It’s amazing how a day can turn into a mini crisis. The bird stuck up the chimney was quite enough excitement for me but then with the swimming pool have a small disaster all of its own the bird didn’t get priority. The pool has to be cleaned regularly, although this is a regular routine there are a lot of different levers that have to be turned at the right time in the right direction and then set back to the correct position. We have found out what happens if you don’t! Fortunately, the pool mechanism seems to be constructed to be ‘fool proof’ so although the water level went down by 25cms and it all looked very sorry for itself, once it was reset and given no less than five hours to refill with water, everything started working again just fine. It gives you a bit of a shock to look out and see your pool half empty and have no idea what to do. It didn’t help that the instructions on what to do in the event of a problem are all in Flemish. For the every day stuff, my mistress has down some detailed notes in English but fortunately, the very nice Belgian Pool Man didn’t mind being rung to explain what to do next. The bird, on the other paw, didn’t come with any instructions, Flemish or English. He must have come down the chimney from the top and was sending leaves down at five minute intervals as a distress call. My mistress opened the chimney up and put some food and water down to try to encourage it to come out. However, we haven’t seen it and the flapping has stopped. My mistress likes to think it might have got away but I can’t help thinking we are in for the smell of roast decomposed pigeon when we next have a fire.