Meals on Wheels

July 21, 2010 by uphilldowndale 17 Comments

When Tom and I were were wrestling the bike rack on to the back of the Landrover on Sunday evening, Spud the dog, was going demented, trying to leap up onto the bonnet,  after shouting at him several times to ’Gerroff’! We had to see what he was at, as this was unprecedented determination, even by Spuds boisterous standards.  And what did we find? Sticking up from the back of the bonnet were a pair of pink feet.

It was a rat, a very dead rat.

It was wedged in the channel between the bonnet and the windscreen.

How did it get there? Well on Saturday, I’d been to a wedding, (all satin, flowers and loveliness, but more of that in another post.) Driving home late through country roads, I came across a tawny owl, it was perched on a gate post at the side of the road, wings outstretched, in a heraldic griffin sort of pose, as I drove past it took flight, slap into the Landrover’s windscreen, hitting it with a chink of talons on glass and a dull thud. The owl rolled off over the roof, into the night; it was not a safe place to stop and investigate how the owl had fared, nor was I dressed for grappling with injured owls (dress, jacket and heels, for goodness sake, not a sight often seen I can tell you.)

So this rat, which had been destined as the owls midnight feast, had instead spent the following day, travelling round Derbyshire, it had been to Tesco’s, to visit my mum and even to Glosssop and back. I think we’d have noticed it sooner, had we turned the aircon on.