This lunchtime, to keep awake after another broken night's sleep, I took myself off for a walk. Just behind where I work is a babbling stream and a wooded area. Just before I got back onto the street I started to cross the little bridge when I heard a rustling in the tree tops. Looking skyward I couldn't see anything unusual but as my eye followed the trunk downwards I realised what the sound had been. Two grey squirrels, racing down the trunk in a clockwise spiral! At one point they both stopped, as if getting their breath back before it started up again. The first one jumping and cling onto the bark whilst the other followed from a distance of about three foot. Ever upwards they chased until the front runner had reached the branches of the tree and there was no way up. With a leap it was into the branches of the closest tree and the whole procedure began again.Exhausting business. I went back to work and told a story about Springtime to the pre-school children who had arrived for story time. Sometimes, on bright, clear days such as today, with the sun on your face and the breeze in your hair it seems that life can't be any better.
There's the saying that squirrels are just rats with good P.R. and my friend once bought a pair of 'tree rabbits' (aka squirrels) at a farmer's market which she could then never bring herself to eat. However, I just enjoyed standing there, witnessing them racing after each other and leaping between trees. It's a magical world we are surrounded by, isn't it?
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