Sunday 2 February 2020

Will the Badger See Its Shadder Day

Bad news for Greville, who's realised that now, as the sun sets on Candlemas, Christmas is finally over, he'll have to stop drinking in the mornings, sober up and go back to work. Which is about time, frankly, what with him being a teacher.

Meanwhile it's been an eventful Groundhog Day. Everybody knows that Groundhog Day was adopted from the German equivalent. and was brought across to the USA. And that the completely different meteorological conditions means it's a pointless activity. And they've adopted the groundhog in the absence of the traditional badgers. I suppose skunks look more like badgers, but who wants to be dragging those out of a hole in February?

With the sad loss of the Beaker Earless Bunny a few years ago, we have reverted to the badger motif, on the basis that it may go all the way back to the original Beaker Folk. But you know how it is badgers - how many do you actually have down the hole? And, given all Beaker Folk are terrified of badgers, how do you get them out of the hole at all?

Draffydd  announced he had a theory, and wandered off for a while. When he returned he had a determined look and something wriggling in a bag. He went round to the secondary entrance to the sett, there was a bit of swearing and a slight look of panic, and then he came round to see if the badgers came out.

Sure enough. Turns out there was half a dozen. Came out really quick. Probably because of the anaconda that was following them. I honestly can't tell you if the badgers could see their shadows because, like the other Beaker Folk, I was up a tree within about 3 seconds of the badgers appearing, let alone the snake. However, if it's warm enough for an anaconda to be active, I think we can declare winter more or less over.

Quite an old tree, some nice interesting fungus on it. In fact, if you want to know how my day went, it was roughly this...



Which, as traditional acts of worship goes, is at least better than singing "Lord of the Dance".

If anyone could help out? It's dark and cold up this tree now and we really need that snake back at the Safari Park.


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3 comments :

  1. I never thought that the Arch Druid would climb a tree to avoid a few angry Badgers and a Snake? Where is the Cricket Bat used to discipline the Beaker Folk? Where is the fierce, female who thinks nothing of scattering her flock to the four winds through her anger? Is this a symptom of advancing age or the start of a renewed ministry with compassion and empathy - an unlikely scenario I know, but we can live in hope.

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  2. ............Love the words......

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  3. Amazing how long 2 minutes and 54 seconds lasts when listening to the same word over and over again - fair put me in a Zen trance it did, just the thing after a visit from the gas man :-)

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