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Simon and I were out walking Gigi, the german
shepherd, early one morning in the big open paddock next to the olive groves.
There were 9 kangaroos grazing peacefully up there, and Gigi took not a blind
bit of notice of them as we walked past on our way down to the little hidden
dam. Simon suddenly noticed that a big male was coming straight at us in a
purposeful manner. We remarked that that had never happened before, changed
course a little and continued our walk. He looked back and said 'He’s still
coming!’. Slightly alarmed we picked up the pace a little. We looked back and
Simon said ‘Bleep! He really is coming at us!’ I remarked ‘Oh Bleep!
Bleep! Bleep!’, hooked my finger into Simon’s trousers as I do when we are
crossing Sydney road for the tram, and we took off over the top of the scrub. It
is now perfectly clear to me why cross-country runners don’t run their races
in gumboots.
We headed for the only tree, not a big tree by
any stretch of the imagination, and while I tried to hide behind it, Simon tore
half my cover off and lit out again. With my finger, followed in short order by
me. The kangaroo was still coming! Gigi was going happily about her business and
loving the fact that we were running and jumping scrub, and doing all kinds of
groovy things that don’t normally happen, necessitating a joyful search for a
Suitable Stick to carry home.
We were heading for the fence of grove 2, but
thankfully when we got there and were faced with a tandem jump through a haze of
blood in my eyes from my pounding heart, Big Boy had stopped and was standing to
his full height, beating his chest and yelling ‘ aaaeeaaaee…’ That’s a
bit of an exaggeration, but if he could have he would have … but he was standing
very tall and aggressive. We changed direction for home with my Knight
brandishing his sword (branch) in an equally aggressive manner, stumbling
briskly, heads on backwards so as to see immediately if Big Boy took up the
chase again. I was still surgically attached to Simon’s trousers muttering ‘bleep’
at regular intervals to keep the courage up, and Gigi, who had at last found a
Suitable Stick for the occasion, was flourishing her way through the scrub,
still unaware of the impending danger to her if our pursuer caught up to us and
she decided to go over and introduce herself.
It was then that we got the giggles and continued
on our journey, tripping over the scrub like a couple of reeling drunks. I
extracted my finger from the back of Simon’s trousers as the roo remained at
his post making sure that we left his territory. Did I say HIS territory? When
we got up the hill towards the house, Simon, never one to go that quietly,
turned around, bellowed ‘Hey You!’, and delivered a French Salute. This
brought about a total collapse for me, and I was almost unable to proceed at
all. There is a lot of pairing going on among the birds and the air is thick
with testosterone – perhaps this is what got into Big Boy with all his dollies
cheering him on. I will not be going near his paddock for some time. HIS
paddock? HAH!!
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