Detroit

Yay Detroit, good to see you here, glad to hear you're relatively safe and comfortable.
I meant to post this on the other thread but it got full.
I LOVE Blue, it was one of the first 'proper' albums I bought as a kid, but I lost it about 20 years ago when someone destroyed my vinyls (on purpose) and it had too many bad memories attached to it so I never replaced it. You've inspired me to get a new copy, and when I listen to it I'll now be thinking of you instead of the arsehole who destroyed my stuff

Female only communes where older women are not devalued. I think that would be a great way forward.
I've been reading about community housing for older women in the UK. Apparently the demand is huge, I'm not sure how affordable the existing ones are but I think we are going to need lots of these types of housing solutions in the future. It makes total sense.

Oh and I grew up in the wilds (Europe, not America, but not the gardens of Kent either!), encountered bears etc. as a child, and I would categorically not trust a badger.
As for goats, I've also had the unfortunate experience of looking after someone's smallholding, and they are the most satanic animals I've ever encountered. I have the scars to prove it.

Your blackbirds are cooler looking though, with go-faster stripes. I've forgotten if they're as good singers ( I lived in PA for a couple of years ~30 years ago).

This thread was at least in part to move the random wildlife off the erasure thread, I thought. Though IMO it improved it no end.

All the mumsnet love is here for you, Detroit - hopefully the talk of the English semi-rural countryside is engaging and diverting for you

Having said that uk badgers still look cuter than American ones

Oh goats, fucking hell. I'd rather be in charge of 101 labrador pups, I think....

Sorry Detroit - we've hijacked your thread into random animal anecdotes. Hope they're at least some light relief from the shit you've been through recently.

I know zebra!!!!

And she would have been asleep minding her own business

No, I was chasing the goats. Who got out. (Never trust a friend's assessment of her goat's stupidity. She blithely said "the battery's flat on the electric fence, but don't worry, the goats are too stupid to have realised." Her goats turned out to be members of fucking MENSA).

One killed a tortoise of mine when a friend was looking after her

Oh no! Bad badger!

Oh, that's sad... Probably the badger thought it was a giant snail lunch.

Fermats, please tell me you weren't the MNetter who looked after the friend's smallholding who was chased through the forest by some demon of the night? As told on a spooky story thread?? That was my fave spooky story ever.

There we are - tortoise-icidal maniacs, every last one of 'em.

(Sorry for your friend's tortoise, though.)

They're lovely shy creatures

One killed a tortoise of mine when a friend was looking after her

Afaik British badgers don't go around spontaneously attacking people, but would defend themselves if people try to interfere with them.

*Kentish village. I think I'm safe saying that. I don't really venture out into the countryside after dark so I'm fairly safe from our badger wildlife...

Hi Detroit. Here's hoping that the lived experience of women (particularly you!) is given as much importance on your thread as the arbitrary rules of others.

Solidarity from the OP of another support thread.

I am a townie through and through... (Shudders at the memory of being left in charge of a friend's small holding - including animals - for the weekend. She didn't make that mistake twice. Thank god for cattle grids.)

A townie - how very dare you

We are semi-rural I'll have you know

I suspect Zebras might be a townie. I'm reliably informed that badgers (which are actually surprisingly big, though not as big as American ones - but then this is true of all wildlife - American squirrels are fucking huge, IMO) are vicious fuckers! With big claws. You do not want to go poking around a badger sett.

Bless you. Hope the shit doesn’t stick and you feel the mumsnet love. And that you have found somewhere safe. Much love.

Ah, no English badgers don't attack. They're lovely shy creatures.

I'm afraid I've only ever them irl as roadkill

We have lots of foxes where we live though. You see them bold as brass, mooching around. We don't have wheelie bins where live (rural road) and so the foxes come for the bin bags of those householders still unwise enough to put bags out the night before Our foxes are fat and well-fed.