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Huh. Well, we had the pigeon down the kitchen chimney experience at the weekend, complicated by the fact that the kitchen chimney is in fact blocked by the extractor fan. So we had to unscrew the extractor and take it out and then try to find the bird (not at that stage definitively identified as a pigeon) in the clouds of soot that descended from the chimney. Bird not immediately apparent. There were, however, a couple of greyish feathers in amongst the soot.

'Maybe it flew away up the chimney?' suggested Michael.
'Maybe.' I was not so optimistic. We shone a torch up the chimney but still no pigeon. Then we swept up a lot of soot, and contemplated getting the extractor fan back into the chimney. The plastic hose had come unstuck, and it was not immediately apparent how it could be reattached.

At that point our builder returned my panicked phone call, and said that if we had not managed to get the fan back up the chimney by the next afternoon (Saturday), he could come by and fix it, but not earlier.

Then the pigeon made its appearance, sitting beside the fan, on top of the stove. It must have been perched out of sight up the chimney, waiting to make its move. It was completely soot-free, and paralysed rigid. Michael opened the French windows. 'Maybe it'll fly out of its own accord if we just leave it alone for five minutes.'

Five minutes later it had flapped its way over to the (firmly shut) window opposite the stove. At this stage Michael lost patience and decided to shoo it out. It went, eventually, after flapping three times round the kitchen for effect.

Now all we had to do was reattach the hose, stuff the extractor fan up the chimney and screw it back in. About an hour later it was more or less in place, although Michael couldn't manage to screw it in properly with our crappy screwdriver with twelve replaceable tops all of which fall off when you try to actually screw anything in. Note to self: Buy proper screwdriver. Or set of screwdrivers.

Fortunately the next day our builder showed up with an electric screwdriver and finished the job. The extractor fan is (mirabile dictu) actually working. We even managed to feed Sunday lunch to eight people the next day, and if any of them noticed crunchy bits of soot in their food they were too polite to mention it.