Cows Stop Play

That’s the kind of nonsense you would expect at Cardiff for the first Ashes test. In fact, I might send this lot down to put the wind up the Aussies. They’ve certainly had that effect on me. It is quite difficult to navigate your way to the car when about 8 cows are giving you ten tons of moo-attitude at 7:30am in the morning.

We know now where they came from. We don’t know when they’re going. As of right now, they appear to be enjoying an early breakfast of my wing mirrors. The dog – brave, stout fellow that he is – has gone into hiding under a chair, and every time Carol or I move they stampede in the direction of something expensive.

I fear for the fence.

And the windows. Short of borrowing a shotgun and setting up an impromptu burger bar, I’m short of ideas. They’ve sorrounded my workshop here and every time I look up from the keyboard, mad cow eyes look back at me.

I can feel a difficult sitution developing here.

UPDATE: We tried the local farmers who denied they’d lost any cows, and anyway it’d be quicker to claim them back from the EEC farm subsidy. We even called the police which was amusing “Are any of the cows comitting an offence Sir?” / “Breach of the Peace? They’re pissing all over the place and I’d like aggrevated looming to be taken into account”. Sadly it seems these are not sufficient grounds for ungulate arrest.

Kids Play

Let’s be honest here – there is a bit of Competitive Dad inside all of us. And for some that’s because they had Competitive Dad outside for all their formative years, and never really worked out how to stop. Not for me, my old fella wasn’t so much hands off as completely disinterested. Which is something of a reason why I vacillate between total commitment and tired apathy with my own offspring.

But the parent I’ve never wanted to be is that one screaming from the sidelines, desperately striving to put the Victory into Vicarious. There’s always a positive stop between my frankly pervy love of mountain biking and forcing my kids to try and share something of that. Good reasons abound – they’re girls, they’re (still) not that big, MTB’ing is a tough sport, and they have variously preferred scooters, ex-board, walking and – well – anything else really when I’ve punted a spot of weekend dirt riding.

Today one of them mined the giggle-lode I so cherish, while the rest of the family had a damn fine go, before retiring slightly scared. Random (8, bonkers, untouched by reality) demonstrated a level of focus that made me wonder about alien abduction. She piloted her little 20inch Spesh Hardrock down trails the big boys ride, and showed a level of bravery making me wonder again – this time about adoption.

That’s not her in the photo. Verbal shares her Mum’s terror of hills and my oft repeated maxim that “your brakes control the speed, not the hill” failed to unlock tight muscle or deflate the scary gland. But she had a proper try even though it was apparent the only thing more scared in the entire forest was probably Carol.

Who – having narrowly avoided plunging into a dangerous ditch – rode bridges she hated, survived downhill trails that offered nothing but fear, and a truly, scary off camber bend that gives me the heebies before retiring with eldest daughter to the safety of the fireroads. I was properly proud of them for giving it a go without the hint of a whinge, and riding stuff that was clearly shitting-the-bed scary.

My kids don’t ride much and I don’t push them to do so. I’m always amazed how quickly they pick it up again, and while I was picking up my lovely old Kona having helped Random over a nasty log bridge, it became apparent she wasn’t going to stop. A cocktail of roots, dips and little drops were mastered with nothing more than youthful bravado and a happy chuckle.

I watched her ride it – having stopped talking since she clearly needed no coaching – with a lump in my throat. Where do they learn that shit? Even when she was properly gorse bushed at the trail end, she just picked herself up and got on with it. Well sort of, I had to push her home but she’s desperate to get out again. I may have found myself a sleeper ๐Ÿ™‚

On returning home, the hound was walked by bicycle and suddenly these two wheeled transportation devices are the best thing since… the last great thing, but I’m happy with that. We then jumped our fence and went exploring in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Which was way more fun that it probably sounds.

There are times when kids are bloody difficult. Anyone who tells you different is on strong medication or telling lies. This was not one of those days.

Fox Pop

Ken – lost Wurzal and promiser of 100 tonnes of topsoil – stopped me the other night to enquire on the health, or otherwise, of our useless chickens.

Me: “Bloody rubbish Ken, I’m considering eating them, why?

LW: “Well we’ve been bailing in the field” – indicates large open area of recently cut grass in case I am unaware of what a field looks like “and we’ve seen about six of yon foxy buggers

Me: (pretending I know about this stuff) “So, haha, did you shoot them hahha hah, er

LW quizzically “Of course not

Me: “Ah, well, you know, I thought, farmers, er, you know, er

LW: “I’m 72 and bloody lousy shot. Your man over on the estate has a couple of hunting rifles and he’s bagged at least four of ’em last night

Me: “Right…, er. 4 you say, right, that’s er quite a lot, any more left?

LW: “Yeah get the vixen’s first and then come back for the cubs as they’ll be milling about lost. Easy Kills. So if you see lights and hear pops tonight, don’t worry it’s JUST SOME FUCKING NUTJOB WITH TWO SODDING ASSUALT RIFLES WHO HAS THE FULL BINDERED SET OF “GUNS’N’AMMO” UNDER HIS BED, AND THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS TELL ME HE HAS SOME SIGNIFICANT VIOLENCE ISSUES, WILL BE RE-ENACTING THE FIFTY PLUS BODY COUNT SCENE FROM RAMBO.

(I’m paraphrasing here, but let me tell you this is a pretty accurate transcript of how it entered my head.

Me: “Right, appreciate it if he doesn’t break in in a berserker frenzy and shoot the dog, cat, children, that kind of thing

LW laughing “Oh no, he’s a lovely lad really… ” PAUSE “lock your doors tho” LONGER PAUSE “He can get a bit” SCRATCHES CHIN “enthusiastic”

The fox has the chickens. The nutter has the foxes (and I’ve spared you on exactly what they do with the remains) and I have to go and get a large glass of something soothing.

Bring back foxhunting that’s what I say. As I’m unlikely to suffer a visceral killing from a bunch of ponces with stupid accents, and a body clock which stopped in 1873.

It lives.

As opposed to Michael Jackson whose unexpected croak-age has completely upset the celebrity dead pool. It also knocked Farrah Fawcett off the front pages – a major disappointment for those of a certain age who had THAT PHOTO on their wall, and in their minds during periods of lonely sexual activity.

Or so I’ve been told. Anyway, not old did Jacko supplant other dead celebs, he also managed to subvert the entire news agenda for more than twenty four hours. Watching the Sky rolling news, I saw the same grainy picture of an ambulance informed by voxpop scrolling messages “I still have the paper cups from the 1984 Bad Tour, and they are my greatest treature. Michael, you were my life and you’ll live forever”.

No he won’t. Let’s face facts here:

He was a kiddie fiddler. He was such a proper nutter I’d grudgingly award him Hedgehog Loony Status. His best work was some twenty years behind him. He’s dead and/or working in a chip shop with Elvis. Okay I accept he made the odd decent record*.

But now he’s dead from an overdose of painkillers or chimp jism or who gives a fuck. He’ll live long in the memories of those people who have no life of their own to cherish, and the rest of us will remember the “Thriller” Vid being pretty cool and not much else.

So get over it ๐Ÿ™‚

Anyway I’ve had a day of fixing things. Bicycles, children’s toys, gliders, lawns, etc. My first foray into soldering for twenty years proves – once again – how completely clueless I am with any tool other than a big hammer. Still the glider flew, didn’t catch fire even once and even came to land somewhere close to the house.

A bit too close really, Carol was starting to panic a bit as I began to hum the Dam Busters theme tune, when the big yellow winged incendiary was locked onto the perfect flight path to smash through a window. I was never really worried, but then I did have a beer in one hand.

Flying the Electric Glider. And it not catching fire. Again. Flying the Electric Glider. And it not catching fire. Again.

Important to relax I’ve found during times of stress I’ve found. And on that note, I have many half written, half baked, quarter arsed things to say about lists, London and loving the summer. I shall committ them to the unwary readership as soon as the next batch of beer is appropriately cool.

Until then, have you noticed the nights drawing in? ๐Ÿ™

* Don’t push me on this. I’m struggling to think of one, but 65 million people can’t be wrong, can they?

Burn’n’Crash

Right, for the uninitiated – and noticeably unwashed from those of you who I’ve met – in all things silly modelling, this is the business end of a glider than thinks it’s a proper aeroplane. With the sort of low cunning we’ve come to expect from marketing types, they offer up a flighty solution to days when you’re short of time/wind/appropriate hillage.

Fire it up, chuck it, make it a speck up in the sky somewhere, shut the engine off and glide for a bit. Run out of height, lean on the noisy stick and start again. Great idea, and absolutely necessary for me to add such a niche to the ever expanding mass of winged foam in my workshop.

But this one is special because it has been on fire. A late night chuck should have brought twenty minutes relaxing stick twirling, followed by a cushioned landing in the field of wheat a nice farmer has provided as my makeshift runway.

What actually happened was a perfect launch, a fast climb and then… well… nothing. The motor turned off, the transmitter was no longer talking to the receiver, and my frantic twiddling had all the effect of asking a ten year old to finish their homework. Unlike recalcitrant children, the glider was blissfully serene at this point – merely heading off downwind from a height of 100+ feet, and destined to crash into some poor innocent minding their own business in a spot of cow tipping. About four miles away.

A gust of wind changed that and gravity rapidly brought on terminal velocity, which thumped the model hard into the crop and cartwheeled previously attached parts to all corners of the field. This crashing been happening rather a lot lately, but in this case it wasn’t my fault.

Not that I was much cheered by such thoughts, as I trudged through waist height wheat heading for the scene of the accident. After some searching I found that the model mostly undamaged due entirely to the springy, vigorous crop cushioning the impact. Honestly we’re taking a vertical dive at high speed followed by significant deceleration trauma, and most of the bits were still the same shape.

They should make airbags out of this stuff. Anyway things were not so good up the front with the small, yet eye wateringly expensive, motor controller on fire and – until I took swift action – in danger of setting alight thirty acres of uncut crop. The smell was terrible, and that was just from my shorts after they’d be on the arse end of a thought process that ran something like “How the fuck am I going to explain setting fire to a field?”

Anyway it’s easily fixed. When I get time. Which I have none of, and even should some magically be presented, it’ll be eaten up by pond dredging*, removing broken forks, hammering the transmission straight on the cross bike, peeking inside the budget spreadsheet and fixing myself. With a large G&T.

It’s nice to know my “skills crossover ” from MTB to models is so seamless. Crap building? Check. Excuses? Lots. Rubbish ability? Oh yes. Crashing? Big sodding tick.

That’s a comfort of sorts.

* This weekend I’ve been up to my armpits in smelly, rank and sticky mud. I’ve had terrible flashbacks to riding in the Chilterns.

Hitting the wall

This is not, as it may first seem, the beginnings of my burial chamber. However, the way things have been going lately, the prospect of a long lie down in a cool, shaded spot is rather becoming. As opposed to what I am becoming which is bloody irritable.

My fully synchronised electronic diary failed to interface with its’ analogue sibling on hosted the kitchen wall, so curtailing my long looked forward to weekend of riding in the Peaks. A duplicitous plan, built on the need to fix my Mum’s home PC, was revealed for the web of receipt everyone knew it was, after said parent arrived at our house late last week.

Diaries you see, I have several but Carol has “the one that counts“. And I have not time to bore you with rambling whinges on house progress (not enough), budget situation (not enough), fantastic days of riding (not enough) and work (far too much).

In fact, I am being dispatched today to actually go and talk to some real clients. It’s been over three years since I had to go and earn a proper living. I’m quite looking forward to it, which is probably more than both those who have asked and those who are to receive my wise words and flailing hand motions.

I have just enough time to notice that Mountain Mayhem this year appears to be set fair. This I find slightly troubling as the entire world weather systems seems finely balanced on the predication that MM is ALWAYS piss wet through. Maybe the CLIC this year has drained the clouds of all their water.

Anyway I shall return in the manner of Arnie, although with more words and less shooting people. Unless London gets the better of me again.

Mad Cows if you please.

Stupid things, yes? Useful for milk, steak, looking English in Landscape pictures, but essentially the magnolia wallpaper of the countryside.

Yes, and indeed no. The Hound Of Smell’s evening walk perambulates through a field full of long grass, many sniffable trees and the badgers’ back passage*. From about now until September, this rather idyllic footpath also includes a herd of cows or, and you will see why this is important shortly, more accurately bulls.

Murf doesn’t quite know what to make of them, so I generally attach the sledding lead and ski behind while he investigates interesting animal turds, served up with a side order of buzzy flies. The cows aren’t sure what to make of us either, which became obvious as they began to track us at a similar pace.

This apparent stalking made for one nervous dog and one slightly apprehensive Al. But – I told myself – they’re way more scared of us than we of them, at least one of us has higher brain functions**, and that fence looks jump-able.

I refused to panic because – well – they were cows, not elephants or lions and land-going sharks, and I was a man who’d faced down puffed-up commuters, people who have referred themselves in the third person, and small children pleading for ice scream.

And then they started running. Well one did at which point the horror of “herd mentality” became visually apparent. And this was not some unfocussed stampeding either – no these horny buggers were heading for us with the kind of intent that screams restraining order.

I loosed the dog believing he would play to the masters loyal hound stereotype, only for him to give it the full “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” before running off into the long grass, where a huge, scary black dog then went with the cowering in fear option.

Fortified by a couple of pre-walk sharpeners, I chose to stand my ground, arms folded, knees shaking and in receipt of about eighty mad eyes shaking about in tossing heads. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a cow? I have, and – having come out the other side – can authoritatively declare there is nothing going on at all back there.

Clearly juggling the chemical imbalance of four stomachs is more than enough for their knuckle head brains, leaving just enough to be stoke up the properly intimidating gland. I will say at this point I was mildly perturbed and not overburdened with good ideas. But as grisly visions of being butted to death began to play in my minds eye, the long grass – currently rustling with apparently unconcerned Man’s SortofBest Friend – offered a way out.

Hay fever, l pollen and my bent snozzle can have only one outcome, and that’s a sneeze so violent I’m always happy not to have popped both my eyes out. A path to freedom opened up as the cows unclustered in the blast radius, leaving both me and my dignity to exit in a brisk trot.

The remainder of the walk passed in a blissful non event and it wasn’t until I was encouraging the chickens to bed***, it occurred to me this may be a conspiracy. That last chicken was giving me the mad eye, and a bit of beak attitude to go with it. I used to think I’m in charge of this menagerie of beasts but I’ve read Animal Farm, and now I’m not so sure.

I am sure of one thing though – those chickens have been talking to the cows.

* An animal trail that the dumb mutt never fails to nasily mine every evening. And one I never tire of pointing the name out to the kids, much to Carol’s irritation.

** That’ll be me in case you were in any doubt.

*** “WIll you PLEASE stop fucking about and get into the hutch? Otherwise tomorrow there shall be one less of you, and chicken salad for everyone else

A year is a long time in..

… Herefordshire. No, I can’t quite believe it either but fifty two weeks have passed since we surfed into the county on a stream of storm washed mud. Tomorrow we’re celebrating with a trip to the “Welsh Rivera” where the dog shall attempt to unearth Australia through vigorous digging, and the kids may, or may not get washed out to sea.

They swim better than me, so it’s pretty pointless going after them. Worse case they’ll be swept onto the east coast of Ireland and the name tags in their swimming costumes should see them DHL’d home, before we’ve really noticed.

On the first day of my very long weekend, I graciously took time out to locate the perfect spot for a lovely family picnic in the warm sunshine. And while hungry offspring disemboweled some pork pies, I found – by happy coincidence – that 200 metres of big Welsh slope provided a bit of a lift for one of my silly gliders. Well it didn’t really, because it was as flat as it was it was calm, and the uplifiting thermals were hidden behind pesky cloud.

But I cared not at all because it’s a view of mountains – so perfect they must be CGI – that I can never tire of. When I explained we were celebrating our first anniversary in the six fingered county, the question of whether I missed anything was posed. I thought about that for a while, before responding that there was really nothing at all. And I’d counted all those reasons twice.

Although my perspective may be skewed by six hours of Motorway madness ending in Milton Keynes yesterday. Our spanky new office is so fresh from the construction packet, the SatNav can’t find it and niehter could I. Having parked some four damp nautical miles away, the irony of travelling 120 miles to participate in a video conference with an office closer to me couldn’t even raise a smile.

A smile which stayed deep stowed as I attempted to carve out a political niche with the “5 Door Hatchback and Anti Motorway Party“* using my 365 day old local knowledge (no good, got lost), and the ever reliable SatNav (reliable in that it’ll direct you up the back passage of a passing cow). It saved me 4 miles and cost me about an hour, but – in principle – a navigational triumph.

I did manage to crack a grin earlier today though as the four new chickens (BHD**, Fluffy, Lt. Nibble and Boudicia: it’s a long story and has a Random element – I’ll spare you) plus the surviving wonky necked Nugget have brought about the “Second Laying“. A single egg greeted us this evening, and by my calculation we merely need another 9,254 to break even assuming they never eat again.

So as the sun gently sets over the field, and the head settles almost as gently on a muched loved bottle of Hooky Gold, I’m feeling immensely smug. Which shall likely last all the time it takes for a man in a boiler suit to drag in a huge intake of breath, and demand a few million pounds for two new tyres tomorrow.

I wonder if he’ll take an egg as a down payment?

* Got as good a chance as anyone else I reckon. It’s not like those bonkers “The Sun hasn’t set on the Empire” yet nutters or the fascist twats in ill fitting suits. We’re campeigning on two issues, and our first policy will be a massive economy stimulating programme of building scorpion pits.

** Bad Hair Day

Chickens foxed.

We’ve had our four chickens for less than two months. Past tense entirely appropriate here, after a fox killed two, took one and left the other for dead. The casual brutality is shocking – especially looking to shove them into the safety of the chicken house for the night, and finding three pathetically still chickens, broken, flat on their backs.

The fourth was nowhere to be seen but the trail of feathers suggest a violent end that wasn’t in the story I fabricated for my youngest. This was “her” chicken, and while you could argue that shielding kids from the grizzlier side of the food chain is cowardly, it wasn’t you faced with a tearful eight year old needing reassurance.

And while unhappily bagging up the dead birds, we noticed the fat one that lays ostrich size eggs was still breathing. Upside down, clearly traumatised but just as clearly not dead. It must have been knocked over and gone into shock so fooling the fox it didn’t need finishing off. We gratefully moved inside clutching the catatonic chicken, and watched it stagger about a bit, before it went to hide in a corner.

It’s still there or thereabouts two days later method acting a cross between Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo. Apparently chickens tend to just give up, stop eating and fall off the mortal perch. But we’ve high hopes for this feisty little bugger, it’s now eating a few hand fed grapes and has even managed a bit of outside pecking without mentally crumbling. Cast a shadow anywhere close though, and it freezes assuming it is about to be eaten.

This – fortuitously – is Verbal’s chicken, and she’s very keen to see it pull through. Personally I think it’s milking it now, but obviously I’m keeping that to myself. And while I know that chickens are nothing more than noisy, mobile egg laying units, and foxes kill everything and take hardly anything, and you shouldn’t get attached to domestic poultry, and the fox has cubs to feed so who are we to choose, and, and… it was still bloody upsetting.

Some things have changed. We’ll not be putting them into their new enclosure until I’ve erected Colditz type electric fences, surrounded it with ninja voles and armed the new chickens with automatic weapons. Yes, we’re going for four more, and this time we’ll try and discharge our duty of care with a little less naivity about how high foxes can jump.

And that’s not all that’s changed. My attitude to fox hunting has always been on the liberal side of hand wringing served up with a shoulder chip of class warrior. But having found that not everyone who participated was total dick, and having seen first hand the waste of fox kills, I’m not so sure anymore.

I am sure of one thing, if I saw that fox, I’d shoot the bugger.