That's two and a half hours I won't ever get back.
Foolishly, I let Mary have a gallop around the field this afternoon.
Goo-goo eyed she chased the sheep, (undaunted by their brief show of horn and stamping feet ) and like a lunatic rounded up the remaining hens and boxed them into a coop before scattering them again to the four winds.
She was impossible to catch.
I almost grabbed her several times, but like most puppies, she sensed the chase to be a game and bounced under the gate into the lower field where the geese had been hiding.
The domestic geese, Russell, Jo and Kate all stood their ground and hissed and honked their displeasure as Mary galloped around them , only Camilla panicked and in a fit of hysteria took off from the field.
Now Camilla, is essentially a wild Canada goose so should,on paper , retain her ability to fly, but since I raised her, she has more or less followed her adopted flock's sedentary grassed based existence. In four years she has perhaps glided a mere 100 feet, and on two occasions has crash landed into the fields next door on windy days.
Today, Camilla took off like a jet fighter. She circled the field in an untidy loop at a height of perhaps a hundred and fifty feet, then, buffeted by a gust of wind she soared away over the Church and out of sight past the Rectory.
" Shiiiiiitttttttttttt!"
I managed to grab Mary and locked her inside a hen house before galloping like a loon through the Churchyard in pursuit but Camilla was no where to be seen.
I searched the livery stable fields, Pippa's field where the alpacas eyed me nervously , The Rectory gardens and the village green beyond, but there was no sign.
I even raised a few eyebrows down nearby Well Street by calling " CAMILLA!" down alleyways and driveways, but that part of the village was deserted too.
The lady from Abbott House looked particularly surprised when I told her that I was looking for a black and white goose called Camilla Parker Bowles.....like you do.
Systematically, I extended the search.
I checked behind the pub and the chapel and behind the cottages on London Road and still there was no sign, so I went up Byron Street and knocked on a few doors.
An old chap who was washing his car told me that he had seen a " low flying goose" heading East
" she was honking like a train" he said.
I was onto something
Now on the far east part of Trelawnyd is an upmarket housing estate of say ten houses and beyond that are Basil the farmer's sheep fields. So I took a chance and climbed over a few fences and nearly two hours after the whole bloody mess started, I found Camilla sitting open beaked where she had crash landed in the centre of a flock of ewes.
Bruised and battered but ok, Camilla returning home
I carried her all the way home
And after I introduced her back with her flock mates I returned to the cottage for a restorative cup of coffee and a custard tart.
It was only then , that I remembered Mary locked away in the hen house!
