Poor cat

I was working on my yard. The neighbour across the road was mowing grass for haymaking. He came and asked me if we had a black cat. I told him yes we did. He told me he thought he had caught one in his mowing machine.

My wife and I went looking but there was no sign of the cat. We left thinking he was mistaken.

At 2am that night, after we'd gone to bed, I heard a faint miaowing coming from the front room. I went downstairs with a torch and there was my cat. Three of its legs and its tail were badly damaged. It just sat there miaowing at me.

I didn't know what to do so I phoned the vet and described the problem. The vet said he could come but only to put it to sleep as there was nothing he could do. The vet said he would come or I could put it to sleep to sleep myself. I asked him if he meant kill it. He said yes, that is all that could be done.

So I called the neighbour who brought his 12 bore shotgun. I couldn't watch but at least it was killed immediately.

The poor cat. It had taken 12 hours to travel from the field to my bedroom window only to be put down. I felt dreadful but what else could I do?

Bicycle race

When I was about nine years old I had a bicycle race with a group of friends around a large field.

For the first three rounds I was well in front of the others but at the beginning of the forth round the chain came off my bike. I had to get off to put the chain on again. But by now the other cyclist were 50 yards in front of me so there was no hope on my catching them up.

I was pedalling along to get back to the finish and I heard this little girl saying to her mother, "Oh mummy, look at him, it's a pity he's last!".

I couldn't explain to them that I had been well in front for the first three rounds. It was very embarrassing!