Readers, I have found my nemesis.

Every good character has a nemesis. Harry Potter has Voldemort. Kirk has Khan. Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty.

I have Bastard McFeathertush, Esq., pigeon.

He’s a fast mover – this is one of his many accomplices. (Pic my own.)

This all started a few weeks ago. The boyfriend and I went on holiday to Edinburgh for a few days. We had a lovely time – nosed around plenty of tourist places, propped up a few bars – and came home after 3 days to discover a squatter on our balcony. This was Bastard McFeathertush. He’d taken up residence in the beams under the balcony belonging to the flat above us, and was busy turning our nice fake lawn into his private toilet. It’s not a huge balcony. So when one pigeon sits above the middle and relieves himself, after a few times that’s spreading across the whole damn area.

So we shooed him away.

And he came back, so we shooed him away again.

Every time though, he becomes bolder. What scared him away before he just laughs at now. First I just opened the door and flapped at him. Then I jingled some Morris dancing bells at him and the noise sent him away (everyone has them lying around, right?). Then when that didn’t work, my boyfriend curled up a belt and flicked that near Bastard, the uncoiling motion scaring him away. We’ve tried water pistols and putting chili powder on the places he likes to perch. I’m currently resorting to poking the metal increasingly near him with a long brolly.

But nothing works for long, and Bastard McFeathertush knows it. And he knows he’s in no danger, because, as irritating as he is, neither of us is going to downright injure a pigeon. And that cooing menace knows it. He sits in the rafters, singing the taunting song of his people, preening himself and crapping all over my balcony. (And some of that’s pretty nasty. Especially some days he must have had a dodgy curry or something because there are some deeply unpleasant sights on my balcony right now).

No matter how often I shoo him away during the day though, he knows our weakness – sleep. He makes a point of sitting next to my window, cooing louder than a pneumatic drill at 5 in the bloody morning, and then takes off. He seems to sense just when I’m awake enough to drag my knackered carcass from bed, morris bells in hand, and then he escapes, laughing into the early dawn.

(Pic my own.)

Yes, I am taking this personally.

It would have been nice if he at least offered to pay rent. But he hasn’t, and his presence is scaring away the little blue tits and spuggies who used to frequent our birdfeeder. This I take absolute umbrage with. How dare he monopolise a communal area!

This has been going on for so long now. We’re desperately investigating more ways to keep Bastard McFeathertush away and plan on experimenting with double-sided sticky tape on his favourite sitting spot this weekend (it works for slugs and cats). Failing that, we’ll have to invest in stronger measures though neither of us know quite what that will be. I’ll have to see if there are any miniature heat-seeking missiles available at B&Q.

But I shall not rest until that menace is departed from my area. An Englishwoman’s home is her castle, and this disease-ridden git keeps dancing around the moat and mooning the guards.

My nemesis is not a pigeon, he is a demon. I will take back what’s mine. And I will have my vengeance in this life or the next.