About a week, ten days ago I was busy minding my own business mucking out the stables in the dark, about nine at night.(The horses are all living out at night in an effort to maintain all round sanity, sense for them, less work for me). Suddenly there was an almighty crash that made the very rafters shiver and had me running for the door, scanning the skies for evidence of the burning inferno from the bomb just dropped. But no, nothing to be seen.

We are informed by those that know, if indeed they do from the angloinfo forum that this is just another sonic boom and nothing whatsoever to be alarmed about. Infact why bother even removing backside from sofa or eyes from telly.

I, however, have a different theory on the boom altogether; The aliens have no doubt landed and chosen this very part of Calvados to begin their take over of planet earth.

There evidence of this is here in this UFO sighting captured over the fields last night;


and here with this creature found lurking in the cellar;


Not to mention my personal health, the germ warfare the aliens detonated with their sonic boom has just about killed me this week, but I refuse to succumb. It struck about noon on wednesday with brown projectile from both ends ( I'd just eaten two chocolate supercookies!) and lasted til the early evening. Pretty hideous actually it knocked the stuffing right out of me. Though on the upside I did manange to loose nearly five pounds in as many hours so the catwalk beckons.

For some strange reason the horses didn't seem to be perturbed by the boom which is either due to the fact that we have a lot of hunting (shooting we would call it in the UK) round here all through the winter season which involves much banging and crashing, whooping, hollering and bugling by drunk peasants with shotguns who occasionally manage to hit a pigeon, a hare, a bambi, the neighbour's cat, Fred their drunk mate on point duty (hence they all wear flourescent hats or jackets) and once in a very blue moon; a boar. Shooting a boar is where it's at.

Perhaps they are also used to banging from the tree felling common at this time of year round these parts. I'm not sure how long the custom of tree felling from November through March will last, I'm not sure how many trees are left and how many you need to sustain just one winter. Quite a few by the looks of it. Anyhow the crash of a mighty Oak or Beech that has taken several hundred years to grow is not only heart breaking in my humble opinion but also incredibly loud.

Turnip and I were lucky enough to have first hand experience of this on a ride through the forest a few weeks back. We could here the buzz of chainsaws up ahead sounding pretty close to the track I was taking. I remember thinking it would be sod's law if that great beech came down just as we were going past. And bugger me,just as I was upon it the guy killed his chainsaw and stood back (very bad sign) where upon there was an ominous creak and crack and the mighty beech began it's thundering crash to the ground. Turnip didn't wait for more. Now I haven't ever really asked Turnip for foot to the floor type acceleration, I'm always a little wary he might throw in some jinxes which would result in my painful ejection.In this case I didn't call the shots, turnip hit the gas full speed ahead and I was hanging on for dear life. I have to say it was rather exhilarating and I couldn't help myself but be overtaken by hysterical laughter. Lucky it was a path we both knew as he dodged in and out of the trees at break neck speed. Lucky also we were a good half mile off the road so that I had just managed to haul him back before we reached it. Cleared our cobwebs anyhow!

I felt pretty rough this whole week to be honest before and after the alien bug so not a whole lot of positive things happened, though Monty was ridden by a Polar bear on his very first day of breaking. Proof if ever that was needed that the ice caps are melting and the bears are indeed looking to expand their habitat.