Accidental Cows

Aren't cattle amazing? Big, picturesque, slightly frightening and full of beef and milk. And they're always inquisitive. So many times they have come lumbering into my shots to see what I'm up to, to give a shuffling, snorting opinion. Out in the fields last week the local lads immediately hove into the viewfinder when I thought I'd photograph a wooden footbridge over a ditch. I gave up on the bridge and waited for them to arrange themselves into a hawthorn-bordered pose instead. I've collected so many Accidental Cows they could easily be another book. 'Freisian The Moment' a friend thinks it should be called. The One and Only Daughter and I did present the idea to a marketing girl at Express Dairies some years ago, but all we got was a blank stare and the visuals promptly lost. It was such a good idea we thought. I've got them in front of the Kilsby Tunnel ventilators, standing around chewing the cud with Jodrell Bank in the background and creating a bovine slant on Arthur's Henge in Cumbria. I once walked quite a distance to photograph a yellow Railtrack Stoneblower on the Dart Valley Railway in Devon from across the valley. And before I could get anywhere near where I wanted to be, I was followed. See above.