acronyms are us

Here -Trude the beautiful Friesian stands up to the gale that whips around the field

Friesians are the most beautiful horses - and are the breed they use to pull the funeral coaches. The other day I sadly had to attend the funeral of a dear friend and sat practically in the road, as you have to these days, having a cup of coffee beforehand when four of them trotted past with their red plumes on their heads, pulling an ornate coffin (not my friend's)in a glass cased carriage. They were so beautiful they almost took my breath away and I was for running after them all the way down the road to the cemetery. Friesians traditionally have very long flowing wavy manes as if someone has used curling tongs on them but sadly Trude's mane is short. This is I believe because Harry chews it. In all the years we have had her it never seems to grow whereas  Harry's mane is most luxuriant.

In a complete change in the weather here is Harry and Rocket appearing through the mist. I know the English always talk about the weather but really - wind, rain. hail, coldness - heating on? heating off? Pocket has complained and asked why are the pipes that run under the floorboards in the bathroom where he likes to have his morning nap turned off? Really it is quite bitter lying there now.

 Now this BTW is not the same fox from the wildlife hospital that appeared in my last blog. This is a vixen that was involved in an R T A . I find the use of acronyms slightly annoying  but this one is AKA  Road Traffic Accident. At least it wasn't a GSW  AKA Gunshot Wound or we'd have had to call in an FI  AKA forensic investigator and put her in a VPU. I shan't go on and no I didn't watch Line of Duty on the BBC.

Although I would dearly have loved to have taken the fox home with me to recover I was given a crow without a tail and another rook without an eye. The rook bless it was found down a rabbit hole on Watership Down. Its left wing and leg and eye have all been damaged but there is hope given time it will recover. As it was found down a rabbit hole I was tempted to call her Alice but as yet have resisted naming her/him. No one knows what it was doing in the hole but probably trying to escape something that had wounded its left side. The other rook with one eye successfully flew away and I have to admit after transferring the crow with no tail to my shade tunnel it hopped out the door so fast I couldn't catch it. It can't fly without a tail but boy can it hop! I followed it to a tree and watched its spectacular ascent up the branches to the very top. I hope it survives - its obviously hopped down as its no longer up there but they are so intelligent I think until its feathers grow back it will do very well. When I first put it in the shade tunnel I was worried about it getting up to the branches that I put in there. I leant a small ladder up to the table top and within minutes it had worked out how to hop up each rung, onto the table and from there onto all the branches.

Dear Rocket - no wonder he doesn't hear me as he chases after a deer and I try to call him back. When we got him I hadn't realised his ears came in a separate box.

And on the weather front we are still looking for that pot of gold as seen from the bedroom window.

Pocket says when he finds it he's going to use the gold to launch his new book. I thought you were opening a casino I said, but he stared at me as if I didn't know what I was talking about and told me that he'd gone back to writing novels. What's it called I asked. He flicked his tail and told me it was called The cat who came in from the cold and was a very exciting spy story. Sounds a bit like The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carre  I said but he assured me he had no idea what I was talking about and perhaps I was suffering from PTSD on account of having trouble with my own novels and would I put the heating back on.

Lovely Scout on the same windy day wondering if the rainbow led to a pot of biscuits by any chance.

The tulips this year have been glorious - here is one of my favourites Estella Rijnveldt

Below is a poem I wrote about another friend who'd died - seemed appropriate as I've mentioned death already

A dying man.

 

 

Today I saw a dying man.

You look well I said.

I’m dying he said, how can that be?

I’m too young to die.

I enquired as to his age.

Eighty two he said.

My mother died in this bed too

 and she was older than me.

What a bummer

I said.

What a bugger

He said.

Would you like a sherry?

I have to drive I said.

Would you?

No thank you he said.

I thought you’d come on a horse.

Today I saw a dying man.

How long ?I asked

Between 6 and 12 weeks

And I’ve already had three of them.

We look out at the view.

A hospital garden shrouded in mist.

What will you do with it? I say.

These weeks you’ve been given.

I’ll get on with the dying  he said.

We’re all dying I thought but didn’t say.

His sister had summoned the priest

And brought holy water for the ill from Lourdes

Though he didn’t believe 

When she’d gone away

He put it on the poinsettia by the window sill.

The nurse brings in lunch.

We couldn’t tell the icecream

 from the mashed potato.

I should go I said.

I couldn’t bear to say goodbye.

I’ll see you again I said.

You look well.

 

 

 

 Linda Coggin