. He was a Harris hawk and his feathers were rich, dark brown, like winey beef bourgignon. Some of them were lighter, too. He had significant claws and a fabulous beak. It had a tiny bit of fluff on it. His handler was trying to clean it off, but he wasn’t having any of it. He was a he – they both were. I couldn’t tell by looking (just the bird this time), but I took the handler’s word for it.

His task was not pigeon-killing, apparently. No. Nor fancying. Pigeon-scaring was his job. Deterring, if you want to be more formal about it. Made me think of him flying around doing a crazy roar and waving his arms. Well, he kind of is doing that, but it sounds regaller and a bit more scary. Especially if you’re a pigeon.

This man loves hawks too

Response to him was interesting. One man almost leapt in the air. The bird was quite big, but still only tall enough to be just above shoulder height while standing on an outstretched arm. Some people were reservedly knowledgeable. Most people at least had a good look. I was a little bit fascinated. I grew up reading  A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, and loving the film Kes. I fantasised about keeping a kestrel. I let my goldfish die, so it’s perhaps no tragedy that I didn’t get my wish, but I was then and am still fascinated by birds, especially killers and carrion-fiends. Birds of prey rock, though, don’t they, and you can’t knock a crow, so… there you have it.

Wingspan to die for!

It made me think, though. The handler had A&M Hawk Management emblazoned across his coat. That's his job. Possibly his company. Or even not. Maybe he's just an employee. There is a whole world of alternatives out there. It all depends on what you want and what you love. He loves hawks. It showed.

This morning, I read an article about a foiled assassination after the hitman hirer dialled the target’s number with his arse, got through and had the whole conversation about why and how to kill him with him listening in. By the time the target got back with the police, the gas had been turned on in his house, waiting for a flame or a sparky light switch to do the job, thus proving that it wasn’t made up. Poetic. Awful, lucky, the foulest of play, but poetic.

Thank you for a rich and meaty, learny, juicy, fabulous job. I’m on my way back from it. I’m grateful for everything I learnt and everything the client did, I’m grateful for the trip and of course, I’m grateful for the work itself. Thanks. Bigly. Thanks.

Thanks, too, for all the lovely big smiles from people in Gare du Nord and St Lazare or wherever I got off. There was a poe-faced commuter opposite me when I was busy changing my shoes on the way there, but she was making me laugh a bit with her determinedly elongated features. Many, many more were smiley and engaging. I saw some beautiful faces today – lots of chiseled features and dark-sparkling eyes. There was a lovely man buying mostly chocolate in a shop where I was buying tights (I know!) and the lady behind him with a fabulous face, statuesque in its definition and very wide-eyed.

Focus view. Block the rest of that shit OUT

Oh, and I’ve discovered a fact. If one looks at one’s reflection in a Eurostar window darkened by a tunnel or the night, one notices (if one is me) that one’s grey hairs are shining like beacons. Then one (again, if one is me) starts to try and pull them out. I remember my mother doing that when she must have been only a little older than me (and on her third child – come on, Jude, catch up!). I used to ask her if she didn’t like them and she said she didn’t mind them. Why pull them out, then? Well, I never understood her answer and I don’t quite get my own. I like grey hairs. I think they’re classy and I’d like a badger streak, were one to come along. Yet I pull them out. I like them out too. No explaining that.

Oh my good god, I’ve just discovered Focus mode in Word. HOW GOOD IS THAT? All I can see is this page and black borders. Come on novel, in my face, now.

That’s all, apart from this. Thanks, Dylan Emery. This dog and his parade made my day.