Mole's Return

The icy cold nights and freezey mornings really did not appeal to Mole. He had been away in warmer climes for a late holiday and came back to the chill of temperatures below zero and immediately caught a cold. He was glad he had got in a stock of firewood before he went away and that he had found a little bullace vodka at the back of his store cupboard. He had dug his muffler out from the chest and lit a blaze in his stove and began to get back into the soft lazy rhythm of the village at the edge of the Wild Wood.

He was pleased to be home and had just made it back in time for the annual Village Quiz Night, as jolly an occasion as ever even if the winners and arrangers of the event all live next to each other. Mole abandoned the thought this might be a fix and handed the palm for good organisation to Ian Trapmore and Jane Miller. He was not an enthusiast for the name Trapmore, it always gave moles a slight shudder but much worse was seeing the advertisement in the Benefice News that A S Pest Control specialise not only in dealing with rabbits and rodents but describe themselves as Mole Catching Specialists!

It had been a strange year which began with a lot of confusion over something called "Voting". It was never quite clear what this had been about so some of the rabbits and weasels had voted to leave the jurisdiction of the Wild Wood whilst others had voted to remain. Husbands sometimes voted differently from their wives thus cancelling out their family votes, some friends heatedly disagreed with each other and ended up not meeting over dinner for a few weeks. But at the end of the day nobody really understood what it all meant, so the world continued to turn in much the same way and plans went ahead for Christmas coffee mornings, service schedules and the like.

Meanwhile from a land far away came the news that a large porker had just been voted President and that seemed to take the minds of most locals off what was, or was not, going on at home which was a general relief to most. At the end of the day Mole decided that all these big, important things were going to be far beyond his own understanding and the little creature banked up his stove just a little bit more, and leaned back in his chair to savour the warmth of both fire and vodka which combined to make him feel content and seasonally happy. He wiggled his little pink toes inside his slippers, let out a small yawn as he mumbled " Oh a very Happy New Year to everybody" before he allowed his eyes to close and he drifted off into a deep contented sleep with a big smile on his little face.

And as we leave him there contentedly hibernating until he appears on our lawns next Spring we echo the message from this sweet little mammal: A very Happy New Year to one and all, from the tiny little hamlet on the edge of the Wild Wood.