17th August 1996
Rhiannon is a little girl with big dark eyes and clear brown skin, and has just come back after spending a couple of weeks on holiday in Spain. She has a non-stop brain with a direct connection to her mouth. She will be five in September. She knows what she wants, at any time of the day or night. She is my granddaughter.
My wife said that she is old enough to go badger-watching, and Rhiannon agreed. Yes she can be still. Yes she can be quiet. I had some doubts, but we set off in the car for the cubs sett last night, at a time which I hoped would not lead to a very long wait before the badgers appeared. I parked the car and lifted her over the barbed wire fence. We passed into the wood, Rhiannon talking about what she expected of these badgers in her loud clear voice, me shushing her desperately and whispering about what we would need to do to see the badgers.
When we came opposite the sett, I unrolled a camping mat and we both sat down on it. This was a good idea, because it meant that we did not rustle the dried up beech leaves which littered the floor, but it did not help with the problem of Rhiannon’s direct connection between brain and mouth.
Why aren’t the badgers here? Where will they come from? How long will they be?
She leant back against me and wriggled until she was lying flat on the ground. As the sun sank towards the horizon, light beams shone through the trees and lit up patches of the woodland floor. Dried leaves occasionally spiralled down from the canopy and birds sung their evening song.
I’m bored. Can we go home now?
A silhouette moved on the skyline further up the wood, and I pointed it out to Rhiannon in a whisper. “It’s a cow” she informed me, very clearly and with no little volume. She has seen lots of cows.
Fed up with badgers.
Rhiannon picked up a stick and started tapping out a rhythm on an old piece of tree trunk embedded in the ground beside us. She experimented with the sounds which can be obtained from the other materials which are within reach.
No badgers here. I’m tired. I want to go home now.
Amazingly, in a quiet interval , two badgers emerged and I pointed them out quickly before another whinge sent them down for the evening. Open-mouthed silence from Rhiannon. The badgers were both adults, and they quietly groomed themselves for a short while before moving off up the bank towards the field. Rhiannon had somehow learnt how to whisper, in an awed voice. Are they babies? Which one is the mummy? Where are they going?
We followed up onto the field, where a hare saw us and departed over the skyline, but there was no sign of the badgers. Watched suspiciously by the cattle, we walked across the field to where there used to be other holes some years ago, but they now looked abandoned. After scrambling back under the barbed wire, we walked back towards the sett, meeting a fox who quickly departed the way he came from. Rhiannon was bubbling with joy, full of adventure as we passed through the dim woodland in the rapidly falling dusk. There were no badgers around when we got back to the sett, so I rolled up the mat and we went back to the car.
It was a warm night, and we wound down the car windows as soon as we got in. Rhiannon was still excited and back up to full volume. Good night badgers! A little way down the road, a young rabbit sat on the grass verge, and I pointed it out to Rhiannon. Good night rabbit!