The Other Side Of The Fence

So I’m sitting out in the garden reading a book, the sun warm on my face and the tinkle of an ice cream van drifting towards my ears. I close my eyes for a brief moment, feeling a soft breeze dance about my body but just as I’m really starting to relax and stop thinking about what may be lurking in the bushes/trees/piles of leaves, a deep, primordial gurgle instantly awakes me from my reverie. It’s a sound that seems to have crossed hundreds of thousands of years, from prehistoric times, and it’s resonating from the other side of the fence, in the neighbour’s garden, just feet away from me. All my senses are suddenly pricked as I furiously try to decipher a) what devilish creature this noise might be emanating from and, b) whether said creature might be about to leap over the fence, tunnel under the fence, or jump down from one of the overhanging trees. It was then that I heard a rustling of leaves, closely followed by the sound of branches swaying. I whipped around and scanned the ground, then lifted my eyes to the trees. Nothing.

Then came a strange tapping noise, as if something was bashing up against the fence. I was alert, ready for whatever was about to appear. That is, I was fully prepared to hightail it to the back door and the safety of the house. I wasn’t about to tackle anything that could make such a dinosaur-like sound. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. In the end I gave up and returned to my book, turning around every now and again to check that nothing was creeping up behind me, ready to pounce. Of course, nothing did. I can only presume that the noise was made by some sort of bird, with the wind and my overactive imagination doing the rest. Our resident lizard might have contributed to the rustling.

One day I might actually stop thinking that a snake/spider/dingo/as yet undiscovered deadly Australian animal that will become known from killing a newly arrived Brit, is lying in wait to attack me. Until then, I will continue to do things like spot a very snake-like tree root out of the corner of my eye, sprint to the patio (knocking over chair and glass of water in my haste to escape from deadly snake root) and spend the next five minutes eyeing the vicious looking thing before accepting, after throwing a stick at it without it moving, that it is indeed just an ordinary, harmless tree root.