Bang, bang, you’re dead…

Or so it seemed. Peaceful place to be, our neck of the woods. The Donks are grazing, the sheep are in the stable, pinching what the Donks have left, and, bang. A noise like an air powered nail gun, followed almost immediately by another, slightly louder one. The noise is close, very close, and alarming.

Chickens square, place goes into shock quiet, we are startled, expecting (for some reason) somebody to leap up and say “surprise, surprise, it’s Christmas/Happy New Year/Happy Birthday/Let’s Party/Your Dead (delete as appropriate).

What’s that? What follows are a series of highly unlikely explanations, each of which sound solution driven and sensible when uttered. “Apples dropping on the stable roof?”, “Sheep have exploded (touch of Hardy, this one?”, “Donks have eaten the cable to the hedge trimmer?” (This being currently (no pun) in use, “You’ve fused the whole of the village?” (touch of guilt here knowing I shouldn’t have a hundred metres of cable under-powering said trimmer), “you’re burning anti-persp empty can again” (no fire!).

Then a third BANG, like a shotgun blast, so loud it echoes off the hillsides! So close we’re rendered temporarily deaf, and another eerie silence deafens us once more.

Diagnose the power situation, everything seems OK, switch off the socket to the trimmer with a broom stail just in case. No explanation at all, so back to normal.

Cleaned out the donkeys, filled up the already full barrow, couldn’t move it. The tyre had exploded! it was close to us, but a small wall shielded us from the blast.