I was stopped...

on a country road yesterday by a ginger cat languidly scratching itself in the middle of the road. I looked at it, it looked at me and continued to scratch. Eventually after what seemed like an age it sighed yawned and moved ever so slowly to the road side and began to examine a squashed hedgehog. All my friends know I hate cats, I'm allergic to them, seriously, need drugs and stuff. My ideal cat is a flat cat, hedgehog style, or cats drop kicked over walls, I don't really care which, anyway the cat was slinking into the undergrowth when a bird shat on its head. It really did! For a moment the woodland froze, all sound stopped and then I heard a single bird laugh, tee hee, followed immediately by a heh heh, then a hah hah, then gales of bird laughter, louder and louder then with mania. A Hitchcock moment started to develop, well more Beavis and Butthead as I began to understand what they were saying, and it was sooo rude. Lots of voices, a cacophony in fact, the collective noun for this type of thing is a 'bitterness'.

"Fuck him, yeah, fuck him." "Right on the noggin, well done Charles." "Yeah do it again" "Yeah lets all shit!" "Give him what the hedgehog got, yeah" "Flat bastard, yeah" "Where's the fucker slipped away to?" "Little bastard, try licking that off" "Heh, heh, didn't he eat your brother?" "I know, lets shit on each other!" And at that the forest again fell silent and all including me turned to the seediest looking bird who said "What? It was only a suggestion!"

Then a gruff little voice said "Who's that fucker in the car?"

And an even gruffer little voice replied. "He's looking at us, the fucker, think he brought the cat. Let's shit on him."

So I wound up my window and left with a thought that maybe it's not age that gets woodland birds but ulcers from all that stress.