Not for the squeamish

and that includes me! So will get this over quickly.

While putting the horses to bed at around 20:30, heard unusual car engine noises on the road - living where we do, one has an ear for this. Opened the stable door and saw a car stopped opposite our driveway drive off but it returned slowly a minute later driving very slowly before moving on. The next car came at high speed (more than the 100kmh limit) and heard a thump followed by the sound of something hard being dragged under the car for about 100m. The car only slowed a little for a second and even seemed to accelerate after the initial thump.

Jumped in the car and found a dead badger exactly in the middle of the road and further up the road a large 1m x 1m piece of flat plastic. Quickly went home and tried calling MrB as although not on his patch he would know if I was legally allowed to move the evidence to a safer place. He wasn't at home so phoned Bello the responsible hunter and he confirmed I could move it but preferably not using my hands although there is no health risk.

Armed with torch and rake moved the corpse to the side of the road and also the plastic car part which every car was driving over making a loud noise. It seems to have been the engine mud protection sheet of a probably expensive car.

Normally people stop when they collide with wild animals as most insurance companies will only pay up on production of proof from the police or the official hunter that the car & animal collided. Legally the driver hitting the animal must inform the authorities if the animal is injured (Animal Protection Act) or if dead must remove it from the road if causing a hazard (Road Safety Act). As these accidents often happen at night when drivers may have had a pint or two, they often don't get reported.

Lovely looking animal, he/she were and luckily not as badly mauled as I would have expected. Probably one of the badgers which live at the end of the horse fields and possibly the one that nearly bumped in to me in broad daylight during the flooding last summer as we both waded through water.

This event made this afternoons experience with Luna even more horrifying. I was busy with the bees and she, probably bored, seemed to have darted off, went out the back entrance to the forest but then once outside the garden turned back, ran across the road and went to see what a farmer was doing with his tractor in the field opposite. Luckily the farmer had seen her cross the road and collected her up and brought her home. We had recently bought some hay from him but as Angie had arranged it, I had not met him. He was quite taken by Luna. My heartbeat & blood pressure took quite a bit to get back to normal. Not an experience I need again so will have to keep a special eye out.

In other news: up early (5:00 am) as I had to take Angie to train, needing the car to take Flash to the vet as he had broken the largest molar on his lower right jaw on Saturday. It had broken horizontally in half and was still hanging on. Wasn't in any pain but after Emmy's recent experience with Biscuit's vertical tooth break, took no risk. Vet reckons it doesn't need to be treated but to keep an eye out for infection. Then went for a walk with the dogs in Ottobeuren, and after lunch tried to sort out bee problems.

Then at 18:00 picked up Angie in Mindelheim to be reunited with the jeep after 3 weeks and to leave a lot of cash at the garage! We had said at the outset there was no rush and the owner of the independent garage does try to work from bottom up taking time to get to the problem especially as there was no obvious cause in our case. Normal big garages seem to work top down, replace the biggest, most expensive part and assume the 1 Euro gasket causing the problem will be corrected in the process. Most are not "repair" garages but "replace" garages. Ironically the top down policy would probably have been better as it turned out but we now know that lots of important smaller bits are OK. It was the fuel injection unit in the end. Noticed the improved performance on the 15km motorway trip home - was very impressed.

So couldn't make as much as I would have liked of the fantastic weather but it is due to stay with us all week.