The perils of feeding the birds in your garden...

The more I research into feeding wild birds the larger the challenge appears. It’s not just a matter of chucking out thecrusts and bacon rind. According to the RSPB website, we need to consider the merits of ‘black sunflower seeds, pinhead oatmeal, soaked sultanas, raisins and currants, mild grated cheese, mealworms, waxwor ms, mixes for insectivorous birds, good seed mixtures without loose peanuts.’ Loose peanuts! A choking hazard, apparently. You don’t want to end up tr ying the Heimlich manoeuvre on a blue tit. You can also buy RSPB foodbars, which are good for commuting birds who might other wise be tempted to skip breakfast.

I’ve just glanced up from my keyboard and I see it’s snowing again. ‘The nor th wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor robin do then, poor thing?’ We don’t get too much snow here in Liverpool. The weather does not play fair. I know that other parts of the country are feeling the bite of winter much more keenly. But the rooftops outside are white, and I’m confident poor robin and his mates are tucking in, both on my yard and on my neighbour’s. ‘Although winter feeding benefits birds most,’ says the RSPB website, ‘food shor tages can occur at any time of the year. By feeding the birds year round, you’ll give them a better chance to survive the periods of food shortage whenever they may occur.’ So put it on your shopping list: bird seed.

I have on my desk in front of me a rather different shopping list. ‘Milk (UHT or powdered). Sugar (500g). Fruit juice (carton). Soup. Pasta sauces. Sponge pudding (tinned). Tomatoes (tinned). Instant mash potato.’ It continues with other tinned and packet goods. If I was thrifty, I could probably get quite a long way down this list before I’d spent the £6.99 I handed over for my niger seed. You know what it is. It’s a Food Bank shopping list. The last time I was routinely buying these par ticular items was in the 90s, and it was to send food parcels to Bulgaria. But now the nor th wind of austerity is blowing here in the UK. And the government has ensured that economic climate does not play fair. The areas of greatest deprivation are feeling the bite of the cuts much more keenly. Like many other churches, Liverpool cathedral is responding to the challenge. Food shortages can occur at any time of year: redundancy, whopping heating bill, benefit cuts. I’d be sorr y to think I’m quicker to feed the birds than my fellow humans. Close Encounters — Fictional Cathedrals So, what’s going on in Liverpool Cathedral Close? You are now getting monthly, not weekly bulletins, I’m afraid. We had an action-packed Christmas. Attendances were up significantly at all the big ser vices. (Not just in Liverpool: this is the new trend. Take heart, O ye beneath life’s crushing load, Whose forms are bending low!) The New Year has catapulted us into the next stage of parenthood, the Empty Nest. We have one son getting married in August, and the other off with YWAM in Australia. I shall, of course, keep you up to date with such impor tant spiritual matters as my mother-of-the-groom outfit deliberations.

If your appetite for life on a cathedral close extends to reading about a fictional version, you might like to follow my blogging challenge for 2013. I am writing a novel called Acts and Omissions in weekly instalments in a T r ollopian manner, about the entirely made up Diocese of Lindchester. You may find it here: http://catherine-foxnovel.blogspot.co.uk/

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19 'Come, let us cast ---- to find out who is responsible for this calamity' [Jon/NIV] (4) 'All the believers were one in heart and ----' [Acts/NIV] (4) 'And he ran before, and climbed into a -------- tree to see him...' [Luke/KJV] (8) 'Blessed is the one who does not... ---- -- --- --- that sinners take...'[Ps/NIV] (5,2,3,3) 'It weighed a ------ of gold, and it was set with precious stones' [2 Sam/NIV] (6) 'My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the ------' [S of S/NIV] (6)

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20 Christ (6) Courtyard with covered walks (as in religious institutions) (8) David's priest, jointly with Zadok [1&2 Sam; 1 Kgs; 1 Chr] (8) Fenland cathedral (3) OT book which in the Septuagint includes the apocryphal 'Bel and the Dragon' and other extras (6) 'For all the -----', hymn with words by William How to the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams (6) 'So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and ------...' [John/NIV] (6) 'He lay in sackcloth and went around ------' [1 Kgs/NIV] (6) A suitable clue to close with? (4)