Dead 'orse
Following on from ['Where the dregs started tasting bitter, my feet got muddier and my legs doubled in number'.]
'Only good 'orse is a dead 'orse'.
There's no memory of my first meeting with The Sheep Man but this seemed to be his favorite phrase, guaranteed to make me bristle... and elicit a roguish grin from him.
He was equally disparaging about sheep.
Having cultivated an almost perfect (and infuriating) photo-audio memory for conversations, neatly stapled to date and time, I've just asked him if he had any recollections of us meeting...
'Nah, probably just a 'mornin' after doing the sheep.'
Yes, that was a scene so familiar it would never be forgotten... Only his greeting was usually ‘good afternoon’ pointing out that his morning had started at some unearthly hour. He ignored my plea that I was probably heading to bed some four or five hours after he had retired.
But I was suddenly back in Newbury, listening to the purr of his motor, seeing the tall slightly stooping figure appear. Nearly always in a checked shirt with flat cap pulled down over greying hair, he walked towards my static with the brittle gait of one whose knees and back have known decades of constant abuse. His close set eyes burned with focus and determination.
And although I'm sure it was pure coincidence, he had an uncanny knack of turning up unannounced as I woke and - wrapped up in little more than a dressing-gown - had just put the kettle on.
Having finished scrolling the annals of his mind,The Sheep Man then pinpointed our first proper encounter. My unconscious had buried it. No wonder. It was a group event of which I was barely a part.
The group? Hurricane, The Sheep Man (who henceforth will be referred to as TSM, as per the pages in my journal) and his part-time shepherdess assistant. The latter was young, blonde and thin. She had mastered looking proprietorial in the most nuanced and nonchalant of manners sitting in the passenger seat of TSM's motor.
And now - extremely reluctantly - she was being required to run around a field after a horse...
I appeared to have been discounted as an irrelevant spectator.
The task? Getting a wary and semi-wild chestnut stallion into a Heras fenced off area. I hesitate to say 'pen' in case I upset Hurricane's ghost. Nevertheless, a rickety space had been erected to contain him... if he didn't get too agitated.
I had befriended Hurricane enough - and been reminded by my Landlord and the farm manager enough - that his hooves needed urgent attention. Although never formally undertaking his care, it appeared the organisation of which, although not the cost was 'down to me'...
The first farrier available to accompany me towards Hurricane’s huge field was filled with such foreboding failure was inevitable. Hurricane skittered away each time we tried approaching him.
The fear-full farrier left and had grave doubts as to whether we'd ever catch him without some kind of sedation. He failed to turn up to have a second try. I was relieved, sedating wasn’t an option.
At a neighbor's suggestion I enlisted the help of TSM to get Hurricane into the contained area, having booked a visit from one of 'the best blacksmiths around'.
Farriers and farmers work to nature's timetable. TSM's always included more than anyone could reasonably fit into a fourteen-hour day. They are content to ignore others' schedules or respond to texts demanding to know 'when' the two o'clock which is already 'four o'clock' will arrive. The new sought-after farrier was equally overbooked and couldn't promise a specific time.
Lining up the two of them together - let alone moving a mad red horse up through a massive field and then keeping him calm? Unlikely.
But TSM and his accomplice appeared utterly unconcerned.
#horse #farriers #blacksmiths