Cloudspotting and Animals

Magnus Shearer

Last Tuesday morning, it dawned a fine bright day with numerous cloud formations rising slowly above the horizon, and as I sat and munched my way through my cereal, truttled at radio, discussed the current financial crisis at some length with Elwood the cat - who I have to say has some pretty innovative ideas to solve the situation, but I just know nobody will take him seriously - I chanced upon a cloud shape which I thought needed capturing on film.

As we have a Rayburn in our kitchen, which means we are cosy-cosy most of the time, and being the ageing hippie that I am, I generally pad around the house barefoot or in flip-flops, and so I spanged off the kitchen stool to grab the camera and head off outside to capture the moment for posterity. Flip flops and speed are not very compatible items, and as I skittered on the wooden floor, Elwood who was in his 'I am not to be disturbed position' clapped up alongside the Rayburn door, became aware of a large out of control presence bearing down on him. He awoke, wide eyed and with the speed of a bullet shot right across the front of me as I made my way to the opening between the kitchen and the sitting room.

This resulted in him being clipped around the back legs by a trailing flip flop, which altered his flight path considerably and he ricocheted off the waste bin into the kitchen wall and cannoned back into the Rayburn. A loud wail emitted from him as he bounced around the room, spitting at the bin, the Rayburn and me all at the same time. Stupid cat - he should have known I was nowhere near him. I in turn burst through the opening like some crazed terrorist, equally wide eyed and single flip-flopped as the errant left one shot past me while my arms windmilled in an attempt to stay upright.

I was minutes away from certain death or at least serious injury when I managed to catch hold of the dining table chair and though it certainly helped to slow my downward spiral, I managed to pull it over on top of me and together we gracefully landed on the floor amid a mess of chairs, cats, cushions, and curses. I am now lying on the floor seeing the beautiful clouds through the window and remarkably it's still there. . . Mickey or maybe Minnie Mouse. Two ears, a round head and an upturned nose - just magic!

Now just briefly imagine the scene here. . . a lang lanky numpty of the highest calibre is spread-eagled on the floor, a half set of flip flops dangling from one foot, a loose cushion still attached to a dining room chair which is upturned on top of him and a bemused Elwood who is now flat on the floor in 'poised to strike' mode and we look at each other eye to eye. Hmmmmm. . .. . ..

Remarkably I suffer no injuries and as I extricate myself from this position I start to giggle, and this in turn defuses the cat attack, and he slopes off back to the Rayburn to adopt his 'just cooking' position. I clamber up and get the camera out of the drawer, slip on the left flip flop and head off out the patio door to capture this exciting cloud formation.

Now time is of the essence here as clouds as you will know do not last, and a few minutes can alter a shape considerably, so I am concentrating on getting the camera switched on, the lens open etc., etc., and I just didn't see the rabbit - honestly!

Rabbits are funny animals - like funny peculiar - they freeze when startled or in any danger, in the daft idea that whatever is approaching/attacking them cannot see them. Well, they were right on that point - Oh yes! I am now fast approaching Tufty the Rabbit at flip flop speed, my radar is not switched on, I am in head down, do not stop, do not pass go mode and subsequently clatter into the blessed thing.

I never saw Tufty till he sort of drop kicked past me attached to my right flip flop this time, I meantime carried on, as momentum does to you, and overtook him in a dive Mark Phelps would have been proud of. Preservation of life and soul took priority, but I held onto the camera and kinda nose-dived into the grass, and ploughed past Tufty who had a dazed quizzical look on his face at this point. If you can imagine a rabbit's brain clicking in, and in a flash the thought was going through it. . .

"What the hell was that!? Here I was just sitting with my back to the house, safe in the knowledge Plonker the Cat was inside, nibbling away at the chickweed this Numpty calls his garden, when WMOOMPH, a frigging tornado came out of nowhere, catapulted me six feet in the air, a flip flop wrapped itself around my ears and this idiot cart wheeled past faster than a Chinese rocket."

The two of us sat there on the grass, not three feet apart, eyeing one another up, giggling at ourselves and both thinking - Holy Crapola ! You only realise that rabbits can giggle when you're up close like that.

Now maybe I have the inherent survival instincts of the wooga-wooga bird, or an Afghan Taliban, but survived I did, and now Mickey or Minnie were beginning to float away and so I finally got the snap of the cloud formation I had been looking for - or very nearly.