Nor is it the result of too much beer. I've seen badgers most Thursday nights. It's how I came to write The Badgers of Beechen Cliff. They were always there on Greenway Lane: one or two slipping under a garden hedge, scurrying under the gate to the school playing fields, or, sadly, dead on the road, like a contorted rag toy in the rain. But I've never seen this many.
There must by almost twenty of them, shaggy coats shaking as they trundle along. They never move very quickly, even at top speed, and some are nosing their way under parked cars, behind dustbins and open garage doors. I'm pressed against an old stone wall as they brush past regarding me with curiosity more than fear; as if they don't understand why I'm not joining in their great escape. Because that's what it must be. In these kind of numbers, they must be trying to get away from something or someone.
But what?
Then I hear the thunder or is it quarry-blasting. Surely not. Not at 11:25pm. No, it's a massive off-roader and it's heading this way, stampeding the wildlife in front of it, because there is no escape down the corridor of Greenway Lane until you reach the end.
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