at last i have managed to pin herself to the keyboard. this is because she is rather tired and not in a rush to get out of her chair.
herself's friend crisp has been having a fitness regime for some time and now and again invites herself to join him and his terriers on their early morning walk. while an early morning walk might sound quite gentle and relaxing, in fact it involves marching up and down a very hilly golf course, punctuated by crisp doing energetic exercises involving benches.
i have not been on one of these walks before as i have been a little under the weather with my feet and my teeth but after a recent visit to the evil vet i am back to rude health and can yet again give those youngsters a run for their money.
the plan was to meet at 7am at the golf course. the day dawned damp and grey but i was not going to miss a walk after all this time and nudged young dave into action. our walk was rather bracing, due to the horizontal rain and biting wind, but otherwise uneventful, until we got to the far edge of the golf course. by this time herself had been instructed in the finer points of golf, in particular not to loudly ask inane questions when a golfer was trying to line up a shot, and young dave had been dissuaded from helpfully retrieving the little white balls for people.
as we were passing a clump of woodland, the terriers disappeared from view. this is not an unusual occurrence, particularly in terrain full of rabbit holes, so herself and crisp continued. however it became clear that not all was well when we could hear noises that were clearly not the terriers coming from the middle of the wood.
on returning to the wood herself could see a young deer lying in the undergrowth being attacked by the terriers. young dave and i were able to restrain ourselves (young dave because he did not know what to do and me because i am too old for all that bloodthirsty stuff). crisp got all four of us canines on our leads and herself went to see what condition the deer was in. it was obviously injured but could walk and after some discussion it was decided that it would stand a better chance being left where it was for its mother to come back for it.
herself dropped young dave and me off at home and having changed out of her wet stuff went to sort out the magnificent bonzo. there she spoke to a lady called rocks, who has some experience with animals and said that the deer's mother was unlikely to go near it if it smelt of dogs and that it would probably die without help. herself rounded up a wheelbarrow, a horse rug and a towel and arrange to meet crisp back at the golf course so they could take the deer to a vet.
the walk from the car park to the deer seemed even further the second time, particularly when pushing a wheelbarrow, but eventually they arrived at the wood. the deer had moved some distance from where it had been but herself eventually found it. the deer's eyes were covered and it was gently rolled onto the horse rug, and carried out of the wood to the waiting wheelbarrow. the walk back seemed even longer, going into the wind with a heavy load in the wheelbarrow, but after about half an hour they were back by the car park. it was only when herself went to reach for her keys to open her van that she realised she had left her bag in the wood when they were picking up the deer. this would have been bad enough but the bag contained £250 which herself had got out of the bank to pay for some work that is being done to the house by her friend shorn.
it was decided that the priority was to get the deer to medical attention and so it was loaded into the back of crisp's car. or rather crisp's mum's car, which is a small hatchback not really designed for carrying deer. the first port of call was the RSPCA, which is near to the golf course. as today is a bank holiday the RSPCA was closed, but crisp managed to locate a lady who in turn found a man who told them that there was no vet on site and the deer had to be taken to a local vet.
after further travel the vet was located and the deer taken into the consulting room. when it was unwrapped it was clear that the injuries were not going to be easy to treat and as deer are not known for coping well with the stress of captivity it was decided to put the poor thing to sleep. herself and crisp sat and had a sombre cup of coffee and said goodbye to the vets and the deer before heading back to the golf course and setting off a third time for the wood to fetch herself's bag.
this time they were resigned to being soaked to the skin. not having a heavy wheelbarrow load they made better time, but on arrival at the wood herself could not find her bag. crisp was on the edge of the wood having a quick cigarette so herself shouted to him to ask him to ring her phone so she could hear the bag. the phone went straight to voicemail, no doubt because of the poor signal among the hills, so herself had to search the wood, bent double to avoid the hawthorn trees and brambles. miraculously the bag came into sight and even more miraculously still had the money in it (although i cannot imagine who would be wandering around a prickly wood in the pouring rain apart from a mad old fool like herself).
the walk back to the car park was even wetter and colder than the previous one as the weather had worsened but at least an end to the whole thing was in sight. herself phoned home ahead of her arrival to ask himself to put on the hot water so she could have a bath.
my boy was still asleep when herself got back but had grasped through the fog of drowsiness that an adventure had been going on in his absence. part of his course at college is called 'deer management' so he might have been useful this morning...
