From gung-ho gulls to Saving Ryan Gosling
THE tourists are long gone, to be replaced by more high-flying visitors. For look up and you often see the V-formations of migrating geese in the wintry sky.
Though there are strange imposters in all seasons — like the rogue pair of seagulls flying around this country town. If two is company, the flock that recently appeared are definitely a crowd. Watching them soar above the river in this inland county made me wonder if they should have gone to a certain chain store of opticians.
Until I mention it to Jim, whose brave and beautiful wife is also flying these days, being not just back on her feet but running marathons a mere month after completing her last chemotherapy session for breast cancer. Jim grew up outside the town, where those who live on the land also look at what’s going on above it. He says some farmers have duly noted the gung-ho gulls. Apparently the marine mobsters are a sign of a harsh winter.
It seems some hearts have a corresponding drop in temperature. For it was this time last year that a honking orphan suddenly appeared one day, ambling about the riverbank. It turned out to be an African goose, or gander. Which sounds exotic but boils down to a gentle domestic breed that was likely not so gently dumped.
His prospects weren’t looking good. Until the eleventh hour of this eleventh month — just days before a flood that would have proved fatal for this flightless fellow — when he was offered a place in the Ark by Noah. Or rather, by Noah’s stand-in, Stephen.
Who could have been more apt, given the cosy homestead full of hens, ducks and geese that Stephen shares with his mother, Miriam, that led me to nickname the surrounding area ‘Goose Lane’?
This lucky duck of a gander has been living it large ever since — quite literally — for he is now twice the size as when they first rescued him.
“It’s all the good food he eats,” Miriam says.
I break the news that another goose has turned up and is gallivanting about town. This one is cartoon cute, being snowy white with an orange beak. To add to the international flavour of this fowl fable, she’s a Czech goose, one of the lightest breeds. Alas, this makes it all too easy for someone to grab her — and turn her into a roast.
Which got me thinking that gender equality owes much to geese, given the saying: “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”. Though we have a reversal of fortune in this rural neck of the woods, whereby what’s sauce for the gander should be sauce for the goose.
Will Stephen step in to supply it? Having already played a starring role in saving one goner of a gander, he would deserve a double nickname. Perhaps combining Tom Hanks — or Tom Honks — of Saving Private Ryan with movie star Ryan Gosling, to become a Saving Ryan Gosling? With geese making a beeline instead of a V one for his sanctuary.