It could only happen to me…

As my husband so often says about me, and we all know that we should never, ever argue with our husbands, don’t we? We should smile tenderly, say ‘yes dear’, and then carry on with whatever we’re doing once he can’t see us!

So there I was in the park, going aah at the goslings, and here they are to show you. The one I got to know better is on the right, ignoring his mother and doing exactly what he wants to, which is not at all the same thing as deciding that, while your husband is almost always right, this time he is not.

I was about to take a photo because I do love baby birds when down swooped this great big black crow, grabbed the gosling and flew off with him. Luckily for our somewhat foolish feathered friend, he was heavier than the crow’s usual prey, so he was finding it hard to gain height.


Two little girls were watching with their grandmothers, and both began to cry. I felt like doing the same because he was so little and fluffy (Or at least I think he was a he. He’s too young to tell, and note the tense if you’re easily scared.)

That was when I got angry I mean really, really, angry. The sort of angry that ends with a woman who’s well and truly old enough to know better and shouldn’t be running and hasn’t for years racing across the grass while yelling ‘Oi Beaky. Pick on someone your own size, you horrible, horrible bird.’ The crow turned his head, I suspect, so that he could have a good laugh. He opened his beak, and the gosling fell and landed on the grass. Undeterred, Mr Crow came round for another try, so I told him exactly what I thought of anyone and everyone who has a go at people who can’t fight back. He decided that he wanted to be somewhere else, and I tried to pick up the gosling while dreading what I was going to see.

Not just was Master Gosling unhurt, but he did not want to be picked up and taken back to his Mummy and Daddy, which makes sense because he’d already been snatched once that morning. Anyway, my daughter is good with animals and tried grain now that she’d recovered from the dual shock of what had happened and seeing her mother well and truly losing it. Mr Gosling wasn't having it. Instead, he really was running round in circles and flapping his wings, exactly as my parents taught their daughters that you should never do in times of crisis.

Between us, while our audience watched, we persuaded the Little Master back across the road and over towards his mum, dad and five brothers and sisters. Then they saw us and charged across the grass, and I got something in both my eyes that made them water as Mama Goose was reunited with her unharmed son and gave him a long lecture.

It was a good job, I had tissues with me because one of the little girls then said to her grandmother “The lady saved the baby bird. She’s amazing!” That wasn't because I am amazing, or no more so than anyone else. It was simply because she added ‘I’m going to do that if it ever happens again.” The other little girl agreed with her, so we chatted for a while about how we’d never seen that happen before and went on with our walk, where I saw some lovely ducklings without any drama at all! And here they are too. If you look closely at the front of the picture you can see their mum watching over them. We also saw the clutch of ducklings that I blogged about a few weeks ago and they're all alive and growing up very cutely so it was a VERY good day as far as I was concerned because life was beating death.

So there we have it. Woman power in action. A gosling in the world who wouldn’t otherwise have been here, and there has to be a tiny possibility that he won’t wander off again, doesn’t there? Two little girls saw that an ordinary not as young as they were, woman can make a difference and deciding to do it themselves. No language was used that might shock delicate ears, but I got rid of a lot of temper at all the times when I couldn’t do anything and remembered my dad, who was the inspiration for Peter Cunningham and my equally formidable Mum, who was a cross between Kath at Windy Bay and Ruth in the cafe at Swansmere. Both of them always taught me that I could make a difference and that you had to do something fast when the situation demanded it. Even if it didn’t work, it might just buy time for someone else to do the right thing.

It would have been my Mum’s birthday on Tuesday, and she loved the geese in the park and would have done the same thing. There was so much that she didn’t see that I wish she had, and I'll always miss her, but we saw the first butterfly this year a minute or so later, and she promised my daughter the last time we saw her that when she saw butterflies, it’d mean she’d be watching over her.

So there it is. A spot of drama, a very sore knee, a lot of adrenaline and a daft gosling. If it had been one of my books there’d have been a handsome hero, but I’ve already got one of those at home!