Nowhere is safe these days!

It was a lazy summer evening. I was just coming back from the late dog walk, passing through a dense overgrown natural tunnel that links the fields to the road, when suddenly my right leg got stuck. It was dark, I wasn’t able to move and it was a good 20 meters to the road and civilisation.

Something was pulling on the bottom of my trousers.

First in the line, from a train load of thoughts in my head, was “WTF is happening?”

Don’t look shocked, I bet Bunks dinner that you have all thought that at least once in your lives. Yes, I agree, this isn’t a pretty thought but come on… I am bumbling slowly along with my two dogs, minding my own business, deep in thought, almost meditative and then BOOM!… just like that I am rooted in place, and did I mention the pain… Not yet…Well hang on to your hats….

I was actually scared, albeit briefly as my aforementioned meditative brain slowly kicked back into life and began to process the barrage of sensory inputs it was now suddenly receiving. I totally didn’t have a clue what was happening to me for what seemed like an ice age but was in reality a split second or two.

So first things first – Stay calm and gently I take my right hand and try to check what was there… this wasn’t a clever move… whatever it was it had huge teeth or claws or fangs and now my hand was bleeding. Lots of small puncture wounds each more eager than its neighbour to be 1^st in the race of exsanguinations that was now apparently in full flow, pun intended (the fact that my blood doesn’t clot as fast as it could isn’t helping here, the scene from Carrie was coming together!).

So, I am standing there in this alleyway, stuck in one spot and with blood dripping from my hand and leg.

What to do?

Next bright idea is to use my left foot to stand on this assailant to make this thing go away… so I start waving my left leg like a crazy person only to find out that spiky teeth/claws/fangs break easily and now my whole sole of Crocs if full of them… which means I am in agony…in my right hand, right leg and now my left foot, human making progress…not.

WTF is happening?

Exactly why my dogs aren’t protecting me is a mystery and is the third thought… normally when someone looks at me funny Bunk can show very quickly how displeased he is about this fact, but now… now they both do nothing…. not a thing… OMG are they terrified as much as I am?

Or is this the doggy equivalent of making an “L” with your thumb and index finger, holding it against your forehead and shouting loser whilst stifling a giggle… the pain is making me paranoid.

I tried to turn around and suddenly something changed… my mystery “attacker” backed off and I was free. Yet again I was able to move, my joy was tangible. Yes, I was still bleeding a lot and yes I still couldn’t stand pain free on my left foot and yes my pants have developed a crochet effect but I didn’t care I was free and stumbling, rather unladylike towards the light and civilisation!

I turned around to check what was that… as you do, I guess… I really wanted to know what assaulted me this lovely evening…

The mystery remained as it was devoid of sunlight and too dark to see…

Tune in next week for the thrilling climax to this….

Ok I will tell you what I discovered the next morning as I eagerly ventured forth to confront my assailant… it was a huge bramble brunch…and I mean HUGE! I have seen smaller redwoods!

Yes, my attacker was a dry bramble branch which had evidently become badly tangles into my trousers and Bunk was stood on the other end I realised, hence my being rooted in place, and in the process validating my paranoid assumptions before, they were indeed sat there and they were indeed laughing at me. I can picture it now, “Hey Lilly watch this…”.

The huge teeth/claws/fangs it turns out were all the spiky parts of it, which hurt my hand and then dug canyons into the sole of my shoe and thus my foot…

Unbelievable…

I got attacked by a bush!

So you see, nowhere is safe these days!

Melodramatic I hear you say; pfft all I say to you is…

“You don’t know man, you weren’t there….”