Whip Crack Away

Warming Up

7972/20913

The animals have been staying with my parents-in-law until we were a bit settled in. Delighted not to have my cunty cats around (which means a short stay of execution for the pigeon that lives in our new garden), but have missed Wolfie.

Today she came home. To a house that wasn't her home. The cats didn't come. Best of all worlds. Wolfie was confused. She is spending most of the time laying out on the small patch of fake grass. Occasionally drinking rainwater from it. She looked a bit sad. Was it because she didn't want to wee on fake grass?

There's no way of knowing. Whatever cartoons try to tell you, dogs can't talk.

We went out as a family to try and find the best place for dog walking. No longer can we just turn right out of our front door and basically be in a field. Not now we're townies. Oh no. Though luckily Hitchin has some nice green spaces and we went to one that I'd once run around when I was waiting for my tyre to be fixed at Kwik Fit.

Catie had asked the kids if they needed the loo before they left, but five minutes into the walk Ernie said he had to do a poo. Luckily we were passing a petrol station and it had a toilet and the nice man behind the counter let Ernie use it, even though he hadn't bought any fuel. Hitchin is checking out as a good place. I made a vague promise to return and buy something on another occasion. I hope the man doesn't hold me to that. Though it would make a good film. The petrol station attendant tracking down the man who had allowed a child to poo under false pretences. Make a note of that someone.

The park seemed OK. There were some young people playing a football match, though one of them seemed to be crying on a bench and being comforted by his team mate. It was clearly a passionate match. Shirts v skins, quite bold for a rainy October day, but the only woman playing was sensibly on the shirts side. So the ruse that one of the men had come up with hadn't worked.

It's a nice open space and very family friendly. Except for a man standing near the edge of the field, wearing a cowboy hat and facing the railway embankment who was practising his whip cracking.

Like you see in every park on a Sunday. Lone whip crackers. Nothing to see here. Move on.

Hey look, we aren't all lucky enough to have a space at home where we can really go to town with our two whips and this man was more than entitled to come to the park to continuously whip the air, with his back to everyone, wearing a cowboy hat. I couldn't see his face so there is a chance that it was Indiana Jones himself. Though I think Indy only had one whip. Maybe he bought another one with the proceeds from the movies.

(this is another man whipping - note that he is not wearing a cowboy hat)

Hitchin is a town that I am sure is full of local characters. And double whip-cracking cowboy hat man is probably a much loved figure (though I’ve found nothing on Google mentioning him, so maybe everyone is a bit scared of him). So just in case we gave him a wide berth. Always a good idea when someone is cracking whips and not looking behind themself.

The constant sound of the echo of a whip created a mildly sinister vibe. If it was a film the sound of two cracking whips would build up into an act of violence, but not in Hitchin. Whilst we explored the river he must have got bored of or adept enough at cracking whips and had gone home. The tension still held though.

Hey look lots of people whip. Here’s a man telling you when it’s a good time to whip - I’d say it was too wet to crack today. But what do I know?

We explored a bit of Hitchin we'd never been to before, the kids then played in the playground and we went back home. The crying football player had gone, but had been replaced by two Jehovah's Witnesses beside a display of leaflets that they made little to no effort to push on us or the footballers (maybe they were already Jehovah's Witnesses - are they allowed to play football?). It didn’t seem the best place to sit in terms of foot traffic. If they thought they might entice in the double-whip cowboy then they were sadly too late. He had gone on his way, ready to whip at a moment's notice.

It's very exciting living in a town is all I can say.