Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Campaign Diary: Day 17 - a hard-working candidate and a stoat on a mission

Saturday morning found me in Barking, looking to meet more voters, when I knocked on a door. The door opened and I was told that they had received their postal ballot. This was not necessarily a welcome surprise, because the plan was to deliver letters to all postal voters the next day - we had been told by Mid Suffolk District Council's Electoral Services team that they would be going out the next day.

It would be fair to say that this candidate wasn't impressed.

There was nothing to be done but to accelerate the schedule somewhat, so I arranged for my allocation of letters to be brought to me by the ever patient Ros.

A hard working, local stoat...
As I headed to the agreed rendezvous, I noticed a movement on the footpath ahead of me. A closer examination indicated a weasel-like creature, carrying a baby rabbit in its mouth. It was a stoat, and the baby rabbit was somewhat bigger than it was. As I caught up with it, it headed into the undergrowth and, not wanting to disturb it, I kept walking, until I reached the entrance to the care home at Barking Hall.

A few moments later, the stoat appeared again, still with its prey in its mouth, crossed the B1078, and ran along the curb until it darted back across the road and into the long grass.

It wasn't long before the stoat, minus baby rabbit, darted back out and up the street. It was my first stoat, and I was surprised by how small they actually are, much smaller than a ferret, for example.

But I now had envelopes to deliver, and it was clear that I wasn't going to have any trouble hitting my 12,500 step target for the day...

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