Author: chris

I’m not sure what this is. I think maybe it’s an alien.

It just kinda popped in one night. We’ve been feeding it and waiting. Watching the skies. But there’s been no sign of any unusual craft. It doesn’t seem to be about to beam up, either.

I guess maybe we’re keeping it.

Maybe it’s an odd sort of cat. Everyone knows that if you feed a cat, it keeps you in its address book forever.

But I’m still leaning toward alien. Cats are a lot less needy. And this creature sounds subtly different from a cat.

Also:

Take me to your leader. Take. Me. To. — are you listening? Is there something wrong with your telepathic receptors? Man, this mission is going to take longer than I thought.

Just kidding! (Feed me.)

Something that I found surprising when I first moved to England is the presence of livestock in the midst of fairly heavily-populated areas, grazing on common land. I don’t know if there’s a significant incidence of conflict between people (or their dogs) and these animals, but around here they hang around in meadows that sustain quite a high level of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. I have had to shoo cows off a bike path in order to get past. I’ve never found them threatening,* although I have to admit I’ve also never made any effort to find out if they’re easily ticked off.

Today I came across this group of youngsters pouring out through a wrought-iron gate in an old stone wall by the river. By a really unusual stroke of luck, I was not running “late” (which is really just in time as long as you don’t let up the pace or have a flat tire or something), and I was able to stop and snap some photos.

I think the cattle on this meadow are fresh every year.

I’m no you-know-who (no, not Voldemort), but I get a little fix of cattle in the summertime.

Cute, no?

*Contrast that with the young humans who hang around the adjacent footbridge on a hot day, jumping off to swarm unsuspecting tourists in punts and impeding traffic over the bridge. I swear the impertinent little…people…I encountered this year were identical to the ones that boarded our punt over a decade ago when I came to visit.