20th March 2023
My Mothers’ Day Treat on Merrow Downs
Forget the flowers, chocolates, even the promise of a tidy teenage bedroom. What I wanted for Mothers’ Day was a pair of night vision binoculars and a willing companion to come and look for badgers. To everyone’s surprise, my 14 year old daughter agreed. So just before dusk on Mothering Sunday, carrying two camping chairs, a headtorch and the new binocs, we headed up to the woodland at the top of Merrow Downs to see if we could spot any badgers. We found a quiet spot and set up camp.
There was a lot of fidgeting, sighing, staring into the trees and only barely whispered pleas of “Can we really not talk AT ALL?” Every crossing and uncrossing of a leg seemed to send ripples of sound through the crackly leaves on the woodland floor. The birdsong which was raucous at 6.15pm diminished to the occasional distant owl hoot by 7pm. Mobile phones were occasionally consulted (“what’s the time?”) and then abandoned as useless with the no light / no noise parameters. Finally, we were silent. Time passed quickly. We did absolutely nothing. We saw absolutely nothing. Except the woodland, and it was gorgeous.
Author: A Merrow Downs Lover
