wild life

I am perking up. I've made some good progress with the drawing, and am halfway through a cover design for the Downs wildlife book. Starting is the most difficult part; I end up worrying so much I can't put anything down on paper. Which is not good for the career prospects, all things considered.

Thank you for the messages, you who sent me messages. I appreciated it.

L to R: Catherine, Angela and Amber

Meanwhile, this weekend saw the BBC Festival of Nature in Bristol, and Angela Wilkes, author of Wildlife Rescue (lavishly if not sumptuously illustrated by me) came up to town for the occasion to launch the book. Pauline, of Secret World Wildlife Rescue in Somerset, came along with some animals to liven up the proceedings: Amber the kestrel; a couple of field mice and a noctule bat, unnamed; and Keith, a fellow rescuer who dislocated my little finger with his handshake.

Lots of people came to say hello to the animals. During the course of the day a book was sold. I wandered around grabbing freebies, and taking pictures, like these...

making a summer

Martins, not swallows. I've been uploading some pics from the soon-to-be-published Wildlife Rescue, by Angela Wilkes, pictures by *hem hem* moi, and packed full of useful tips to help you work out what to do when you meet an animal in distress. I found the advice useful not too long ago when I ran over a cat.

Not that I go out of my way to run over cats, you understand.

I was bimbling along Hampton Road when a small furry thing hurtled out from the other side of the road and straight under the car. BUMP. That horrible noise that a car makes when it's just run over a living thing. I pulled over hard, and followed the cat which was crawling desperately away; it got through a locked garden gate; I rang on the doorbell.

A girl answered the door.

"I've just run over a cat, and it's in your garden," I said. "May I go through and rescue it?"

Wordlessly, she waved me through.

The cat saw me arrive and scrabbled furiously at the wall, afraid that I was going to take it back to the road and finish the job off.



I threw my jacket over it, and bundled it up so it couldn't struggle. Then went round to my friends who live just down the road from there, and phoned the RSPCA. The cat was hyperventilating. I was feeling a bit distressed, too. Tom gave me a whisky, which helped. Me, anyway.

The RSPCA chap arrived and took the cat away.

Later, I got a phone call from the cat's owner, thanking me for rescuing her pet. Very guarded thanks, obviously; I don't think she was happy that I'd run over her pet.

But then, I wasn't happy about it either.

Cat probably wasn't, too.

We do what we can.



Darn, I was going to write about something entirely different. Better start a new topic.

Ha, swallows. Saw my first one of the year, on Monday. It was flitting about in a huge blue sky as I photographed gargoyles on Wraxall church.

Now, where was I?