Cows In The Asparagus

As I parked my car this morning, I saw a black and white figure lurking beneath the hornbeams and obviously up to no good.

Furtive

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But what on Earth …. ?

Ah. I see. Great. Super. As they had long-planned, Margaret’s cows had broken into the garden.

A frantic phone call to Margaret, “Help!” and a solo, doomed effort to keep the bovine bandits corralled in the top corner of the garden …

… armed with nothing but a stick and choice language.

Didn’t work, of course. They galloped past me, chortling, and out across the east lawn like a sweep of wildebeest with me in hot, futile pursuit, waving my stick. Wish I’d filmed it.

Pink-dressing-gown-clad help arrived from the house, having seen a cow trot past the kitchen window. Together we headed them off from the kidney beds, screamed when they approached the veg beds and hurled abuse as they veered off toward the long borders. We ordered them out through the gate and onto the drive – only to be stared back at: silently, curiously, ignored. By luck alone, we managed eventually to coerce them back up towards the greenhouse.

At which point, Margaret arrived yodeling and chirruping her unique cow call. And, as always, it worked. Like obedient Labradors they trotted off back through the knocked down stretch of post and rail fence and into her field. Without so much as an apologetic, backward glance.