Carole and I were getting very stressed out in the car. We were driving from the port of Southampton in England to our home in March Cambridgeshire in the Fenland. It is usually about a three-hour drive. However, it took almost an hour and a half just getting out of Southampton. Then on the M1, we hit another traffic jam. We turned off on the A461 in the vain hope of getting onto the A1 to Peterborough. Usually, not a bad idea at all. However, we hit another jam at the roundabout going from the A461 to the A1. Our three-hour journey had become a five-hour stress out. We had been on a wonderful two-week cruise to the Canary Islands and totally unwound. In five hours the whole thing had been turned around with this nightmare journey home.
I thought the last straw had come when I missed the small country road turnoff to Ramsey – a small town close to our home of March. Carole told me I had driven straight passed the country lane leading to it.
By this time, I’m spitting razor blades and other colourful metaphors at God. You know what I mean. I’ve suddenly turned into John Cleese as Basil Fawlty.
“Why me?” I’m ranting. “I’ve got off of the ship and in no time, I’m totally stressed out.”
Carole is trying to calm me down. “Don’t worry there is a lane that you can turn around up ahead where those crows are flying about.”
“Yes,” I agreed, looking at the strange way the birds were circling about. “They are turning like birds of prey, but there are too many of them.”
“They don’t look like crows replied Carole. They turn and glide like raptors.”
All the stress was blown away in an instant as Carole swore in delight. She let rip with a colourful swear word that rhymed with clucking bell.
“They are red kites,” I said with delight. All the stress dropped away with excitement. My camera was in the back and I parked the car on the grass verge.
The next moment I was clicking away as Carole caught them on her iPad too.
“There are fifteen of them,” she said. “I never knew they gathered in large numbers.”
I laughed. “Some almighty all-knowing something allowed Karma to give us something back. I’m so pleased we missed that turning.”
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