All Sorts

A baby field mouse, maybe a harvest mouse, was uprooted this morning from its golden nest by Hugo, who must have seen the mother moving about and shoved his nose into the hay to see what was going on. It was no more than an inch long, maybe newborn, pink and minute but perfectly formed even to the tiny toothpick tail. I shooed him away, though he had lost interest anyway, and picked the miniscule creature up by its paw to replace it in the safety of its home. Hopefully the mother would have come back and done what she needed to. Poor little thing. Hugo has got his bounce back and he raced ahead of me, turning to check that I was still there as always but charging off again when he saw I was following. It's a relief to see him back to normal, On our evening walk I decided to cross into the next field over the 'bridge', forcing him to fly back when he saw what I had done. As I went across the gap I muttered to myself about making sure the path was secure and I wasn't going to fall into the ditch, and lo! I tripped over a sneaky low-growing bramble and crashed to the ground. Wet knees, slightly sore wrists, but otherwise unharmed. Hopefully not brittle bones then.

We had friends to tea this afternoon, with their little dog. Hugo has met her before a few times, but he made a bit of a pest of himself today, even trying to mount her at one point. He couldn't get enough of sniffing her. Her owners were quite unfazed, but I wasn't. The red lipstick didn't make an appearance luckily, but still. What was he thinking of? She found a corner in the summerhouse to settle down, her hind quarters safely anchored to the ground, and the boy eventually left her alone. As we sat out there, enjoying the sunshine, the heavens suddenly opened and another downpour of biblical proportions occurred. I'm getting used to them now. They come, they go, and then the sky is benign, the wind a wisp of a memory and everything dry and gloriously scented. I can't quite remember a summer like it. When they'd gone we went for a walk, and there ahead of us, just sitting sideways on the path, was a hare. Hugo was already unleashed, but he stared for a while and then looked at me. Let's go back, I said, and to my amazement he came. We saw it further down the track, but he was back on the lead by then. He pranced and danced a bit, crouched as if he wanted to play, but obediently turned and followed me home. Could he be a whippet with a fear of hares? Is this even possible?