Yesterday Emma and I were sitting in the garden in the early morning sunshine, having a cup of coffee and discussing the launch of our new book.
Suddenly she leapt up yelling WTF!
She backed off a bit, and then cautiously inched up to the base of one of the largish trees we have growing in the garden.
She’d near as dammit been sitting under it.
I went to look too – I mean there are all sorts of weird and wonderful things in this new garden of ours. Some of the trees are covered with ivy and so are large sections of the ground (it’s not going to stay – soon as I get my fingers back into shape I am planning on tackling it).
There is odd stuff that lurks in nookies and crannies.
Once I finally saw what she was gasping and spluttering at, I leapt back – almost over the neighbours fence. It appeared to be some type of lizard. We could only see a bit of its back, the rest was covered with ivy.
Closer, very cautious inspection, showed that it was indeed huge. But was it alive?
Emma decreed we should give it a gentle poke to see if it moved.
“We” I scoffed. Not on your Nelly! Feel free to poke away, child.
I backed up a little more.
Let’s be honest – I have a reputation with some people on Facebook as “The Dragon Slayer” but it refers to fighting fires and getting shitty work done – not freaking slaying actual dragons.
I know you are thinking that we were probably overreacting a fair bit and that it was probably a scaly bit of bark pretending to be a lizard – but you should know that the previous owner’s younger daughter was dubbed by us as “dragon lady” because she had one of those bearded dragon type things in her bedroom. So it was not totally unrealistic to think that they might have “lost” one in the rather large garden!
Em went rooting around at the bottom of the garden and returned with a stick. A long one. Breaths were collectively held as she gingerly, ever-so-gently poked the critter. Nothing happened. She poked a little harder.
Something moved. We both leapt shrieking into the air waiting for it to turn and gobble us up.
A leaf fluttered to the ground.
Breathes were taken. It was, after all, not alive.
But was it plastic or was it some sort of stuffed beastie.
Em – a feisty little creature – was determined to uncover the truth. Literally.
Poking, prodding and grunting – she managed to wrestle the creature out of the ivy until it fell with a thud to the ground. (More shrieking and squealing from both of us.)
She hooked the stick under its tail and dragged it out of the bed of ivy (see – I told you we have too much ivy). Then she flipped it over on the paving.
It looked incredibly lifelike but we finally figured out it was indeed plastic when we saw the seams along the sides and a trademark on its belly!
Em carted it off to stash in her room so that she could scare the pants off Charl later. (Turned out Charl, upon spotting the creature, grew incredibly excited and wanted to catch it a keep it as a pet – so the joke fell a wee bit flat.)
Wonder what else will turn up in this garden?
