Sunday 28 July 2013

HONEY, I'M SORRY, THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK OUT FOR US

He's back.

My amphibian amorata is stalking me again, although "stalking" is not perhaps the best word to describe what a frog does... he either slides or leaps, and this one is particularly acrobatic, demonstrating skills to escape capture that would be far beyond any human endeavour. (Well, he does have sticky feet, after all.)

Yes, I admire him. Yes, perhaps I even love him... but I know it won't work for him to come to live with me, and have told him so. EVEN if he were to hold still long enough for me to kiss him into princedom, we just don't have enough in common.

We're both chordata, I said, but look sweetheart, you are cold-blooded, and we are not going to make music together. This was my tough stance the other morning when I found in my kitchen sink at 7 am... and suggested that he vamoose.

Here he is scrambling out of the sink up the drainboard....
When he discerned that I was keen to catch him and get him outside, he went further up around the little kitchen window, the same window where that marvellous spider web is located. When I  opened the window thinking to toss my froggy-friend OUT, I realized I was stretching the web too far, and had to close it. Since then, the spider has done some judicious mending, and the adding of several support filaments.

Here, climbing up the side of the window, pretending to be invisible

And here, with the funnelweb spider's work in danger...
And then he made his fatal error of judgement, clinging to the lace curtain at the top of the window, believing he was hiding and couldn't be seen. Aha, I cried, and took down the brass rod with curtain attached...
 
Oops! Caught out!

So it was a simple matter of transferring the curtain rod to the big windowsill on the terrace, and then closing that window tightly shut, and going round to discuss this ongoing issue with Mr. Frog... I sang Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" as I prepared my speech, telling him he really could NOT live in my house, that it would kill him in the end, and I was not prepared to be responsible for that. Much as he adores me, I insisted that I am not the girl for him...

He didn't say much, just tried to get into the house again. Talk about single-minded.

Determined to find a way in, just like that foolish wagtail!
Eventually, I went indoors, as it was clear our conversation was a one-way street. And this is how I will remember him now, from the other side of the window, still trying to get into my house. "Can't we discuss this further?" I hear him, I hear him.

Amazing little critter, makes Spiderman look like a weenie amateur
And so it goes, and so it goes, and I'm the only one who knows that a tiny frog is in love with me... and possibly, in some way, I have grown to love him too. It IS rather nice to be courted, and I feel badly for rejecting him....but hey, let's be realistic, eh?

This final rather abstract shot suggests that he is now "part of my heart"...  (Reading this, remember that I am still on strong drugs to counter the pain of shingles, so maybe I sound a little crazier than usual... but really... this frog and I are having an adventure together. Or at least one of us is....)

A bit blurry but you get the dreamy idea.....