the year of the horse

 

                    This is the year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac

and Harry and Trude were our beloved companions for many years - in fact Harry

was with us for at least twenty of them.

I'd say it was always the year of the horse for me - I have loved horses or been one for most of my life. When I was a small child I was in fact a horse - cantering around the garden, jumping over imaginary jumps and even falling off myself. The man who helped in the garden told my parents he thought there may be something wrong with me. Of course if he'd seen I was a horse he wouldn't have thought that.

So lucky for me horses have been in my life for a long time - even being allowed to ride the army horses in Hyde Park every morning on my way to work.  Me and Jack, the Corporal of the Horse used to ride them up the Edgeware Road for a cup of tea at a local cafe and then jump over the park benches on the way back. 

There is a statue of a horse in Westminster and I remember one year a soldier rugged it up and left a pile of horse dung along Whitehall leading up to the horse's rear end. It was very funny but I expect he was court -martialled for it.

The Year of the Rooster is not till 2029 and is supposed to represent diligence, courage and confidence. Geoffrey our hen turned cockerel is all of those things and tried to mate with one of my ducks. I daresay the offspring would have been called a Cuck - which I suspect gives rise to the saying that someone was cuckolded.

Rocket asks when it's his turn to have a year - because if it's not soon he's going to go and live in his favourite pub The Ball and Stick. And did I realise he wanted to know that the reason he sleeps on my bed is that he's preventing unwanted spirits from entering my bedroom and spends his time absorbing negative energies whilst I sleep.

Ghost Pocket informs him he's got a long wait till 2030 in fact. 

I might not live till then he complains. 

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet the Ghost Pocket replies. 

Emily Dickenson said that I told him - do you converse with her? 

Of course, Emily is one of America's greatest and most original poet of all time. Her poems have a unique style piercing intelligence and wit. 

He curls his tail around his paws. Let us try to recognise the precious nature of each day.

The Dalai Lama? I enjoin but he stares out of the window and informs me he has important things to be getting on with.

If they were hens I'd say this lot were having a hen party but Geoffrey is crowing on top of one of the flower pots and not interested.

Jackdaw has had no luck so far finding a mate - he flies off for a couple of days and then returns for a cuddle and a bit of grub. I hope he/she finds one soon but how he does I've no idea, If he can wait I expect I'll be given some fledgling jackdaws in the Spring that have fallen out of their nest.

I love this horse poem below and

RIP

Harry, Trude, Mark, Simon,Pally, Rosie and Kerry the trumpet horse.

At Grass by Philip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.