Kamikaze Einstein

A:

Last night we ventured out from the farm to Maubourget - a nearby village - to see a 'Course Landaise', which is basically a bit like bull fighting, but instead of actually fighting the bull, they do acrobatics over it instead. Fair enough.

It is a rather bizarre spectacle. While a brass band played classics such as 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and 'Hot Stuff' from the Full Monty, we watched the acrobats dice with death, waiting until the last second as the bull charged them down to crack out a front flip/jump/twist over the bulls horns and head (naturally with the added twist that their legs were often tied together). At the end of each round they were given points by judges for their efforts and the audience would clap and whoop - particularly loudly if they had had an extremely close shave.

Early on an unlucky (or unskilled?) acrobat was gored as his performance went slightly wrong. As he tried to do a last minute step to the side to avoid the oncoming bull, he was caught by a rogue horn and thrown into their air. A few minutes later he limped off, hopefully just with dented pride. It makes you wonder whether they are actually brave or just plain stupid. Perhaps a mixture of the two.

In other news, Einstein the duckling almost had it after a kamikaze swimming attempt yesterday. Each day at feeding time we take out some baby animals for the kids to see and get up close to. Einstein suddenly decided he had had enough of sitting on one particular girl's hand, jumped off, and legged it onto the bridge. Yesterday, the river was fairly high and flowing very quickly. Einstein is an amateur swimmer to say the least. Not having a mummy duck to follow and learn the ropes from, he is more of a doggy paddler, shallow end, armbanded swimmer who doesn't even seem to like water too much. At that particular moment in time though, he had clearly decided that despite the 5ft drop from the side of the bridge into rapids (basically rapids for a duckling anyway) he would give it a go.

French mums and kids screamed and shouted as he battled against the current, and drifted downstream losing the battle. Heroicly I jumped off the bridge and dived after him, prepared to sacrifice myself to save little Einstein (some exaggeration...). I just managed to grab him before he went out of reach and dissapeared, and he promptly thanked me by pooing on my hand, much to everyones amusement. He is now back living with the chicks, and will be staying away from the river for a few days.