SCADBURY NATURE RESERVE

SIDCUP

JULY  26 2008

Yeah,  yeah,  laugh it up guy's!

So nice to be standing here in my birthday suit,  as buck naked as the day I was born,  the butt of all and every woodland dwellers joke as I  fill the frame of every passing tourists 'press and shoot' pixel rich camera!

This wasn't how I envisaged my fame,  you know.  I should have gone with my gut feeling on this,  and realised that the others were up to something when they let Benny the Beach hold the straw lots in his deceitful woody hands.

" It's the best spot in the woodlands, you'll be out there on point duty,  the most imposing tree,  free to grow ever taller and more impressive,  and photographed by all and sundry "

Oh the shame of it!     Sid Silver birch gave 'that' grin when I drew the winning lot,  but I was so elated to have won something,  anything,  for the first time in my life,  that I overlooked the fact that the older guy's were past masters at practical jokes,  and the way that Oaksey and Benny hurriedly pushed me forwards into my grand new spot,  sniggering behind my back,  failed to register in my excitable mind.

This was the prized location,  and I'd failed to spot the trend for 'newbies' to be granted the unexpected honour of the position around the time of great wintry blizzards or impending appocalyptic weather patterns.

For a while it was all I'd ever dreamed,  I was the star attraction,  the subject matter for local artists,  photographers and weary hikers to admire,  immortalise or simply lie beneath.  And then the great storms came.... and boy did they come!.

The thunder rolled across the skies like the pounding of a bass drum in a brass band,  the lighting streaking down with immense force,   and picking out the tallest structure to conduct the power of it's angry might.......  er,  that'll be me then!  

My pleas to rejoin the main group for shelter fell upon deaf ears,  and sniggering mouths as strike after painful strike of lightning, lashed my torso.

Naivity and youth are no substitute for knowledge and hindsight.  And,  as benny,  Oaksey and Sid stood there laughing at my demise,  all I could think to myself was,    'Oh bugger!    There goes my chance of starring in the rumoured film version of Tolkien's  'Lord of the rings' .

With friends like these guy's,  who needs enemies!