Will ye Roam, Lassie, Roam

There’s something in the air at the moment – the animals are restless. Yesterday, on our nice-weather-for-ducks walk, we encountered four farmyard geese out on a stroll along the road. We persuaded them back to their home, or so we thought, but by the time we were heading home ourselves their owner’s son-in-law was out on the road chivvying them back once more from a bout half a mile away. They seemed to be keen to make their way south, so perhaps the migratory instinct was stirring…

But cows don’t, as far as I know, generally migrate, and it was cows that were out on the road this morning, three of them. It was a quiet back road and there was no sign of where they had come from and nobody around to ask. Initially, I rode quietly behind them, but I was on the Scariest Thing In The Rural World (TM), a bike, and so they panicked and started running down the road in front of me. I was a bit worried I’d end up herding them onto Big A Road and end up causing cow-and-car carnage, so I had to accelerate to try and cut them off before that happened. Cows can go surprisingly fast, it turns out. Fortunately, with the help of a downhill stretch (and possibly the odd yee-ha!) I managed to get to their left and herd them down a short field track where I left them staring hopefully through the gate at the other cows. I wasn’t about to let them in, though, as that felt like a bit of ‘helpfulness’ too far. Instead I alerted the rural internet (i.e. told the bloke at the shop) and hoped I had done the right thing.