Yes, they were fox cubs . . .

. . . because I surfed the internet for the sounds of foxes and found a wonderful site with the chirruping of fox cubs!

http://www.angelfire.com/ar2/thefoxden/sounds.html Then go to the foxkits wave.

So it was three little cubs, thrown out of their home to go and "get a life". In the morning I saw that they had been having their little rendevous on a high and dry part of the field where some straw was down for the lambs.

Our sheep lamb in the field. They are just great. They ignore any fox that wends its way through the field in broad daylight. They don't even call their lambs to them. And the foxes don't seem interested in the lambs. This is probably because we also have SOOOOOO many rabbits.

I would have thought that the chirruping sound that comes from crop circles would be fox cubs (kits they seem to call them in the States), but they will no longer be chirruping in the summer, season of crop circles, will they?

And who is going to tell me why their eyes looked like three great coloured oblongs?

What I wear for ditching is very old cotton interlock shirts, a very old fleece with the tight wrist bits cut off, very old trackie bottoms, men's socks and big black wellies and white cotton glove linings and big strong long rubber gloves (though these are no good as thorns go through them) and my old arran hat that I shaped to keep the back of my neck warm and keep tight with a kilt pin. So who is going to tell me the right gloves? I can't wear humungous strong men's gloves.

I hate poncy wellies. I think black wellies are cool. I especially love kids in black wellies. You don't see too many of them these days. They are now all got up in colours of the rainbow, like their pathetic yummy mummies, but I remember certain tough little farm kids I knew a few years ago, at home outdoors with sticks and dogs and lambs and mud.

Country Manners

Hello World

I am Polly Bathe and I am a total country girl. I have been wanting to do this for years and years, ever since my friend mentioned me once in an internet magazine she wrote for. She was mentioning me as someone learning how to use a computer at an internet cafe. But she killed herself. You can read about that in http://www.themightyorgan.com/view_wootton2.html.

Well, you can even read about me in an earlier version of that and I will post it up one day when I find it. It took me all night to work out how to make that link.

And now, here I am, all these years later, having learnt in one evening how easy it is to make a blog after all.

Hello WORLD, again! Welcome to my news from the depths of England. The midst. The middle earth of England. If you know Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders, then you will kind of know me, a blonde with a high ponytail who should have lived then, but lives now, with a computer in a cottage.

Today I was ditching. One day I'll tell you what I wear for ditching. You will probably know that the very best thing about ditching is the "gloop" as a good bit of the bottom of the ditch comes up in your spade. But equally good (though this could be very personal) is being lower than the rest of the world. It feels massively safe and cosy down there and I think it probably prevents inflation.

All I can think of today is that, of all the couples who walked past on their Sunday walks, only the older couple (the man wearing a tie with his country togs) were the ones who I knew would give me a nod or say hello. And they did. How nice was that!

And I was incensed all day at the lack of manners of the young, not even giving me a nod. For that's surely what we do in the country? But no. And this evening I no longer care, because I read Millie's last bits of diary (see the link above) and I think it's not worth it, even though I do have very low blood pressure, and can afford to get a bit fed up. So, everyone: let's dont sweat the small stuff! Good night world. I hope there are many many many of you out there who have old-fashioned standards of integrity and kindness, and good country manners.

JUST as I was about to finish this, the most unearthly noise came from the field outside, and I have been nearly an hour investigating it. I thought it was a fox, as they can get very noisy in January, but we all know those unearthly screams of a vixen in January. No, this was an unearthly sort of fox-like chirrupping. (It's still going on as I write). I thought it was a fox getting something like a rabbit, but no, that's more of a short-lived scream. Then I thought it must be a fox getting a crow, hence the bird-like noises. I was scared to go out at first, and shone my big torch from the house. But then I listened for so long that I was no longer scared. It is nearly full moon and so light out there. So out I went and shone the torch over the ley, and there were three lots of lights looking at me. So now I'm pretty sure it's three UFOs doing their thing. Mating perhaps. We have crop circles here, and they say a kind of chirrupping can accompany their activity.

Well, I don't really believe in UFOs, but I also don't believe that three foxes having a stand-off can have 3 sets of eyes that look like 3 big oblongs, in red and white and green lights. I was too cold to stay out for more than a minute and if they were UFOs I wasn't going to climb over the fence and go up to them. If I had a man we could put coats on and go and see, but I am just a simple country girl who loves everything I do and have. Pure gratitude. Goodnight again.