Something potentially worrying started to happen yesterday. With a bit of luck it will turn out to have been a one-off (actually a two-off) event but it’s clearly something I need to keep an eye on, because, get this, I seem to have started talking to squirrels.
First, when I was out on my Saturday morning run (7.2 miles linking together seven different Plymouth parks) and heading down a footpath in Devonport Park a grey squirrel sauntered across from the grassy area to my left. Obviously pretty tame, the squirrel didn’t seem at all worried about the fact that we were on a collision course, but I slowed to allow it across the path in front of me and as I did so I found myself saying out loud ‘after you’ and sweeping my right arm to the side in a ‘you first’ gesture.
Later, walking over to Home Park to watch Plymouth Argyle’s FA Cup match against Grimsby, I looked to my left through a metal fence into Central Park and saw another squirrel sitting a few feet from me. Fortunately there was no-one nearby because for some unknown reason I turned my head towards the squirrel and uttered the words ‘Alright mate’. Almost immediately I was struck by the ridiculousness of what I had just done – not only had I spoken to a squirrel for the second time in one day but, surely worse, I had called it ‘mate’.
Afterwards, in a frantic piece of post-event justification, I found myself thinking how it is not SO unreasonable to speak to wild animals. If I had startled a bird it might have squawked at me, or a dog might have woofed at me etc., so it could be argued that one animal making noise at another kind of animal isn’t such an odd occurrence. Obviously the squirrel couldn’t understand my English words (well I assume it couldn’t!) but then I can’t understand squawkish or woofish either, and I was only be polite and friendly, so there’s nothing to worry about is there? Is there?
Tim O'Hare 