Seasons Greetings

It was very dark as I rode home the other night for the start of my Christmas break. I was going a route that I don't usually travel along, along where the canal path joins the river path in Bath, due to it being the hang-out of flailing drunks and school children desperate to stab something.

There's a bit that goes very thin, called the Cataract, and only one Person Walking/Jogging/on a Bicycle can pass at a time and due to my innate politeness I always stop my Top-of-the-Range Bicycle-from-the-future for other people to come through first. 

One thing I do expect is a "thank you".

I know that your not meant to expect thanks for your acts of kindness, and you'll only be disappointed blah, blah, effin' blah, but if I don't hear those two words, or something amounting to it, I start to lose my world-reknowned cool.

Well on this occasion, I saw another Person on a Bicycle approaching the Cataract and I stopped to allow their passage. The rider had no lights on their bicycle, and they were in dark clothes, and they had no helmet, and their bushy mad hair stuck out in all directions.

"Merry Christmas!" I merrily chortled in my merry way.

"You Bastard," said the approaching bike-riding darkness.

A red mist suddenly descended from the sky and wrapped itself around me and I started to shiver with it's intensity. As the unfriendly dark rider drew near to go past me, I could smell his fetid, drunken breath, see his terrible flame filled eyes, and I could feel the demons within him. I knew what I had to do.

Flinging out an arm, I caught him across the neck. He made an odd gagging noise and then toppled to one side, over into the scrub on the waters edge.

"I said, 'Merry Christmas'" just incase he hadn't heard me.

He was struggling for breath and didn't seem that keen on answering me. I got off my amazing bike, put the composite alloy stand down, and walked over to where he was lying, entangled in his bike and the undergrowth, a shaking, open hand raised towards me.

"Here, let me help you up." I said.

I reached down and pulled his bike out from under him. It was an inferior, old make, that was probably stolen or something, it didn't even have a motor. I threw it as hard as I could across the river. It hit the other bank, bounced around for a bit then splashed down and sunk out of view into the black water.

"Looks like your walking, buddy," I quipped.

Then I turned my head downward to look at his pathetic, frightened body far below me. He slowly reached into his dirty, oily coat and pulled out something, something small, furry, and full of the furious furry fires of fetid hell; a squirrel.

I stumbled away backward, reeling in horror, fear and despair. He placed the squirrel on the ground and pulled another from his coat, an then another, and another. Before long, he had pulled some thirty or more hideous, rodent nut-botherers from a hidden cavity in his abdomen.

Wow, I look AMAZING. Pee-oww! Bang! Splat!

The squirrels formed themselves into one enormous super squirrel and shot towards me, arms flailing like a flail. I neatly side stepped them and then pushed off from the ground and shot into the air, only to crash down again directly as a gnarled giant clawed claw grabbed me. I lashed out with my other foot and sent the massive mutant howling into the river water, where it thrashed around screaming the many tiny squirrel screams that come out of a mutant ginormo super squirrel as it drowns.

Glad that that was over I got back on my bike and headed home for the Christmas break, safe in the knowledge that I had struck a deadly blow against those who think "manners" are just a cockney gangster's territory.

Psychopath

Today is my first birthday. 

For one year I've been jotting down my experiences of over five years, riding my top-of-the-range-incredobike, exactly as things happened.

But this is one story that I have never told. A story so horrifying, so steeped in fear, so despair giving, that until now I have been unable to speak about it.

It was the day I met a psychopath and almost died.

CLICK THIS:

It was an average kind of evening when I was making my merry way over the top of Widcombe Hill, past the University, when a car overtook me as another car was going past on the other side. The road is quite thin, but the Black BMW Licence Plate W*****R squeezed past me, within a bank vole's cobblers, doing about 40 mph. 

As I wobbled about trying to stay on my cutting-edge-of-technology bicycle, I shook my head in disbelief of what had happened.

Big mistake.

The Beemer, instead of just roaring off down the road like the bloated germanic nazimoblie it is, pulled up like it was going to turn right, but there was no right turn! What was this Person Driving A Car up to? I cautiously approached and made to ride through the gap on the inside.

Bigger mistake.

The BankManagingWankmobile, started up and cruised along side me, hideously close, and then the window wound slowly down.

"Are you OK mate?" came the vile voice, full of mocking hatred.

I said nothing.

Mega mistake.

"Are you alright?" he uttered like an evil Darth Vader or maybe even the Emperor it was that evil.

I kept my silence and rode on, I thought it best not to provoke him any more. 

Global mistake.

Steam was rising from my whirring legs, but he somehow he managed keep along side me. He could see I was trying to outrun him. I risked a glance to check out my foe. Just as I thought, a smartly dress out-of-shape fellow in his early thirties with a face full of unleashed evil and twisted monstrousness. As our eyes met, mine good, his burning with the devil's Maglites, I knew what I must do.

Switching my Bicycle-from-the-future into full auto, I leapt up onto the seat, and from there I jumped onto his roof. Just as I was pulling my Berettas from the holsters on the small of my back, his roof started to go backwards. I had failed to notice it was a convertible. I made a grab for the black canvas.

"What the hell are you doing?" he screamed as the car screeched to a halt. I was lucky to hold on. I knew I had to act quickly, before he could bring his laser eyes or mind control, or whatever these super-villains have, to bear upon me. Someone had to stop this psychopath now, and fast, before he killed someone.

"I am going to end your reign of horror now!" I roared, as lightning flashed all around me.

"Wha...?" He uttered in a guttural gurgle.

I pounced into the cab and proceeded to wrestle with him to remove his car keys. I easily overpowered him, because even though he was drenched through with malice and evil power, I am 6 foot 3 inches and really rather massively muscular, whilst he was really rather weak and didn't put up much of a fight.

I got the keys of evil in my just hands of good and turned and threw them into a nearby field full of cows.
"Thanks cows," I quipped.
"What the hell did you do that for, you...you...lunatic?" He raged.

I said nothing. Well, what can you say to people to make them realise what they are doing is wrong?

In one swift, smooth movement I leapt back onto my bike and rode on, safe in the knowledge that I had no number plate and was untraceable, unlike him, who I could easily find out where he lived and follow his wife home and stare at his children from across the street and burn his dog and poo through his letter box and get on his roof and kill his plants and rummage through his rubbish and live in his shed and appear in his bedroom one night and turn up where he works and form a sexual relationship with his widowed mother and wipe my wabblers all over his car door handles.

I think I have made the roads a little bit safer for everyone.

Now check out my Happy Birthday song video below.

Do it

or you're next.

Cheat

As I rode my merry way down the canal path the other evening on my way back from work, I spied ahead of me a group of Crusty Jugglers shuffling around.

As I drew closer I could see that there were two grimy males on a bench to the left, on the path was a female and a small Jugglet, and on the other side, next to a canal boat was another female and her male tie-dyed partner.

As I drew closer I rang my jolly bell as a warning of my approach and I hoped they would clear the path for me to carefully pedal on past. This did not happen. As a unit they turned to face me. I slowed my incredible super bike even further as I noticed the scraggly haired male on the bench, clearly the tribal leader, open his vegan pie hole and speak.

"Hey watch out, here comes that crazy cyclist."

I ignored this slight insult (cyclist, indeed!), said nothing, and continued at a cautious crawl towards them.

"Oh look, he's a cheat, he's got batteries on his bike!" 

This stopped me dead.

The other Crusty Jugglers laughed like the acid-cripples they were. The Jugglet just stared, dead-eyed, at me.

"What did you say?" I knew exactly what he had said, I was just saying it to be threatening because you say stuff like that if you want to be threatening, and getting people to repeat themselves is really scary for them, just ask deaf people.

There was a tense few seconds when no one did anything, and I glanced from Juggler to Jugglet to Juggler again, gauging them, looking for weaknesses. Their choice of knitwear was awful, a definite flaw. Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible movement from the other, shaven-headed Crusty on the bench, as he reached a hand for something just out of my sight. 

It was an ambush.

In one swift flowing movement, I leapt from my bike reaching for the twin Barettas in the holsters on the small of my back, and unleashed a hail of covering fire as I fell into the cover of the hedgerow. I heard a loud boom as a shotgun blast shredded the leaves nearby.

Glancing out I saw that I had felled the male of the crusty couple by the boat and the female was trying to drag his body to the safety of the boat. Two out of the action already, a great start, but I was lacking cover and the Alternatve-lifestylers had good firing positions. The female who had been in the middle of the path with the Jugglet had disappeared, which caused me some concern, but right now I had to deal with the two male Crusties who were firing on me from their position behind the bench. Shavehead continued to blast at me with his Spas 12, and Big Chief Scraggly had twin MAC10 Ingrams that he was firing wildly all over the place.

He was as high as Christ, and twice as dangerous.

"Die, you low down cheating sonofabeeeeeeech!" he screamed.

"Yeah!" agreed Shavehead shaking his hands silently above his head in agreement, then letting off another shot in my direction.

Suddenly, behind me the bushes erupted as the female and the Jugglet came crashing out. The mother(tree)hugger had outflanked me! Worse than that, she was wielding a glittering samurai sword which she swung with deft precision at my neck. I thrust my right Baretta up and blocked the blow in a shower of sparks. I was suddenly aware of a searing pain in my left leg and looking down I saw the Jugglet had pushed a ceramic combat blade into my thigh. It was looking up at me with a curious expression of curiosity on its dirty urchin face. Curious, I thought. I could see the other side of my top-of-the-range Gortex Water/Windproof breathable riding trousers start to bulge as the blade pushed it's way out. Blood splashed down on my very expensive cycling shoes, which are awesome.

"Drum circle this, bitch!" I quipped as I swung my Barretta around, twisting the sword arm of the ninja hippy, and then put my other gun under her chin and pulled the trigger. A fountain of stuff that was seconds ago safely inside her head showered down on me and the Jugglet, who was still putting the knife in. I knew I had to distract it somehow.

"Look, a pretty birdie!" I voiced, pointing to the sky to where I was pretending a bird was flapping about.

But there was something coming.

As the Jugglet looked around we could both see something huge flying towards us at great speed, silhouetted by the sun. Only at the last second, just before it's arrow sharp beak speared through the Jugglet's knife arm, did I realise this was The Heron come to help me again. He swooped low over the scene, carrying the silent, yet struggling, Jugglet away.

"No! Skylark, Nooooooooo!" screamed Shavehead as he leapt from his cover to catch the Jugglet as it passed. He missed. I didn't though, one shot from my still working Baretta took him down, like Bambi's mother.

It was just me and Hippius Maximus left. I took the initiative and whilst he was distracted with his buddies demise I pounded across the space between us. He stood and up, rage on his unkept face, and raised his MAC10 as I slid towards him. We both ended up facing each other, guns against each others heads. We both pulled our triggers at the same time, but only the clicks of empty chambers were heard.

"The next bell you'll ring will be in hell, bike man." he menaced, raising his other MAC10 to my head. It clicked empty as well.

Horror, fear and despair shot across his eyes as I reached down, pulled the ceramic blade from my leg and pushed it through his chest.

"Get a job, asshole." I whispered.

As his twitching body slipped to the ground I realised I should ask my doctors to try me on a different anti-pychotic drug as these ones really aren't working that well.

I blinked a few times, looked about myself at the path, and the confused and frightened faces of the Crusty Jugglers standing around me, got back on my bike, rode home, and had dinner. 

I think it was Three Bean Bake. Mmmmm, yummy.

About Me: Episode 1, The Goatening.

I was born on a lonely farm in the foothills of the Broken Mountains. I was raised by my Mother and my "Uncle", Old Pokey. 

Photo taken on my twelfth birthday, Mom and Old Pokey giving me my first bike! Love those guys!

When I was old enough I asked  Uncle Pokey who was my Father. He told me that "Yo fool, yo Mom an' Pops were like ships in da night, see. By which I mean, it was dark, everyone was drunk, an' one ship repeatedly rammed inna da other, spilling seamen everywhere. Word."

"Oh," I said.

My Mother never told me who that ship was. I like to think he was a tall galleon, tall and proud, with tall stuff proudly standing tall. She just mumbled something about him being more of a canoe. Was he a King or Lord of high, noble birth? Was he someone I would later meet as my enemy, then I would find out in a shock reveal moment at the end of an episode that he was really my father, and I would have to scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" as I fell off something?

I don't know, I haven't decided yet.

My early life was a life of hard toiling toil, working the goats in the high pastures, herding them like some sort of lowly goatherd and juicing when they were ready. But I knew in my heart of hearts (I had had quite a collection, I loved the way they glistened and dripped) that I was meant for greater things, like a destiny awaited me that was unlike the normal style of destiny, but instead it was a destiny that was like a destiny someone might have that was destined for something destinified. As the twin suns set on the horizon and my theme tune came mournfully whistling from my lips, I vowed that I would make it my destiny to find that destiny I was destined for.

One day a strange thing happened, a travelling band of squeaky Dwarf farm equipment salesmen stopped and sold us a a large grain dispenser, the "Seed 'n' Throw" and a wheelbarrow that always knew where it was going, the "Hard to Detour".

A pair of tools, Seed 'n' Throw and Hard to Detour.

"Yo fool! Take these two to tha Goat's crib and get them cleaned up. Fool." Uncle Pokey ordered.
"But I was thinking of maybe doing something else like going into town and hanging out at the railway station with my chums, Frankenstein and Dracula," I whinged.
"Yo fool! Yo can waste time with your fiends when yo chores is cooked, homie. Yo crazy assed fool," came the reply.

I could never catch a break. Things got worse later when I realised that the little bastard wheelbarrow had malfunctioned and decided it had no idea where it was going and run off. It's strange one-wheeled and two dragged stands trail trailed off, to my utter horror, fear and despair, to the Canal Path in the Woods of Terror near to our little farm. I knew I must venture into that hollow of hideousness to get back the troublesome wheeled bucket before Uncle Pokey found out and popped a cap up mo ass.

For some unknown reason know only to myself and not known by anyone else I decided to take Seed 'n' Throw grain dispenser with me on the back of my trusty rusty wobbly old bike. I rode down the hillside to the point where it joined the canal path.

Entering that creepy area was hard for me to do, I had heard such hideous tales of the weird goings-on down here from my blog and I was rightfully cautious. It wasn't long before I found the stupid bloody GPS guided wheelbarrow. It was stuck up a tree, and took me an Seed 'n' Throw quite a while to knock it out by throwing Crusty Juggler children we found lying around at it.

Suddenly Hard to Detour started to excitedly shake and spin it's wheel around. "Sir, he says that there are creatures approaching from the south west." said someone, I'm not sure but I think it came from the seed dispenser. Weird. I got out my binoculars and looked down the canal path. Yes, there in the distance about 3 miles away were some squirrels hopping evilly about. I totally shat myself.

Even more suddenly, like in a really shocking end of episode shocker, a blurry, red-eyed, squirrel face whizzed past my binocular vision and gave me such a fright I gave a high pitched scream like a hydrophobic panicking kettle and passed out..................

CLICK THIS AND IT WILL WHISK YOU AWAY TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO WATCH IT HERE, BUT I'M NOT SURE WHY YOU WOULD BOTHER.

Flies

The beautiful sunny mornings of spring have a awoken many things along my canal path route. Daffodils, Primroses and crocusses Croqueses cockasses other flowers are all lining my journey like a crowd of adoring fans (I wave regally at them as I pass). The sexy twinkle is in the eye of the sheep and cows as they pop baby things out of their front bottoms that scuttle and hop under rocks and into the caves where they grow into adulthood. Birds tweet like they are being strangled by invisible Pine Martins, desperate to attract the mate that will bring meaning to their flappy lives.


But there is one thing, or many things, or lots of the same thing, not sure which, that is/are not very nice thing/things that appear also at this season of the year.


And they are FLIES.


Flies, if you are unfamiliar, are little insects that can fly (hence the name, Einstein) and have no purpose on earth other than to hang about in the air around the canal path. This brings them into direct conflict with me. I, if you are unfamiliar with me, am a bicycle riding misanthrope.


Here are some Stat cards for you to cut out and keep:

So what's the worse thing about these airborne flappers? 

Well, it's not that they fly into your eyes and you have to spend hours when you get home picking their corpses out. It's not even when they fly up your nose or straight down the back of your throat causing you to puke your high-energy bike fuel bars up all over Timmy Toddler out for a fun scoot, scooting about on his new scooter with his scooterless family.

No, it's none of these.

It's the way that they dive, kamikaze style at my lips (I even think I heard one buzz "Banzai!" once). 

"That's not so bad, you effin' drama queen" I hear you scream. Well that's because you don't know the thing that I am about to tell you in the next line of this blog that I am writing now. 

I have to cover my lips in Vaseline so the don't dry out on my journeys and the flies become stuck to it and I end up with writhing fly-encrusted mouth parts! 

Dead flies, half dead flies, ones still crawling about amongst their rotting compatriots, all over my mouth!

I try to wipe them away, but that just pushes the fly/petroleum jelly death mix further into my open orifice. I can feel them crawling about as the struggle in their death-throes, desperate for the release of freedom or death.

People point and recoil in horror, fear and despair at the Fly Mouth Man who speaks in buzzing words of death and relentlessly hurtles passed them at speeds so speedy, only the truly damned would pedal at them.

When I arrive home I have to carefully scrape the crust of corpses carefully from my lips with care.

But I tell you, it has worked wonders for my lips, all that fly goo has left me with luscious, ever-so-kissable smackers. If only I could find some way of bottling it and selling it to posh chumps/chumpettes I would probably get rich. 

Or arrested. 

KISSY KISSY!

Theme Song

Hey! Got nothing better to do? Well check out this Link below. It's my very own theme tune. What? You think that is awfully egocentric of me to have my own theme song? Well, yes it is, but don't you, as you ride along the roads, have a three minute rant pounding on the inside of your skull to get out? Thought so, well here's mine:

LINK TO PERSON ON A BICYCLE THEME SONG, CLICK ME!

http://catnipp.bandcamp.com/track/person-on-a-bicycle

Or listen to it here on this video:

Or if you can't see that then try this link to the Facebook page to watch it there:

PERSON ON A BICYCLE THEME SONG ON FACEBOOK PAGE LINK


It has my complete and utter official endorsement as well as my distain and pity.
Anyway, for any of you chumps out there who are interested in these sort of things here are the 'lyrics':

Verse 1:
Hello, I'm Person on a Bicycle
My adventures they can be farcical
But I'm not typically typical
'Cause in a crash I lost a testicle
Attention I crave isn't medical
Although a creme I use is topical
Please don't be over-critical
Of when I ride reading my Kindle

Chorus:
My ravings are non-sensical
Horror, fear, despair make me cynical
I try and write it in an article
Called Person on a Bicycle!

Verse 2:
When I see a big vehicle
Squish a bunny I get hysterical
They tried to lock me in a hospital
Said my problems were purely psychological
Calling me a cyclist is not advisable
Machopaths and squirrels make me flammable
I don't want to get to technical
But fugg 'em, I'm Person on a Bicycle!

Chorus:

My ravings are non-sensical

Horror, fear, despair make me cynical

I try and write it in an article

Called Person on a Bicycle!

Horror
Fear
Despair
Horror
Fear
Despair!

Chorus:

My ravings are non-sensical

Horror, fear, despair make me cynical

I try and write it in an article

Called Person on a Bicycle!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

I'm Person on a bicycle

Not a tricyle

I'm Person on a motherlovin' Bicycle!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

I like the way everything rhymes with ickle. Sort of.
There you go, hope you have many hours fun screaming this at cars as they pass you by in the street. Go and shout it full in the face of some pensioners at a bus stop. Works wonders for the soul!
BYE!

Anal

I have had many a misfortune on my journey that takes me to hell and back. I have seen things that would make most sane people start writing a blog and go over-the-edge crazy in public. Not me though, I face these things with stoicism and patience, not for me is the route of vanity publishing and generally getting on all the people I know nerves with my insessant Internet vomiting. No, I suffer in silence, screaming horror-filled silence.


One of the worse things that I wish I could unsee and rip from my head like one of those brain control bugs that made Chekov go all crazy in The Wrath of KHHHAAAAAAANNN! would be the thing I saw when I was seeing the thing I saw going up Prior Park Rd one day.


It was a beautiful summers day, warm and sunny. Fluffy clouds of water vapour weighing hundreds of tons were somehow lazily wobbling about in the sky stuff. I was in my summer gear, baggy shorts and t-shirt pedalling furiously up the hill. Up ahead of me, a dot in the distance was a Lycra-clad Machopath, making his slow way up ahead of me. He was still ahead of me as I quickly gained on him, although he would not remain ahead of me for long, I thought, no, soon he wouldn't be ahead of me, he would be behind me, instead of being ahead of me. As I drew close to him, I could see he was wearing the customary Lycra short tights things those nutjobs wear, but with one, horrific difference.


This guy must have been a veteran of the roads, and these must have been his favourite skin-tight bottom coverings, but years of wear and washing had thinned these to a see-through state of transparency. I could clearly see his bum cheeks through the molecule thin material.


But worse was to come.


As is the norm with these dickswinging motherlovers, they cannot comprehend that someone else on a bicycle has caught them up. "How could this be?" they whisper to themselves, "I am fughugging AWESOME on a bike and no one alive can catch up with me, 'cause I am just so macho and I should be in the Tour de France if I wasn't busy being a go-getter business predator of the first order and I would probably win it easy, and leave all those Frenchy types behind me like the wangdangling croissants they are!"


But the truth is on my state-of-the-art-of-the-future pedelac bicycle I can whizz pass the Sucking Loaches easy-peasy japanesy. Not this time though. A large line of traffic was passing very, very, very close to us so I was unable to accelerate away pass him, I was trapped. And then the Macho one decided that the race was on and he did what they all try, standing up off their seat and really going for it, pedal-wise.


With a realisation of fear and despair, I now knew what I was faced with, the arse of horror. I could see all the wire-like pubes that covered his hairy spotty cheeks, all packed in and squashed against their Lycra containment field. I though that I would be spared the worse by the pencil thin seam that ran down the shorts covering his crack of terror, but the shorts, old and worn by too many pretend mountain climb stages had given up at the critical place, ripped, and a hole had appeared showing me another hole, the whole of a hole that leads into a person, the Anus!


Utterly hypnotised by this brown eye staring at me, wiggling at me, tensioning and untensioning with each pedal thrust, that for a few minutes I failed to notice the traffic had all gone and I was able to scoot on by him.


As I went passed I puffed "Excuse me, but I can see your asshole."
He must of misheard me, because he really let fly with some serious naughty words. 
Some people, they're offensive from the front and back.

Black bar added to protect the innocent.

Heron Hitman

With his black stick legs stuck in the slick black canal water The Heron is the most awesome of all the motherlovin' creatures that litter my path to work. This guy is the coolest Bustard around, never moving a muscle when I pass right next to him on my bicycle-from-the-future. When he is flapping gracefully around in the sky bit of earth he looks so graceful and stuff, but what is best is that he looks exactly like a pterosaur.

He is also a deadly bad-ass hunter that uses total stealth like a Predator from that movie where Arnold Sweatynecker had to fight stuff...er...Kinder Egg Garden Cop-out, or something, I dunno, films confuse me, OK?

Anyway, I was having a lovely ride to work the other day, the spring sunshine was warm on my back as I slid, almost effortlessly, through the air that was in and around the canal path, my legs moving in a furious blur as they pummelled my pedals like two leg-like engines. The breathing gas about me was fresh and clean and I started to feel that the world wasn't maybe completely filled with horror, fear, despair and death, when I suddenly took a turn around a bend into a very dark area of the path.

The ancient trees grow very dense here, bending over to meet each other like sumo wrestlers, across the canal. Twisted gnarled Oaks and Ashes create a tunnel of dire gloom and watching terror that I fear to ride through. This particular morning that place of quiet horror was made all the more terrifying by the presence of a grey figure scampering about in the middle of the path.

When it saw me it stopped its incessant scrabbling and went on it's hind legs to look at me, it's hideous bushy tail shaking with a hideous hideousness that filled me with a hideous feeling, hideously like hideousness. Hideous.

I stopped my, frankly, incredible bike using it's brilliant Magura brakes, the red ones, they are the best, great for dry weather and wet, so easy to change as well, although adjustment can be a bit tricky, but when you've got them set up just nice they are AWESOME TO THE MAX, and stood there looking at the thing of evil blocking my way.

It was then that I saw the others, I had ridden right into a bushy tailed ambush! To one side, next to the canal water was another squirrel, and I can only guess at how many had closed the path behind me, I bet it was loads. Just as I thought this was it for me, and the squirrel I hadn't seen at first was about to pounce on my throat and rip out my veins and arteries and bathe in the shower of blood that erupted from my tubes of life, suddenly a beak like a sword shot out of nowhere and skewered the rodent alive!

The Heron had come to save me! In one incredibly swift motion he flipped the floppy nut-cracker up in the air only for it to land in it's wide-open gobble-chops.

"YEAH! TAKE THAT YOU NUT-NIBBLING TREE HUGGER!" I screamed as loud as my lungs could manage. The relief of not being gutted by some noisome fluffy beasts was quite obvious to the family that had just come up behind me, walking their dogs.

The Heron gulped down his meal and then flew off for an after dinner snooze in a tree or something, I guess, safe in the knowledge that he would always have a friend in me.

Please watch this video I shot as I think it explains a lot:

CLICK THIS TO SEE THE VIDEO IF YOU HAVE A MOBILE DEVICE AND YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO SEE IT ON THE FACEBOOK PAGE

Ghosts

There is a lovely road that I travel down in the morning in Bath called Prior Park Road. On a sunny day it is a beautiful whizz downhill at top speedy speed. The scenery is stunning, with Prior Park itself on one side and on the other, an ancient overgrown graveyard.


But at night, on my way home, this all reverses. The road is a steep incline for 1.5 miles and it is dark and isolated. Silence beats on me from all sides like a kettling Police officer. Prior Park House stands tall and menacing at the top of the climb, looking down at me like a police officer who has just beaten me to the ground because I had the audacity to accidentally find myself in the wrong part of London at the wrong time and have the misfortune to look like a Bloodystudent.


Then there is The Graveyard.


It goes on and on and on, bit like me. It is dark, ancient and unfriendly, bit like me. It takes the dead into its arms and holds them, forever, bit like...no not that one, legally I must say, not that one. The creeping horrors that lurk within, creep as they lurk about creepily. A creeping sense of horror, fear and despair creeps my very soul as I puff my creepily purple-faced way up the creepy hill.


Travelling past it I always see the dead just standing there, impassively looking down at me, yes you heard, their dark figures unmoving, their pale mask faces following me as I struggle pass. I'm just like that kid in that film with Bruce Willis in it, you know, Home Alone. I've got used to seeing their frozen faces and it doesn't really bother me now, but something strange happened this thursday night as I was travelling home very late from work that struck me as strangely very strange.


One of the dark figures was shuffling about nervously, I slowed and stopped at looked at it. Its usually unmoving mouth was trembling and it looked as if it was about to speak to me. This is something that has never happened before. Usually I don't hear a peep from these guys, but now one was about to communicate. What would it say? What secrets from beyond the grave would it tell me? At the very least it could tell me if being dead is really as boring as it looks.


As his mouth opened wide to utter words from The Other Side, another corporeal dude shuffled over and gave the first stiff a nudge. The open-mouthed one quickly shut it, shrugged at the nudgey one and hung it's head in, all I can assume, was an embarrassed admission of guilt.
I looked as meanly as I could at the spooky bully, he took no notice and just glared me down, bastard.
I rode off none the wiser to what the ghosts keep to themselves....after all, what else have they got? Eff all.

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Bank Vole Funeral

This week a terrible tragedy befell upon a small thing in this world. I bared witness to this sad and hideously horrific event.
 As I rode my meandering and serene way along the canal path I was suddenly overtaken by a Lyca-clad Machopath on on of those highly inferior racing bikes. At his reckless speed he failed to notice a large (for them anyway) Bank Vole using the path too. The Machopath's bike passed over the furry scamp compressing it. The Machopath rode on oblivious, but I stopped and dismounted and ran to the vole's side. I remembered what Vinnie Jones had taught me and I pumped away with my little fingers on the Bank Vole's squashed chest with the Bee Gees pumping through my brain.

The poor little guy. Wow, my incredible bike looks good though.

  After 30 minutes of resuscitation attempts I finally had to call it. The crowd of people who had gathered around me edged away nervously as I looked up at them. One by one they either ran off or reached for their mobile phones to call the emergency services I guess. 


  After they had all gone and I was alone, I noticed something I had failed to notice before when I wasn't noticing it. By the side of the path was  a curious sight. One Bank vole stood there forlornly, by her side were two smaller juvenile voles. They were staring in shocked horror at the vole on the path.


I bent down and picked up the still warm vole, when I did, I noticed that some seeds and grains fell from the voles limp paws and scattered in the cold wind.
The juveniles had tears trickling down their furry rodent faces and the Mother Vole turned and sadly beckoned for me to follow them.


 I carried the limp vole corpse as I followed them to the canal edge and into a tunnel cut into the bank. The tunnel was dark and led steeply downwards, the sound of the weeping Vole children leading my way. There were many side openings to the tunnel that I passed and the lights of many shiny eyes looked out at me as I made my way slowly down. I could feel something behind me, and I chanced a glance over my shoulder. A huge host of solemn voles were following silently behind me in silence.

A regiment of the Second Company of the Bank Vole Army followed me.

  Suddenly the tunnel opened up into a large cavern, the ceiling of which was the glistening water of the canal! I stood there amazed at the way the water was just held there above my head, but that was nothing to what happened next.


  Two dark shadows appeared above, moving closer to the intersection of the water and cavern. First one beautiful black beaked head, followed by a long snake-like neck, peirced the membrane beween the two elements, and then another. The two swans then passed through completely and fell gracefully to the floor.



"Please lay the Vole King on the stone" the first swan said to me in a voice that seemed to enter my head not through my ears but through my something else.
It was then I really noticed the rest of the cavern. It had been beautifully carved out in intricate designs depicting all kinds of woodland creatures. There were joyous scenes of frolicking, but also of war. The hideous creatures being fought bravely by the critters were none other than the grey squirrels.

With all the solemnity I could muster, I placed the stinking rodent on the stone altar.

I moved nervously to a stone altar at the other end of the hall and placed the Vole King on it.
"Thank you, you have done us a great service," One of the freakily-necked ones said, "We have watched you for many years and have seen your great kindness and consideration to the other things in this world, so we will entrust in you a great secret that we have long laboured with."


The second feathered freak now took up the mental story, "Eons ago an invader came to these shores, the Grey Squirrel, we tried to fight them off but the were just too powerful. Now they have taken over. The ones you know as Lycra-clad Machopaths are really a mass of squirrels jammed into that stretchy day-glo crap and they ride recklessly about squishing us and our friends and being inconsiderate to people."

I knew it!

"Please help us in our war against them. You must seek Croll-Agar T'glloac'ia, the leader of the Red Squirrels, only he can aid you blah blah blah....sword of Righteous Redness...blah blah effin' blah...."
I really at that point had totally lost interest in these certifiably paranoid animals and just wanted out. I decided to feign sleep and just curled up in a corner in a foetal position.


When I awoke I was in a very comfy room. So comfy someone had even gone to the trouble of padding the walls. Hello? Hello? Is anyone still there?