Saturday 12 September 2009

Dunstable Downs Bunny Hugging

A truly eventful day.

The sacred associations of bunnies are of course well known - from the sacred hare of the goddess Eostre, from whom we get our English words "yeast", "yesterday" and "erstwhile", to the bunnies that are in fact little gnomes in the prophecies of Madeline Bassett.  Not to mention the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland - leading Alice into a world turned upside down.

So what better way to experience the sacred than in hugging bunnies in a traditional Beaker location such as Dunstable Downs?  Home of the 5 Knolls round barrows, the great Long Barrow and the location for the traditional Dunstable ritual of rolling oranges down Pascombe Pit: a ceremony which we are sure must date back to Beaker Times, when the climate was warm enough to grow oranges in Dunstable.

How were we to know that the bunnies didn't want to be hugged?  Chasing them all over the downs, we managed not to get near a single one.  After an hour or so of trying, we had to deal with an officer from the RSPCA.  By that stage, of course, we also needed medical assistance for Burton who, in the process of chasing a potential hug, fell down Pascombe Pit in the manner of aforesaid oranges.  He only stopped rolling when he collided with a courting couple hidden in a clump of brambles halfway down.  The police arriving and treating Burton as a potential peeping Tom only added to our worries.

There is an unfortunate tendency of small furry animals, when in contact with this community, of being accidentally eaten.  Or even, in one case, implanted with the electronics from a Blackberry and, a weird electronic rodent hybrid, taking part in a shootout on Weymouth seafront.  So I'm going to turn down all requests for us to buy a Community Hug Bunny.  Drayton's offer to dress up in a giant rabbit costume to offer hugs to all and sundry is, I'm afraid, best described as a cry for help.

No, if anyone wants to do any hugging, they're just going to have to hug trees instead.  At least they don't run away.  But due to the Swine Flu policy, we will insist that you wrap cling-film round the trunks first.  And no sharing of trees.

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