Harry, our gypsy cob, proved to be a wonder at pulling a cart. He'd never done it before, he was only five when we got him, though his mother and father had probably pulled them, uphill and down dale and along the A354.
I found an elderly couple who taught both horse and dreamer to drive and like being packed off to boarding school, Harry went to this new place with shiny new shoes to learn the lessons. The only difference being he didn't have a tuck box. Whilst he was taught in the field I was taught in the barn, sitting on a stool with the reins in one hand learning to twist my wrist to right and left depending on which direction we wanted to go. This is the correct way to drive a horse, reins in the left hand, whip in the right, resting lightly on the reins above - so when I see people in tv dramas driving with their reins in both hands I know they are not for real. Mind you if you were driving a wagon in a western you probably would have your reins in both hands. The old couple never taught me this though or to say "Yee ha!" Once I was put in the cart it was nothing like sitting on a stool. It was terrifying - a bit like white water rafting. The horse seems a long way in front- not a bit like actually riding one. The old couple sold me the wooden milk cart which had some off road wheels on and Harry and I were away.
"What care I for my house and my land?
What care I for my money-o?
I'd rather have a kiss from the yellow gypsy's lips
I'm away wi' the raggle taggle gypsy-o!"
I'd rather have a kiss from the yellow gypsy's lips
I'm away wi' the raggle taggle gypsy-o!"
All the birds have gone now not to appear again. Mr and Mrs Jim finally went the other week. I left the door open and Mr Jim flew out first, leaving poor Mrs Jim behind. She kept flying to the open door then turning back, looking bewildered. I left her to it. I hope they met up outside. It's a kind of bitter sweet moment - you are thrilled that they have flown away but you miss them and worry about them. I'm not expecting any of them to write home though.
Still - they are on the pages of my new story - The Missing of Stanley Ruff - an amalgamation of them into one bird - Crow 3. Towards the end of the story Crow3 is attacked by some seagulls and plummets to the ground where everyone thinks he is dead. But corvids can play dead and I was amused to read recently of a raven at Knaresborough Castle that feigns injury by lying down in the grass. As people go to check if she's OK she squawks "What the fuck you looking at?" before flying off with their camera and leaving it on the roof.
And here he is now - the magnificent one seeing eyed beast he's grown into. He's always been tricky to feed - he likes something, so you buy a sack of it, then he refuses to eat it. We've tried raw food, dried food, tinned food, our food, meat, fish, raw tripe, cheese and eggs. He likes to eat my shoes, the cushions, the sofa and my computer cable. He likes to eat off a silver spoon best (though obviously he's not eating my shoes off a silver spoon) and dear reader - don't laugh - but he likes to steal the cats' empty food pouches. So what he refuses to eat off a plate on the floor I stuff into the pouch and he'll run off with it, wagging his tail and devouring it outside. I can feel the words back, rod, made, being thought. But there - he is a lurcher - a traditional gypsy dog and as he runs alongside Harry in the cart I'm seriously considering making some pegs to sell.
Pixie's interesting fact is that lurcher is a Romany word for thief. Mmmmm. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it. If he grew wings as well he'd probably steal people's cameras too.
When asked, Pocket's fascinating insight into life for this post is "Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate." I asked him if he were ever hopeful, adding that I believed Chesterton had said that. He said he was hopeful that I'd stop asking him for bon mots to put on my blog.
Below is a poem I wrote inspired by an obituary in the village news sheet. It's a very small village and the obit summed up the lives of some the people who stay where they were born.
Alice Dunn - an obituary
from Dog Days
Alice Dunn was one of eleven
born at number four.
Three times a day she walked
to the school and as a rule
three times on the Sabbath
to the Parish church where
she was christened then married
later buried her
children and which she would clean
for forty two years.
She went into service at the age
of fifteen, for sixty years
at the house on the green of
the village where she was born
and for a peppercorn rent
still lived next door
in the cottage at number four.
Alice Dunn enjoyed playing whist.
A few years back she moved
to number six, next to the school.
It must have been the gypsy in her soul.
