The tail end of Hurricane Gonzalo continues to batter the country, but the drenching rain of earlier today has long since passed leaving bright skies and the merest wisps of skudding cloud. I had to get out, despite hearing that a woman had been killed by a falling tree in Knightsbridge. Of all places, that would have been lowest on my list of likely accidents, but London is full of plane trees. Down past Farmer Alys's place I was accosted at high speed by what at first looked like a Dobermann Pinscher. God, I thought, is this it? But it was a very large puppy, and it threw itself at me, gangling forelegs struggling to get a hold. Good dog, I tried to say confidently. What a nice dog you are. A sharp voice drew it reluctantly away, and the jacket is now in the washing machine. What's a bit of mud when it could have been blood?
On I marched through the soft grass, my 50ft-long shadow just to the left of me. There were no fewer than seven dreaming hares in the lower field, in group of three and four, faces to the sun. Please don't move, I muttered under my breath. I won't hurt you. Don't you know me yet? But they scarpered anyway, vanishing over the rise towards my house. I hate to disturb them when they're comfortable. On the lane things suddenly got a bit more hairy. Lined all the way to my house with oak trees, its surface was littered with the gnarled limbs that had fallen since yesterday, and I realised I could be in trouble. They waved wildly above me as I wove a path between them, trying to keep upwind of them, and behind me I could hear occasional crashing and splintering. I made it back safely of course. Prevaricating with pencil-sharpening or making cups of tea when you're supposed to be revising Italian is acceptable, just. Getting concussed by a falling branch is a bit OTT.
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