Tag Archives: dogs

Do horses laugh?

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Do horses have a sense of humour?

Dogs do, even though it tends towards the custard-pie-in-the-face, trousers-down sort of humour.  Just to watch the Labradors chortling on Pancake day, when there’s fun and laughter and pancakes fall to the kitchen floor like confetti  gives me no doubt about that.  At a recent supper party, one of our guests got noisily cheerful then tripped on his way out and fell into Guinness’ basket.  She thought it was side-splitting and licked his face sploshily while he was down.  And when Indie seized a visitor’s glove and went on a high-speed multi-lap tour of the garden with the visitor rushing behind him shouting “Give that glove back: it’s brand new leather!” you could plainly see that Indie was giggling his head off with naughty delight.

Scarab the cat has a sense of humour too.   His favourite game is ‘hunt the cat’ played last thing at night when the dogs are in their baskets, the lights turned off and everybody wants to go to bed.  Scarab gets invariably frisky at this moment, waits till he sees the whites of your eyes and sets off on a steeplechase around the house.  He zips upstairs at a speed unexpected for a cat of his ample girth, and goes to ground beneath a random piece of furniture.  The good thing is that he finds the whole thing so hilarious that he can’t resist purring loudly.  And then I’ve got him.

But horses?  Something in the long face and sense of dignity suggests not.  Slip is intuitive, gentle, courteous and sometimes bonkers, but I’ve never sensed the smallest hint of a grin.  Harry is bigger, darker, heavier, and doesn’t look like a laugh a minute.  But this morning I went to feed them hay.  I was slightly pushed for time, as we were going to a friend’s house for Sunday lunch.  I was wearing one of my better jumpers and didn’t feel I had time to go indoors to fetch a coat.  Big mistake – BIG mistake.

I carried a wedge of hay carefully at arm’s length out for Slip, and put it in front of him.  Slip ate it.  Perfect.  I carried a second wedge of hay for Harry and he picked it up, checked for wind direction and then hurled it straight back at me.  And hay sticks to wool like butter sticks to toast.  In a second I was transformed from a reasonably respectable person to a walking haystack.   And Harry?  It’s hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure that Harry fell about laughing.

Musical baskets

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In the kitchen I have an enormous basket, for Darcy (an enormous Labrador), a medium sized basket for Guinness (a medium sized Labrador) and a small cosy basket for Indie, the whippet puppy.  Scarab the cat makes his own arrangements, as his proud soul doesn’t choose to be tied to a single bed.  He ranges freely over sofas, chairs, boilers, beds, cupboards and windowsills.

It’s a system that usually works well.  But this morning I took the dogs for a long, long walk – even Indie (who has vast, untapped wells of energy).  When we got home, I headed for a mug of coffee and a square of chocolate and the dogs headed for their baskets and a bit of chillin’.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft agley, as Robert Burns so truly told us and this applies also to dogs. Curled in a tight ball in Darcy’s enormous basket was Scarab.  He’d selected his bed for the day, and he wasn’t shifting.  Darcy made the best of a bad job and lay down in Guinness basket, bits of him overlapping all around – nose, ears, paws, nothing would fit properly.  The appropriation of her basket didn’t please Guinness one tiny bit, and she registered her disapproval by taking over Indie’s little bed, bulging out at the top like a soufflé.

This left Indie homeless, and he’s far too strong a character to put up with that.  When he’s not a mild-mannered whippet, he has the alter ego of the Black Moth, pirate and filibuster.  He raised his pennants, cutlass in mouth, and took a running jump at Scarab, landing right on top of him.  Scarab unwound in one fluid movement, swatted at the Black Moth, who evaded him laughingly, and disappeared under the kitchen table leaving the Black Moth in full possession of a vast, echoing basket.

And that is how it has remained.  I tried to tempt everybody out of the wrong basket and back to the right one, but they all looked at me blankly and insisted on staying put.  I wish this had a video camera attached, because I’d love you to see huge expanses of Darcy sprawling out of one basket, a mound of Guinness rising out of another basket and a tiny black and white pirate sprawled out victoriously in the third basket.

Scarab’s taken full possession of the rug by the Aga and wants me to tell you that he didn’t care anyway.

Friendly woods

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Last night I took the senior dogs for a walk in a nearby wood.  The dogs need quality time with me at the moment (it’s a puppy thing) and this is a particularly pleasant wood to stroll in.  I have to trespass slightly to get into it, but I’ve never seen anybody else there and the wood doesn’t mind.  Evening was coming on, and the shadows were deep and comfortable.

I’ve found that different woods have very different atmospheres – when we lived in Germany the endless pine forests felt ominous, as if there were a troll behind every tree.  Then there are the bristly ones that don’t really want you there, and are packed with thorns and spikes.  This particular wood is full of oak trees, some of them very old indeed.  They are old enough to have seen knights in armour, and travelling friars, and minstrels singing of longing and love while plucking out tunes on a lute.  Yeah right, reality check: in these parts they are more likely to have seen muddy peasants dragging home a yoke of oxen, but anyway the oaks go back a long way.

I was ambling along thinking about the times I have heard nightingales singing in the oaks in spring time and (without wanting to sound too fey) I had the most extraordinary feeling that I was among friends.  I could have lingered for hours there, smelling that cold, wet winter smell and looking at the beautiful shapes of the branches against the the lilac of the early evening dusk.  But I had the sheep to feed, the geese to shut and I knew that if I stayed Indie would wake up and start wailing from his little warm basket.  As the dogs and I walked home, nothing fitted my mood as well as the words of Robert Frost, another of my all-time favourite poets:  The woods are lovely, dark and deep,/But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep.

Admin v outdoors

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‘Man proposes – God disposes’.  Tomorrow is my book launch (so no pressure there, then) and yesterday I proposed an admin day – lists ticked, books counted, emails sent.  But then God disposed and gave us a glorious October day.  England has had no detectable summer, just months of grey skies and chilly rain, so a golden sun rising into pale blue sky over a light mist called me outdoors.  And once outdoors – all admin plans went clean out of my mind.

I’ve been nurturing a field full of lush grass and wild flowers, preserving it for the autumn.  Yesterday seemed the ideal day to release it to the general public, or at least to the sheep and horses who were lurking hopefully on the opposite side of the fence.  I pulled the gate wide, there was a quick ‘Hey!  Look what she’s done!’ moment and then all four-footed animals formed themselves into a mixed herd of madness and thundered into their new field in an avalanche of joy.  Round and round they went – high kicks from the horses, stiff-legged prong jumps from the sheep – and even when they settled to eat there was a general air of jollity.

I watched for a while (why not?  The day was yet young and there was only a book launch to prepare for) then headed to the orchard to pick apples.  The trees were laden, the apples smelt great and I had a lovely time balanced on the top of a stepladder piling nature’s bounty into a tasteful wicker basket.  The only problem with this pretty scene was that once I was up and picking, the bottom fell out of the wicker basket.  Apples cascaded onto the upturned faces of the geese, who had been prowling around the base of the ladder like feathery, rubber-footed timber wolves.  They were thrilled and devoured all the apples they could seize while I was still clambering down the ladder.  Note to self:  get a new basket.

Then the time seemed perfect to plant out daffodil bulbs, a magical job.  You dig holes in the earth and fill them with what appear to be small onions, and it all looks most unpromising.  Then next year, while it’s still cold and dark, a tide of golden flowers washes over the garden and tells you that despite appearances spring really is on its way.  As I worked my way around the garden planting bulbs I gathered a trail of followers:  first the dogs, happy to be involved, then the cat who likes something going on, then the peacock who does his own thing but enjoys pecking bulbs (and cats and dogs) (and me) and finally the geese who shouldn’t have been there but I’d left the gate open.

It was great, yesterday was.  But now it’s today.  And my book launch is tomorrow.  And I’m nearly, very nearly panicking.  Time to go and do admin, absolutely right now …

My village book launch

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my book launch recently (quick plug: Tales from a Stone Cottage – collected Country Living columns plus extra funny bits due out any minute).  A glitzy London book launch, with right-on literary figures uttering bon mots and anybody currently escaping from a jihad hiding beneath the table, isn’t really my thing.  And it would be nearly impossible to tempt any of the villagers who have been such a rich and continuing source of inspiration up to London (“Lunnon?  I went there once to the Royal Show, to see tractors.  That underground railway thing was awful, made me feel like the poor old cattle, bouncing up and down in the cattle lorry.  Never again.”)

So I decided to have a small local book launch, a thank you to the village for encouragement, instruction and (it has to be said) entertainment.  We’ll have it in Anna’s Post Office, and we’ll eat home-made cakes and drink tea out of friendly mugs.  If anybody would like a book (or lots of books) I’ll sign one for them (or lots), but the occasion will be a celebration, with no pressure to buy.

The book launch is already getting a life of its own.  And (this being the village) it is a sprightly and spontaneous sort of life.  Take the cakes:  several kind friends and neighbours have offered to bake cakes and Phyllis has said she’ll bring her Special Courgette cake.  Now the thing about Phyllis’ Special Courgette cake is that it tastes – weird.  And is coloured strangely green.  I wouldn’t offend Phyllis for the world, but nor do I want to offer the villagers a faintly slimy green cake.  So I’ve got to think of a way of conjuring it out of sight without Phyllis noticing.  Or feed it all to Frank, her husband, in large wedges.  He’s got an enormous appetite and seems immune to Phyllis’ cooking.

Then there are the animals.  My columns have always featured as many animals as I could get away with, and it would be nice to include them in the photos. There is a Post Office cat of huge character and majestic demeanour who should be in any photograph.  But several friends are bringing their dogs, a rich mix of everything from Labradors to scruffy terriers.  And I really don’t want the photos to feature a cat-hunt (or, knowing the cat concerned, a dog-hunt).  There will be at least one pony and certainly a hen.  I’d like to have a ferret in attendance, but Frank who is the local ferret expert, can’t be trusted not to let his ferrets go in the Post Office, and that would not be ideal.

So as you can see, I’ve got quite a bit of subtle and sensitive planning to do in the next couple of weeks.  I’ll keep you updated!

Lupin heist!

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Last night as I slept (probably, full details of timings etc are yet to emerge) a hideous crime was perpetrated.  Somebody crept into our garden and nicked a lupin.

I didn’t notice initially, as I went to feed the hens this morning.  Then on my way back I glanced over to my flower bed (the only flower bed that I have managed to salvage from the combined attentions of the hens/dogs/cat) and there was a bit missing.  Where there used to be a tasteful mass of blue/purple/pink/white flowers linked by rampant bindweed (also pink, white and very harmonious) there was now a large hole in the very middle.

At first I thought it had been Scarab getting a bit overenthusiastic in his love-affair with the rampant catmint that I welcome because it is purple and within my colour swatch.  But it wasn’t.  And nor was it the dogs, digging a careful hole in which to hide a treasure (step forward Darcy, and a dead mouse he was deeply attached to).  And nor was it the hens, creating an extra special dustbath.

As you can see from the list of suspects, my flower bed has an uphill struggle to survive as it is, without the additional attentions of a genuine human lupin thief.

When I got beyond my dismay at the trampled path into the middle of the bed, and realised that a large crater had been purposefully dug to get out the roots, I raced back indoors and consulted some photos I took after a passer-by said that my flowers were looking ‘very pretty’, the nicest thing anybody had ever said about the garden.  ‘Characterful’, and ‘fun’, I’ve had, but ‘very pretty’ was a first.  So I had recent photographic evidence that the bit that was missing was a large lupin.  Pink, it was, and burgeoning.

I contemplated ringing the police, but the ensuing conversation could have been a bit feeble:  “I have to report the theft of a lupin.”  “A wot?”  “A lupin.”  “Sorry to hear that, can you give me a description?”  “Well, it’s a lupin.  And it’s pink …”

Nah, I rang the Neighbourhood Watch coordinator to tell him of the Terror that is Stalking our Streets, and I’m afraid to say that he giggled and asked me for an Identikit of the missing plant.  But I’m taking it seriously.  Somebody came into the garden, trampled into the middle of my only decent flowerbed, and collared a pink lupin.  So now my family, the dogs, cat (very fierce when roused) and chickens are on full alert.  Let him visit again, after a delphinium or similar, and we are armed and ready for him.  Or of course her.  I’ll be looking carefully at Audrey’s garden, for instance, next time I ride past it …

Weekend round-up #1

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Book:  I’ve now sent the corrected proofs back to the publishers (very few typos – respect!)  Publishing date is now set for 15 September – yay!!  I think it’s going to feature at Country Living’s Autumn Fair, which will be fun.

Weather:  more rain than you would believe could fall out of a single sky.  I was about to do my evening rounds with the dogs last night and opened the back door.  Outside it looked as if somebody was sitting on the roof tipping buckets of water down right in front of me.  Just masses of water falling straight down.  The dogs and me decided to go right back indoors and light the woodburner instead.  The stream is roaring along, normally it doesn’t flow at all in summer.  On the plus side, it looks very pretty if the rain stops for long enough for me to go and look at it.

Horses:  I took Slip out around the lanes this morning, between showers, and all the water dragons were out.  Water dragons live in puddles, and they wait … and wait … and then they LEAP OUT AT YOU!!  That is, it hasn’t happened yet, but when it does Slip will be ready for them.  Harry isn’t interested in water dragons, but he says the grass is excellent this year, very lush.  And Harry is a connoisseur of grass and currently shaped like a beer barrel.

Cat:  Scarab says thank you for the kind concern, and his paw is feeling much better.  He highly recommends wicker cat baskets, because then the human can go through all the fun of thinking they are taking a cat to the vet while the cat can stay at home and wish them well.  Wicker baskets have escape routes (see previous blog).  Plastic baskets don’t, and are not to be trusted.

Sheep:  Because of current weather conditions, the ewes spend most of their time gossiping in the field shelter while the lambs climb on a straw bale that I put out for them.  The lambs think they are semi-aquatic, bless them, and know no different.

Hens:  I know I’m biased, but the frizzle chicks (Wenceslas’ little princesses) are ridiculously cute.  I’ll see if Mikey can put a photo of one on the blog at the weekend, so you can see what I mean.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, AND IF YOU LIVE IN THE UK REMEMBER TO TAKE A BROLLY!

 

 

Baylis doesn’t make cakes

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I was walking the dogs around the village yesterday when I overheard an exchange that I have been simply burning to share with you.  So here it is:

As we ambled along, I spotted Julia the hedge fund manager jogging along in front of me.  You may remember that Julia has been jogging around the village for several months now, sometimes in company with her personal trainer who springs along lithely next to her, nearly running on the spot as Julia pounds grimly along.  Sometimes she takes her dog along for company, and often the dog walks even though Julia is running, a sight worth seeing.  One of these days she will actually participate in a charity run and I am quite sure she will make an enormous amount of money for the charity of her choice.  But in the short term I held back when I came up behind her, as no runner actually enjoys being overtaken by a dog walker.

Coming towards us in the other direction was a lovely old villager called Baylis.  I have no idea whether this is his Christian name or surname, I’ve never quite liked to ask.  But he is a real old countryman and I love talking to him because he remembers long ago very clearly.  I have listened enthralled when he told me that he remembered 30 plough horses coming to drink at the village pond, and when houses called ‘The Old Smithy’ and ‘The Old Laundry’ really were respectively a working smithy and a laundry.

Anyway, as I lurked unobtrusively in the hinterland, Julia paused as she came abreast of Baylis.  She is an organiser to her fingertips and is currently organising a village party to which she wants as many people as possible to bring a cake.  Although Baylis is unlikely to have cooked anything in his life, having been looked after first by his wife and now by his daughter, Julia just couldn’t resist a teasing little question:  “Well Baylis, are you going to cook a sponge cake for the village party?”  Baylis paused thoughtfully, rested on his stick, and raised his wonderful old wrinkled countryman’s face to hers.  “Oi would sooner clean out moi neighbour’s cess pit with moi bare ‘ands,” he said.  “Much sooner.”

So that would be a no, then.  Julia blushed and stammered and the dogs and me slipped quietly through a gap in the hedge and returned home another way.

London: there and back

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I went to London yesterday.  Not a great drama you would think, but for me it is.  For a start I have to get up extra specially early to feed and organise all the animals before I go.  Then I walk the dogs around the village, and something about my going-to-London day means that I will meet the most garrulous and needy villagers on my route.  Frank, for example:  “morning, my dear.  Looks like rain, don’t it?” (that’s how he always starts, it’s his opening shot before he really gets going).  Then he was telling me about his mother, who must be over 100 and has decided that she prefers life with no clothes on.  How can I sidle away from that one?

When I had listened to Frank, got home, checked the sheep (still not shorn, so highly attractive to blow-flies and need constant vigilance), made sure that shrieks from Frillz just meant that she’d discovered ladybirds, not that she was being torn apart by the others, and settled the dogs in their baskets I could finally set out for the station.

Another part of going to London is that I always arrive at the station about half an hour too early, just in time (in fact) to just miss the train before the one I am aiming for, a stress in itself.  Yesterday my half hour wait on the platform was made beautiful by an extended family of swifts, who hurled about the sky just above me, avian Spitfire pilots, yelling with happiness as they went.

Then the train to London, and sudden exposure to crowds.  Once I have established to my inner self that I don’t actually know anybody, so it is pointless to scan the faces of passers-by for a friend (as I do in Bath) it is exhilarating to be amongst hordes of strangers, all rushing to do something (what?  I’d love to know).  London was looking good yesterday, the sun was shining (as it was not in Wiltshire), the shops were awesome, and the exhibition of The Horse From Arabia to Royal Ascot at the British Museum was superb.  And although I got back to Paddington just in time to miss the train before mine again, so could hear the announcer urgently calling people to board the train for Chippenham as I arrived at the station, the return trip went smoothly.

I went and stood in the field when I got back.  It was raining steadily, in fact it was pouring, but the air smelt fresh and green and the dogs came and sat with me.  To quote Paul Simon, ‘Gee, but it’s great to be back home!’

 

I’m back!!!

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Well I’m home.  If anyone’s still there, and has had the patience to wait for my return, a big and heartfelt hello to you!

I left a sort of rural paradise, all blossom and happy warm animals and now everything is awash.  The contrast is particularly marked because I was in the Sahara desert for most of our three weeks away, where there is dust, and camels, and hotness.  And now there is greenness, and coldness, and dampness.  Even so I felt like rolling in the soggy green grass when we drove into the drive, just in pure joy to be home (but I didn’t because a surer path to instant pneumonia couldn’t be imagined, also it would be silly).

My mind is still full of orange sand, nomad goat herders and camels (why do I like camels so much?  They always radiate disapproval.)  But my eyes are seeing something very different – blossom, and waterlogged bluebells, and the stream is running for the first time in two years.  It looks very nice, just ridiculously wet.

The animals have taken my return in different ways.  Porous the gander has spent a happy three weeks being unforgivably rude to lovely Sarah, who only wanted to feed him and shut him safely in at night.  He made her run away several times, and once she had to squat on top of a wall for some time before he got bored and wandered off.  A small, bad part of me would have just loved to have seen that.  But he was really thrilled to see me back, and waggled his tail, and burbled away and tried to pretend that he is really a very nice goose, just misunderstood.

Duffy the peacock is going through a difficult time and doesn’t care.  If he was a teenager he’d be immured in his bedroom, ordering black sheets for his bed and playing Deep Purple.

Chick has grown enormously (I still can’t name him/her, because I don’t yet know if we are talking eggs or crowing).  I left this sweet little yellow cottonwool ball and today he/she looks like a vulture with bad attitude.  He/she has a sort of sneer that only a chick beak can manage.  Fluffy (his/her yummy mummy) thinks it’s a great chick though, and it looks as if it will be a frizzle which is great news.

The dogs are uncomplicatedly happy to have their people home, and Scarab the cat celebrated by doing his Thing (once seen, never forgotten).  He runs up the orchard, takes a flying leap at an apple tree and gets half way up before gravity takes over.  He then slides slowly back down, looking worriedly over his shoulder then pretends he meant to do it like that in the first place.  Scarab is a cat with the fuller figure, and his Thing really is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen (though I’m respectful of his dignity and don’t laugh where he can hear me).

The horses and sheep are still a bit wet and distant, Slip in particular appears to have gone feral, though Sarah has been tending to his needs every day.  I’ll report back when I’ve had a proper feedback session with them.  In fact this is probably enough for today, I must go and do some more washing (and where do I dry it?)