Once upon a time, long long ago, and on a farm far far away. Well ok, not that far away, only about 50 miles, less as the crow flies (and no dear reader that isn’t the punchline to my tale yet ;).. in fact here it is. However I digress.
Once upon a time, long long ago, well ok, not that long ago, although truly it seems like a different lifetime now, I lived there.
As well as merely living there we had a landrover, it was the most wonderful land rover you have ever known, just the standard 2.25 engine, in a standard series III body with all the standard replacement rusty underbits that land rovers need from year to year, but it was the most wonderful as it was ours, and we could drive it round the farm with the roof off, bouncing gaily over bumpy fields and fallen down walls…
One place we often used to bounce gaily to was down through the old forest (which was so old it had been named an SSSI, and dear reader if you don’t know what one of those are you can ask your mummy, she’s sure to know, mummies know everything) and onto the bright sandy beach that lay sleepily along the side of the loch, there to swim, canoe, or drive up, down, over, and across the river where it became calm and fat below the waterfall that fell forever.
So there was I driving back from one such journey, t-shirted and shorted in the heat of the summer, sticking to the vinyl seats a little, but hot, tired, and happy, as only a kid with a landrover who has just spent the day at the beach can ever truly be… and what should happen along but this crow, and a strange crow it was, it flew over and round and ever closer and closer as I drove along. Until finally it landed on the back of the land rover, this was rather disconcerting but I figured hey! mebbe it suspects me of having food, so I continued driving along, as one does generally does in these sorts of situations.
Perhaps before now gentle reader I should have introduced you to the hole, rather remiss of me not to have, as it plays as you will shortly find quite a large role in this story.
which is only fitting as it was rather a large hole perhaps 4 foot in diameter and the same in depth. It had grown down (not up, what hole grows up?) like a mushroom one stormy night, caused by an underground spring (the overground sort would have caused an upwards growing hole) in spate. And it lay directly in the middle of the track back from the loch to the house, but that was ok, it was easily driven round.
So there I was driving merrily along, perhaps even singing cheerfully, but I think probably not, I was not particularly given to song as a child, crow sitting on the back, me sticking slightly to the vinyl, the hole somewhere watching and waiting….
It turns out that this was a strange crow indeed, not content with hitching a lift on the back of the land rover, it (perhaps due to some parrot in it’s distant ancestry…) decided to alight upon my shoulder. The sequence of events that rapidly and in quick machine gun succession followed could best be summarised thus (and I will be brief, so you will have to use your imaginations a little, but then, isn’t that what they are there for neh?):
Crow!
WTF!
Argh!
Hole!
Fuck!
Argh!
CRRUUNNKKKK!
ooopsie!
Fortunately that summer, with that landrover, even recovering it from it’s enholed predicament was an adventure, and it justified us owning two hi-lift jacks, rather than the more usual one. Which was nice.
The crow stayed with us a few days longer, perched on one shoulder, or head or another, it liked to nibble ears and feed from people’s mouths, which wasn’t very hygienic I guess, but then often the most fun things aren’t..
Often wondered where it had gone, quite missed it as it was truly unique and companionable bird. Now all these years later at last I know, and I guess Edinburgh isn’t so far …as the crow flies.
[N.B. This is actually a true story]
