Girl Talk: Peace reigns now bird has flown

I've never before used this forum as a means to condemn my enemies but today, as I begin to tap away at the keyboard, I realise I've had enough. Enough of the attacks, enough of the stalking, enough of the vindictive omnipresence of something and someone so unsettling in my life that it's putting me off my stride.
And so ... the seagull is for it.
Understandably for those not regularly frequenting the street where I work, there is a need for some context.
The messy story began to unfold several months ago when I noticed an increased avian presence in the airwaves directly above me as I walked the very short distance from the carpark to my studio just around the corner on the main drag.
For several days my thought patterns drifted somewhat unconsciously towards liking the loud screeching of the seagull overhead, being as it was a sound intimately connected to the ocean, wide open spaces and crashing waves.
But then it got personal.
The screeching got closer and so regular that before long I began to realise it was directed at me. Or, more specifically, at my dog.
This was no arbitrary seagull flock. It was a lone bird cruising for trouble, Hitchcock style, and it had found it.
Over a period of days and weeks, a systematic and sustained attack increased in intensity until the bird was swooping so low over our heads that I could smell yesterday's cast-off fish and chips on its breath.
Once a legend on the street where I work and feared by rats and mice right along its length, my darling dog, Greta, had become a whimpering mess, traumatised by the swooping gull and reluctant even to get out of the car for fear of the gauntlet she had to run in order to get to the office.
This sort of work stress was never in her job description when she took on the mantle of executive assistant.
On days when dark clouds sat low over the street and cast sinister shadows across the rugged urban landscape, we snuck swiftly along the edges of buildings, making our way with anxious haste like soldiers in a bombed-out city, never knowing where the enemy lay in wait.
And it always lay in wait. But continued reconnaissance eventually routed our foe and we discovered the seagull's station atop a flagpole on the tallest building in town. It was a clever perch - the highest spot in the street affording quite the bird's-eye view over the metropolis below and cleverly hidden in plain sight.
At the start of each day and at its close, at every moment we braved the pavements for emergency coffee, the bird was there, watching, waiting, ready to swoop.
Eventually I cracked under the mental torture and as the bird came by on its usual terrifying trajectory, I fought back, wildly throwing my keys at its retreating frame along with all the expletives in my armoury (much to the amusement of all the tourists with cameras who found a mad woman screeching in the street far more diverting than the famous architecture). But I was beyond caring about impressions. The battle lines were drawn and with right on my side I was going to bring the bird down. Over the coming days, handbags and high heels followed in the wake of my keys and eventually an especially well-admired red patent leather court shoe secured a king hit. Amid a hail of tail feathers the seagull was forced to retreat to its flagpole, and stay there.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of her mum, Greta was once again top dog on the street and although the bird and I continue to eye each other up with equal parts respect and hatred, the peace treaty forged Battle of Britain-style in the wild skies of provincial New Zealand seems to be holding fast ... provided I remain armed with high heels and dangerous, that is.