Careering Through Nature: Went for Walk, Goat Ate Trousers

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Went for Walk, Goat Ate Trousers

First thing, if you could call 11am "first thing", I headed out on a walk. Not just any walk, a proper full blown contemplative Nature Walk, one I could write richly and deeply about.

After all, that's what proper nature writers do, the sort that appeared in the excellent Wildlife Trusts compilation I read, or in the RSPB magazine, or in the newspaper columns. "I'll never get a job at a charity unless I can write like them" I always think. "I really must try and be a proper nature writer."

So as I headed down the cycle track, I tried to think of grand themes on the relationship between human and wildlife, between person and plant, as I tried to fix my eyes on every single point in the visible world at the same time. I thought of major concepts; perhaps the definite role walking in an outdoor environment has on good mental wellbeing.

And then I met the goat.

The goat had clearly escaped from the little urban farm on Clay Lane. Camera at the ready as ever, or rather mobile phone, I awaited the goat to come into range to get a really good shot of its face and especially its eyes, curiously reminiscent of - geek klaxon - Species 8742 from Star Trek Voyager.

The goat however had other ideas. It didn't stop and obligingly pose like an animal pro, instead it barrelled towards me and tried to stick its snout down my jeans pocket, rather forcibly, before giving up and ambling off to feed in the verge.

I don't know why it did this, perhaps it is used to getting treats given to it from the pocket. But it went straight for my hip like a very smelly missile - I hate that goaty reek - and put me right off any kind of philosophical musings altogether.

For it is hard to be a Wordsworth or a Wainwright when you've just been molested by a goat.

Si