Oh deer ...

What a morning I've had already, and I only started this blog less than 24 hours ago.

I left my hotel in East Horsley at about 06h05 this morning, and was happily driving up to the A3 north of Guildford. Beautiful clear morning, bit windy, and the roads were clear (very rare for Surrey). There were lots of birds on the road, crows, pigeons, sparrows, magpies and so on, and I had to keep braking to avoid them.

I spotted a rabbit running across from right to left, so I slowed right down and suddenly! out of the corner of my eye I spot a small deer and for that one split second I make eye contact with it before it decides it's going to have a go at crossing. I'm less than 50 feet from it, doing about 30mph ... and across it goes. I slammed the anchors on, and turned to the right (there was nothing oncoming) and BANG! (well, more a THUD! really) it hits my left front wing.

There was no panic, I just pulled over up the road and walked back down. I was gutted that I'd hit it of course, and had images of having to lift it, flaying its legs and panicking, into my car. There was no way I was going to just leave. But if I did find it, injured, then where would I take it?! There was a deep ditch at the side of the road, lots of nettles and bushes, and I could see nothing. I scanned the field in front of me ... nothing. Where was it? A car passed, the driver looking oddly at me in my bright shirt and tie. Must have thought local authority workmen had some bizarre new "dress smartly" directive (I certainly wouldn't put it past local authorities).

Then, suddenly, I heard a huge rustle in the bushes, and the deer leapt up from right next to where I'd hit it, bounced like a beachball about 3 feet over a barbed wire fence and bounded at speed across the neighbouring field. Not even a limp! It stopped, looked back at me as if to say "I'm fine, but no thanks to you", and away it went. I was absolutely delighted, thanked God for his good will, got back in my car, drove to Southwark and walked along the Thames to our South Bank office with a real "spring in my step".