The Really Wild Show

One of the greatest things about my job - apart from the tiny motorbike, flashy cars and the occasional disproportionately generous tip - is that during my many nighttime jaunts in the sprawling Sussex countryside, I get to see wildlife.... Shitloads of it.

I'm not just talking about the occasional glimpse of a fox or fleeting glance of a squirrel. I'm talking about animals that you know exist, but you've only really ever seen on tv being fondled by Terry Nutkins (may he rest in peace).

Take last night for example. There I was riding down a private little country lane at 1 o'clock in the morning, minding my own business, when SMACK! A badger with a death wish pelted out of the hedgerow and head-butted the side of my bike. I made a noise that I can only liken to a small girl suddenly, and unexpectedly having ice cubes poured down her back. As for the badger, well it disappeared pretty quick back from whence it came. I reckon it got off pretty lightly with a sore noggin and something to tell the grandchildren.

Distressing as this was for all parties involved, it doesn't come close to the distress I endured a couple of weeks ago on the way back from another job.

I'm no stranger to occasionally seeing animals hit and killed by vehicles - goes with the territory of the job unfortunately - although I've only ever been in one vehicle that's been involved in such a collision.

Maybe you have too? Maybe you've witnessed an unfortunate moggy meet it's maker under the wheels of your Nissan Primera? Maybe you've caught the demise of a pheasant as it bounces with ill grace off the bumper of your Toyota Corolla? Perhaps you have brought about the termination of bountiful bunnies in your Landrover Discovery? Well, you ain't seen nothing until you're in a transit van that's just hit a full grown deer at 40mph. Such is my only ever experience of direct roadkill. It was a long time ago.... I don't like talking about it.

But let's get back to what happened a couple of weeks ago....

So there I am once again, riding back home from a job over Ditchling Beacon (one of Sussex's finest viewing points) on a beautiful clear night - another fabulous thing about working so late in the countryside is that there is seldom any light pollution, and I rate a clear starry night high on my list of all time favourite things, sandwiched in between sand and sandwiches - when all of a sudden the car in front of me shudders, swerves, and completely fails to avoid the rabbit that has just leaped out in front of it. Normally, I wouldn't have stopped, were it not for seeing the poor little fucker's front legs still trying to do something about the fact that it's back legs were no longer three dimensional. They had length, breadth, but no depth. I turned round, rode over to the mess of legs and fur and weighed my options.

I needed to kill this thing quick, so I wanted to make sure that whatever I did, it stood no chance of surviving. I thought about putting it back in the road and taking a run up with the bike, but I figured that I couldn't guarantee it's death, and I'd probably be poking bits of rabbit out of my mud guard forever more.

Maybe a severe blow to the head then? Maybe not. Rabbit heads are pretty tough, and although I did have steel toecap boots on, again I could not guarantee it's demise, and I really didn't want to go searching a nearby hedgerow to see if the rabbit I just booted into it was dead or not.
Stamp on it? Too gory!
Grab it's back legs and smash it's head on the floor? See stamp on it.

In the end I crouched down and gingerly gathered it up in my hands - it didn't even protest - lay it out flat on my lap with its head facing away from me and Karate chopped the back of its neck as hard as I could. That did the trick, instantly.

Unpleasant, but utterly necessary. In retrospect, I'm perversely proud of my actions - even the bit where I launched it into a nearby field to get it as far away from the road as possible, thus avoiding any harm that could potentially befall any would-be scavenger if the carcass had remained by the roadside. True, I didn't necessarily have to drop-kick it, but my throwing arm is dreadful.

However, these horrific scenarios are exceptions to the norm. I am more often than not but a mere observer to the comings and goings of the nocturnal wildlife community. Hedgehogs, rabbits, badgers, foxes, deer, bats, rats and mice are but a few of my woodland friends that happily hop, scuttle, waddle, flap, slink and prance around me as I go about my nightly business. It's brilliant!

I've just recently seen an owl for the first time.

I saw it whilst riding down the moonlit high street of one of Sussex's many impossibly quaint villages, and there it was, sat atop a sign that advertised that this particular impossibly quaint Sussex village welcomed careful drivers. It was facing away from me, but it's head turned to observe me as i approached in that way that only owls and people possessed by Satan can do. I passed it, turned round and slowly inched back towards the sign. Me and the owl regarded each other for a while.

Then, without warning it stretched its massive wings and took off towards me. I shat myself! However, it merely sailed over my head and disappeared into the night. It was an amazing thing to see (the owl that is, not me shitting myself).

Anyway, I'm off out again later and the weather looks good. I wonder what the Sussex countryside has in store for me tonight?

Toyota Prius as driven by Rambo.

Sometime I seriously wonder if I could live by foraging, hunting/fishing and brewing.

I’m talking about swapping my regular meals and trips to the off-licence for dandelion & nettle salads, rabbit stews, fish pies and ‘Jake’s Kidney Abuser’ home-made ale. This idea regularly grips me to the point of distraction. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for me to spend hours fantasising about myself as some sort of Ray Mears/Rambo survivalist type, wandering the woodlands and lakelands of my mind’s landscape, imitating complicated bird song, bringing down mighty stags with my trusty handmade crossbow, and retiring to my palatial tree house where I then crush juniper berries with my bare hands to make gin (I think after which point, I smoke a pipe. Which I made.) All of this, by the way, is happening to the soundtrack of Lord of the Rings.

Hopelessly childish beyond reason, I know, but I can’t help it. I love all that shit. Here’s the thing though: I’m crap at most of it!

I’m not really sure what plants you can eat, I can’t build anything, I tried shooting a rabbit once, but missed – terribly, I’ve caught 1 fish in 2 years of fishing……. and I don’t smoke. So that leaves brewing, which is something that I don’t know if I can or can’t do, cos I’ve never really tried it. My dad does it – in fact I was furnished with a couple of bottles of delicious wild plum wine the last time I visited him, which lit the fires of interest in the whole enterprise, and got me very pissed.

The idea of making beer/wine/absinthe at home intrigues me. If I do it right, I’ll never have to pay off-licence prices again (however, if I get it wrong I could go blind – swings and roundabouts). The trouble is that I have zero space to accommodate the micro-brewery I’ve got my eye on - It’s all buckets and test tubes and yeast (oh my!). I live in a top flat with no garden, and we’re already at spatial capacity, what with having a 10 year old girl and a 7 month old baby filling up every available nook and cranny with toys and nappies and JLS cd’s.

So, my options are:

1. Ask someone in my local area to house my crazy concoctions – I can’t offer any money, but if you do live in the Fiveways area of Brighton, and have a spare cupboard, you can have half of the poisonous ditch water I will inevitably produce as payment for your services.
2. Move house to somewhere bigger – This is actually on the agenda, pending us saving up a deposit. This is happening slowly but surely…. While our yearly earnings might not give our bank manager an erection, we’re managing to claw a few pennies a month into a savings account. However, if I want to be brewing up a batch of “Beer Battered” – a name I’ve just thought of, but will definitely be using – within the next couple of years, I will have to refer exclusively to option 1.

So while I wait for the offers to roll in, I’ll fill you in on what’s gone on since I last updated this here blog…..

I know it’s been ages since my last post. I seem to remember saying some time ago that I would have a ton of stuff to write about now that I’ve moved away from exclusively talking about cars – turns out I was wrong…. There appears to be bugger all left in my head when you take the cars away (apart from the occasional ‘Jake of the Jungle’ fantasy).

I’ve driven a ton of cars since the Bentley, but none as classy or fast, so there’s really been nothing decent to write about on that front for ages. That said, my friend wrote this on her facebook the other day:

“Had to drive a Prius today. Must be the only car in the world where you need an engineering degree just to start it!”

She’s not wrong! I had the same experience not so long ago. For once I was collecting someone who wasn’t pissed, moreover that he’d just had an operation that prevented him from driving (I didn’t ask what he’d had done, but from the way he was limping, it wouldn’t have surprised me if a surgeon had just done something inexcusable to his happy sack). He asked me if I’d ever driven a Prius before. “No” came my reply, “But I’ve driven a lot of other cars before, how different could this one be?”

His smile said it all. After what seemed like five minutes of the most frantic button pushing, horn blasting, windscreen wiper activating, radio tuning madness, he politely provided me with the list – yes list – of actions one needs to perform in order to start and drive his stupid bloody car. Right foot goes here, left hand goes there, press that button for 2 seconds, pull that lever, left foot up, right foot down, grab your partner, and dosey doe.

Once it got up and running, the Prius was actually a lovely car to drive…… until you stop at traffic lights, at which point the engine cuts out and you shit yourself at the thought of having to do all that twatting around to get the thing started again.

Fear not! It’s an oh-so-smug emissions saving device that turns the engine off when it’s stationary. Put your foot back on the gas *tip’s his hat to his American readers* and the engine starts and you’re off again. I had real difficulty coming to terms with this feature – it just felt like I kept stalling it, at which I would automatically apologise. We didn’t talk much, and I’m not surprised considering that I was saying sorry for no reason at every set of lights.

But back to the beer. If somehow a space is procured and I manage to brew anything half drinkable, I will of course review it here. If anyone out there brews their own, all tips/tricks and recipes would be appreciated J

Please leave comments below or on my facebook page www.facebook.com/ihavewrites

In the mean time, I’ll be out in a field munching grass and bothering rabbits.…… anything to get away from JLS.