Journal Sunday 18th August

It is the loveliest of mornings. Cooler first of all, the dawn has a bright pink tinge this morning, perhaps heralding the storms and rain to come in a few days time. The sky is hazy with some cloud cover which means my starting temperature is 18 degrees this morning, which gives me a fighting chance of cooling the house. The hubs who is shall we say wasp averse, due to a wasp in a can of Fanta incident when he was little, got stung by a hornet last night and is not best pleased about it. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for autumn, because hornet-mageddon tends to be more towards October. Touch wood, we haven’t been unduly bothered by them for a few years, but we have had a couple of years of “tapper tapper” hornets, that would at night time, attracted by the light in the house, would congregate on the windows and just tap in a sinister fashion like they wanted to be let in. It was so creepy it was positively Stephen King. They would also dive bomb you if you went out after dark meaning if you realised you’d left something in the car, well, tough luck.

Hmmm, despite it absolutely not being hunting season yet, I have just seen a stream of hunters in their trucks rammed to the gills with dogs go down the lane and some of them have parked up and got out in their orange high vis jackets. I don’t like the look of this. We saw 3 beautiful deer in the bottom field last night and I can only imagine that this is why they’re here. I cannot stress how much I hate this. Their dogs have been let out. Would it be a dick move to put on the radio really loud in the garden I ask myself. I’ve just run round to the front of the house and shut Figs inside. The cats are simultaneously curious but freaked out by the noise. They don’t know that all dogs aren’t friendly. I’ve put on a podcast loudly. Partly so they know that I’m here, and partly because maybe it might just drive deer away, although the dogs are baying so much now that any poor deer in the vicinity will be doomed. I’ve just heard the shot. It makes me feel sick. It’s the one thing I’d change about living here, but I accept it and I have to respect it. It’s like moving into a house next door to a pub and then complaining about the noise at kicking out time. Should also mention that it’s 7.30am Sunday morning, and for a country that prohibits the use of power tools on high days and holidays the hypocrisy is palpable, but there we are. I contemplate writing to the local hunting association to expressly prohibit them from hunting on our land. They’re not in the garden but the first high vis is literally at the corner of our boundary. We’ve only ever had rogue hunting dogs in our garden once in 7 years, but it was terrifying trying to find the cats and get them inside. I still remember hubs shouting “Barney! Run!!”, and we managed to get everyone into the house.

A lot of the trucks have gone now, but the one orange clad sentry is still on the boundary of my garden, Another really loud shot. My heart is actually pounding. The last 2 shots were too close and too loud. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve literally shat myself and run inside, the first time I’ve ever actually felt unsafe in my own garden. Freya is in her bed half terrified. I found Barney on the front step so both cats are safely shut inside, but of course I’ve had to shut the windows to stop them getting back out again.

The cats are sat at the landing window, watching proceedings unfold with interest. Unusually they are not carrying on to be let back outside. Maybe they know.

So I sit here inside in the dark quietly seething, hoping it will be over soon.

We did not go to the Bison Safari. It was too hot, there was no discernible information on line about times etc, and it just felt too much like effort.

I think I’ll have a coffee and try to calm the chuff down.

TTFN,

V x

It’s just a little e-mail in this box below. I promise it doesn’t hurt.