Roamin' in the Gloamin'

[snailrind]

Bunty's mother has gone away to a UFO conference, and has left her haggis hound with him, to the disgust of his cats. A haggis hound is used up here for the hunting of wild haggises (obviously). South of the border, she's known as a "smooth collie" or a "Scottish sheepdog", but that shows what they know. Personally, I am against the barbaric

Comments

[uk_sef]

It was thrown in (accidentally I presume) during a game of "spider" (a multi-person version of piggy-in-the-middle). It vanished without trace within the dense foliage. Several people have poked at the hedge, looked under the hedge (including crawling/walking under it), looked down from above the hedge and of course searched quite a lot of the other side. The ball can't even be seen, let alone retrieved. Hence "eaten" is an appropriate approximation for its state. You could get fancy and say "enveloped" instead, I suppose.

One of the people responsible for the ball's disappearance (who's also its original finder and keeper) made optimistic suggestions that the hedge might regurgitate it sometime. However, I think other things which vanished that way have stayed eaten. I haven't been able to buy another ball like it - it's apparently out of season for nice soft squidgy rubber balls of a suitable small size. I could get a foam football or basketball of vaguely similar size but they're ugly and they'd just end up with chunks nibbled out of them anyway.

[uk_sef]

We have trouble with haggis round here. There was until recently a large steelworks somnewhere in the neighbouring county of Northamptonshire and they employed so many Scots the accent was slightly changed. Of course many of them brought their own pet haggises down with them which, when the steelworks was peremptorily closed, were either eaten because of the sudden poverty or escaped. We have a lot of trouble with the escapees and the damage they cause.

[uk_sef]

(Jab)

[snailrind]

I admit they can be a pest, especially in suburban gardens - built, as they are, for broader wildernesses. But eating them is really going too far.

I've discovered some similarly interesting wildlife on our excursions into the no-man's land on the outskirts of Stirling: neeps and tatties. They're not as cute as they sound.

[forgothefantasy]

Not particularly tasty, either.

[snailrind]

You're not a neep girl, then?

[forgothefantasy]

Not particularly. I like the fish part of fish 'n chips. There are too many chips for one's own good, and too soggy to be worth a damn.