Interesting Times...

In the fields the livestock come and go
Talking of Michelangelo grass.

"Sometimes," the Heffalump confided to Lambskin, " the excitement gets too much, here in the Northwest."

"Agreed," admitted Lambskin. "But it's good to know that that purveyor of gripping news, the Westmoreland Gazette,  still gets its priorities straight. Look, right here,  an article headlined Horse rescued from quicksand goes on to report, somewhere in the body, that the rider was rescued, too!"

"That's nothing!" snorted the Heffalump. "Elsewhere in the paper, you can read about a pair of 'ladies' briefs, worth £10, having been stolen off a washing line and discovered nearby - cut up!"

Lambskin shrugged. "Admittedly, neither was front-page news," he pointed out.

"Oh, no!" agreed the Heffalump. "That was reserved for a story about an abandoned pup - with a "paw-fect" ending- and some political whining about parties professing various shades of liberalism standing against each other!"

"Well," asked Lambskin. "What was the most newsworthy thing that rocked your world so far today, then?"

The Heffalump sighed and thought long and hard. "I suppose," she began slowly, "the farmer rounding up the sheep this morning, and the goat no longer being in the field?"

Hoggis Heaven

home, It was dark, drizzly and damp when the Craven Heffalump was wakened. "Come quickly," Lambskin panted. "There's another hoggis in the trap!"

It was only a small one. A young, little, perhaps too adventurous for its own good, one. There, in the confines of the cage, shivering quietly to itself long after its bedtime, wondering what it was going to tell Mum & Dad when it got home.

The Heffalump struggled to open the trap, easing the hoggis off the door so that she could prise it open and wedge it with a handy twig. The hoggis stayed put, its spikes doing a gentle Mexican wave as it slowly inhaled... and exhaled. Its yoga teacher would have been impressed by its breathing, the Heffalump mused.

She went to fetch a dish of milk, hoping that would tempt the hoggis out of the cramped confines of the cage, and slowly retreated, leaving it with the space and privacy to get out of bed without showing the world its bedhair.

Checking later, she found no sign of it. The milk was untouched, aside from a fallen leaf.

"That's three hoggises," she sighed to Lambskin. "And one squirrel. And a cat. But still, no rats!"

The trap - one of three, all different - had been set in an attempt to relocate the local rat family, recently displaced from their former home in the field across the road. Things were getting desperate. From an initial single (but pregnant) specimen, the rat family had grown, and now featured at least one second generation and two third generation members in addition to the founder. Even the squirrels were finding space limited, and the goldfinches had had a meeting to complain. The Heffalump wasn't sure what to try next.

"A flute," suggested a friend. "After all, it worked in Hamlin..."

Settling for Settle

Life in the Northwest continues the excitement for the Craven Heffalump, as she plodded off to Settle to investigate the Cycling Festival. She'd long held a soft spot for Settle, ever since she'd discovered that it hosted a bottle store which willingly obtained all manner of interesting products, unavailable elsewhere, such as Creme de Cacao (white) and Curacao (blue) and all manner of other cocktail ingredients. Ah yes, Settle was a step above the limited imagination of peach-is-the-only-schnapps, so pervasive elsewhere.

And so, to Settle. The market square was full of stalls, with a tangle of delightful scents wrestling with each other for dominance to the crooning soundtrack of Van Morrison. Most were staffed by authentic citizens of European nations - there were French cheese stalls, German sweet stalls, a Spanish paella stall, Greek stalls selling olives and a Turkish stall selling baklava and Turkish delight. The Heffalump hadn't been aware of Turkey's acceptance into the EU, but was pleased to see it embodied in the marketplace nonetheless - though she did find it more puzzling when she spotted Latin American, Native (North) American and Moroccan stalls too. "I really should have paid better attention during geography lessons," she muttered under her breath, as she sidled up to a French food stall to purchase some garlic prawns.