Just When you Thought it was Safe…

It was another glorious day today and although I’ve primarily been chained to the laptop I did manage to escape long enough to go and fetch the paper. There was another frost overnight and the air was still cool where the sun hadn’t reached it, but out of the shadows and the breeze it was warm, warm enough to risk losing a couple of layers on the way back. On the way out I had passed the telegraph pole* which usually marks the entrance to ASBO Buzzard‘s realm and it wasn’t there so I felt reasonably safe discarding my anti-aerial attack hat. Indeed, all went well as I swooped down the hill on my return journey with the wind in my dead-rabbit-coloured hair, right up to the point where I reached the telegraph pole, and theoretically safety, again. And all at once there was not one but two buzzards, disputing ownership of the pole until they spotted their common enemy: the interloper cyclist. The next mile was accompanied by a series of increasingly close and disturbing passes while I debated the wisdom of stopping and retrieving my anti-buzzard hat from my pannier versus just cycling as fast as I could to get away (in the end, fear and adrenaline won out over logic and buzzard knowledge).

I thought at the time it was the start of some terrifying rural buzzard gang, or perhaps that Mama Buzzard had raised a baby as formidable as herself, but having heard this news perhaps it was in fact no more than I, as a miserable human, deserve.

* see earlier disclaimers