Cycling home from Bigtown this lunchtime with a bit of a case of the grumps because it was miserable and raining (I know, I know, it’s February in Scotland so what did I expect, but I got a bit over optimistic about this Caribbean air that was supposed to be arriving) and I’d been in too much of a hurry when I left to bring in the laundry (ditto), so not only was I going to be pretty soggy when I got home, but so would be most of my clothes.
And then as I turned across the bridge I caught a pattern of ripples on the water just out of the corner of my eye, and stopped in time to see an otter surface, dive, resurface again, then seem to catch my eye before it dove again and vanish under the bridge. I spent a hopeful few minutes darting from side to side of the bridge hoping for it to reappear long enough to be photographed, but it was too fly for me, and I cycled off again into the rain.
There are so many reasons why I ride a bike: the environment, saving money, maintaining my cake-based lifestyle – but it’s encounters like that make me happy that I cycle even on the grimmest days.
The laundry was still soaking when I got in, mind. And so was I.
Town Mouse 
I once met an otter in Wales when I was fishing on the Wye. It was sitting on a rock in the river eating a fish that it had caught. Needless to say I did not catch anything at all but I went home happy. The trick is to move when they are underwater, their eyesight is poor so if you standstill when they surface they tend to miss you. Their noses however are very good indeed so stay upwind. This is me showing off as I am sure you know all this anyway.
I saw an otter with her two kits one magical evening in September must be five tears ago, now. They were swimming, gliding, undulating through the water in an overgrown, disused canal, right next door to a working coal mine, just on the outskirts of my home village of Glynneath. Then a couple of months ago, I had the great fortune to come across two youngsters squabbling on a river bank, under a river bridge, in the middle of Neath. Though rare, such incidents are fabulous experiences. All this while out riding my bike, too and from work. Sadly, I have also had the misfortune of coming across roadkill of these magnificent creatures as well.
[…] a particularly lovely spot. The last time I was looking over the bridge parapet it was to admire an otter, so finding that someone had used it to dump a load of electrical goods was pretty gutting. […]