Spotted by Steve A in the Swindon Advertiser:
A COUPLE were left dumbfounded when a fugitive bull and a cow moo-ved into their Blunsdon garden and refused to budge.
Kevin Eggleton and Sally Hilton were just getting home from a night out and going to bed at about 1.30am on Saturday when the garden security light came on. The pair are used to smaller wildlife, such as foxes, making an appearance at their home in Old Lady Lane, Blunsdon, but they were somwhat surprised when they looked into the garden to see the bovine pair.
Kevin, 58, tried to call the police but after no response spent most of the night baby-sitting the cattle before the farmer was tracked down and they were returned to the field they had come from at the end of Ermin Street, Blunsdon.
Kevin said: “We’d been out and were just about to go to bed when the security light came on outside. We are used to getting foxes and badgers in the back garden but when we looked out of the window it was the biggest fox we had ever seen. I ended up spending most of the night bull watching until about four in the morning when I went to bed. When I got up in the morning they were still there and had settled down and were stretched out on the grass.”
The police arrived at the house at 8.30am on Sunday and helped Kevin to trace the farmer (1). It turned out that the two animals had made a break for it from a nearby field at the bottom of Ermin Street before making their way into the family’s garden. They had not caused any damage during their overnight stay (2).
Kevin said: “We didn’t have a clue where they had come from and didn’t know where to start looking. With help from the police we eventually tracked down the farmer who is based in Fairford. When the farmer got here with the help of his dog, who was excellent, we were able to get them back down into their field. It was a very eventful day.”
1) That bit puzzles me, the police helped Mr Eggleton to find the farmer? I can see why this might not be top of the police's list of concerns, but I don't see why it's Mr Eggleton's problem either. I thought that all cows had to have ear tags and so could be identified fairly quickly, if you have access to the database. If not, he could have just sold them to the local slaughterhouse or something.
2) Well done to bull and cow for not causing any damage, maybe "like a bull in a china shop" actually means "to behave very carefully and not cause any damage"?
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
"Cows moo-ve in to couple's garden"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
It's just a shame it was Ermin Street rather than Ermintrude Street.
One assumes the DEFRA database is not available out of office hours. Although the police should be!
I was once woken by a strange rustling sound coming from my quiet cul-de-sac. A flock of sheep had escaped from the field at the end of the road and were making merry in everybodies shrubberies, they seemed to be particularly fond of roses.
The police response was rapid because my road leads down to a mainline level crossing.
Nobody gave a stuff, least of all the farmer, when 20-odd of his heifers escaped through an incompetently repaired gate and trampled my newly seeded lawn into a muddy puddle. Heifers' hooves sink to a remarkable depth in ground prepared for planting. When I phoned him at 4 in the morning to get the bastard to come and do something I got "this phone does not accept incoming calls".
Getting the shotgun out to scare them off would certainly have attracted the police, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. I had to make do with driving them off my land (with a 5 ft length of 32mm alkathene pipe to persuade the indolent :-) ) and (eventually) away down a little lane to the beach.
Good exercise, but much resented at the time.
TFB, my thoughts exactly.
W42, why not make it accessible to the police 24/7?
B, sheep attacks aren't quite in teh same league.
FT, shit, that's awful. Would you have been as brave if you knew then what you know now?
Well, I might have had the shotgun standing by - just in case.......
Nahh. Heifers are stupid beasts, dangerous in groups in their own field or if you've got a dog, but easily spooked when they're not on their own turf (so to speak). Alkathene pipe - it's that very solid blue high-density plastic pipe used for water mains feeds to a house) is a wonderful weapon and makes a marvellous sound when smacked really hard off bovine hindquarters.
But when the zombies come, it'll be the shotgun :-)
Post a Comment