Saturday 7 July 2012

Park Life

It's raining...nothing new.

As far as I can tell this is a great test for creationism and evolution because one of two things will have to happen in the coming weeks. As the rain continues to fall either a man in a large wooden boat will start collecting animals or my toes will start to develop webbing and gills will start to grow on the side of my neck. Mrs B is hoping I turn into Patrick Duffy in his Man From Atlantis days.



If a modern day Noah is collecting animals can I suggest he leaves things like rats and mosquitos to fend for themselves but if he needs some foxes, well there is a family of them in the park behind the ashram here on the hill.

As you may well know, the palace of wisdom in which I keep my two thrones sits high on a hill overlooking Mansfield. This lofty position has many advantages, not least being that we will be the last to get flooded. Other advantages are that in the height of summer the smell of death and the flies that buzz around the decaying corpses of kebabs and vomit, don't reach this high. There is some noise pollution through the winter months, especially if the wind is in the wrong direction, as we can here the animals howling from the nearby Field Mill Endangered Species Park.

The main joy of living in the clouds is that we back onto a park, a lovely open space in which can be seen all sorts of wildlife and nature. There are the aforementioned foxes, the odd rabbit or two and then there are the tits.

Yes, in the summer the park is filled with tits but not so many recently after the park was invaded by Stags. It would appear the Stags have escaped from the Field Mill Endangered Species Park!

You know the problem with Stags is they are so territorial and they spend all day rutting and bellowing about how fantastic they are. Even Stags that would have no chance of being given a second glance if they were in a bigger arena try and put on a great display in the park at the back of my house.

Sadly, Stag hunting is not allowed and the Mayor of Mansfield has declared them to be a protected species and he has even given them a nice shiny security fence to keep danger at bay.




They are now free to run up and down and roll on the grass pretending to be hurt without the fear of a local peasant out walking his dog, getting in their way. It's a shame really because for many years that is what the Stag enclosure was used for - local people would take their dogs, or their kids and a picnic, and spend a nice quiet day in the park.

There are some cynics who will tell you that the Mayor and the head Stag keeper are in cahoots and that some cash may have changed hands, but that would just be a cynical allegation with no proof behind it whatsoever at all! I'm sure that the Mayor just decided to allow the Stags to take over the park because it might make him look like an animal lover.

Well, I'm an animal lover too - I like stags, especially cooked in red wine!

All of this tomfoolery will come to a head, the peasants are revolting and have even desecrated the Stags territorial markings...what next I wonder? Watch this space.