On the way to Kev's lectures today we stopped off at Strathclyde Country Park for a wander in the warm April sunshine. Along the way we found a number of buoys high in trees which was puzzling, as well as some ducks and swans and then a pond wherein two small boys were looking for toads. After looking to see what was in the pond ourselves the taller of the two offered me a toad to keep for myself and offered to catch Kev one for himself. I held it for a while before putting it back into the pond as far to the middle as I could. We continued on our way.
On the return we bumped into the boys again and were then followed most of the way back to the car by them, and learning all about how toads eat daffodils and like to hop onto logs.
I did want to rescue the toads but the boys did not seem like they were the toad-leg-pulling-off kind and so I saw no harm in letting them learn how to keep toads alive. They are not so different to myself, who has a bowl of frogspawn in the wood shed in the yard at Hartshorne and the ongoing desire to keep small creatures as pets.
Hopefully they will become upstanding citizens in their community for our caring deeds today.
I can hope!
