|
In the bleak midwinter when frosty windbags moan and there's not much going on in the village except bell ringing on Monday nights, the imagination runs wild.
My problems started last week when I heard gunfire coming from the trees by my house. By the time I had rushed outside with my torch the culprits had vanished. Shooting rabbits, I assumed, annoyed they were so close to the house. But then there was more. Terrifying rips of fire. I crouched below the window ledge trying to locate the gunman. At first he was in the chestnut tree; then he was in the shrubs below the window.
Despite near paralysis I dialled 999, decamped to an airing cupboard and waited for the police to arrive. They seemed preternaturally calm. "It's crow-scarers", one of them explained, picking at his cuffs, leaving me pink
|
 |
|
 |
 Country Matters |
|
Gunfire rips through the village. ‘Who have I offended?’ wonders letty wheeler |
| |
but also paranoid. Clearly someone was trying to spook me.
A few days later I noticed the sign for my house dislodged from the gate and tossed onto the ground. I racked my brains. Who had I annoyed? Perhaps it was when I knowingly let my dog pee on a stretch of verge one of the villagers was trying to prettify. Or because I was caught stealing some sprigs of lavender by the owner of the bush.
But then common sense prevailed. The wind had knocked down the sign during a particularly gusty storm and the crow-scaring was the work of a 13-year-old boy who had looked daggers at me when I palmed him off with a manky old tangerine after he came round trick-or-treating. Still, not great - I will have to try and terrify him back. But better the teenage delinquent I know than the armed gangs of my mind's eye. 
FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 23
 Last week: the gipsy horse mountain
|
