November 30th 2010    Tim Candler

    The dead something in the barn, now smells oddly familiar.  Always tempting to believe it a rat, but I wonder if it is a Salamander, or a Toad, or a Chipmunk. 

     Years ago, at one of the outdoor shows, my feet got wet, so I took my socks off and put them in the back of the van where I thought they might dry.  Instead they go lost and forgotten amongst those many things that take up residence in vehicles.

    Through that travelling season we reckoned that something must have flown or crawled into the van where it had died.   We guessed that whatever it was had to have been quite small, because when the van was loaded and when put beside the tension of travel and craft shows and all that busyness, the smell of this dead thing was less than significant.

      More recently I have again become careless with socks.  I find them in unlikely places.   Worth going down there to check, because unlike a dead rat, a dead sock will linger on until properly buried.

Previous     Next