Realised Inner Squirrels

Apologies for the late posting. Apart from anything else, missing that leap-moon left the entire notices for the week in disarray and it's been murder sorting them out.

But that's not the primary reason for my late posting. Oh no. The "Realising your Inner Squirrel" was what caused all the problems.

Everyone was most enthusiastic. But that was not the issue. The issue was - well, let me put it this way. In The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy, Ethelberta is described as having "squirrel-coloured hair." So what colour was Ethelberta's hair?

You see?

We were supposed to be imagining serene woodland scenes, the majesty of immemorial horse chestnuts, the wind in the willows, all that kind of stuff. What did we get? Half the group decided they were going to be gray squirrels, and half red. I have never seen such an appalling display of racism in my life.

"They come over here with their gray hair, their flash gear and their nylons, and steal our does."
"Oi, you!  You've got the squirrel pox!"
"Grays, they're all the same. And they breed like groundhogs, you know."
"Who ate all the nuts, who ate all the nuts?"

And so on. Needless to say the fight, when it kicked off, went on for quite a while. Pots of Nutella and packs of dry-roast flying in all directions.

But that wasn't really what made me so late this evening either. It was when we gathered everybody together, and took a role call to make sure we hadn't left anyone lost in a ditch. Gorlia was missing.
We traced her down eventually by the sound of gnawing bark. She'd somehow managed to realise her inner squirrel far too effectively and was twenty feet up a conker tree. None of the Beaker Folk fancied climbing up there to rescue her, and even the Wodewose was stumped. He's seen a lot of funny stuff, hanging around in woodlands in Northamptonshire in his long life, but he's never seen anything like this.

She's down now, but it took hours. We had to wait till she got really hungry, then lure her down with a Topic. Someone did suggest a Snickers, but I told them to clear off. It was a Marathon when I was young, and I'm not using any poxy American names for chocolate now. After all - look what they're doing to our red squirrels. And they gave us Britney Spears and Dallas as well.

Actually, I'm just off for a peanut butter sandwich...