It's only words

Ever since I was a child I have loved the Spring. Maybe it was seeing the first snowdrops or the primroses that my grandmother so tenderly planted in the hedgerows and dingles around the farm. My sister and I would often clamber through the brambles to pick a posy for mother, like a page from a sickly Thomas Hardy novel, which were displayed in pride of place in a silver jug in the hallway to denote the new season.

Then, as I got older and developed a healthy interest in sheep breeding, it was all about lambs: seeing them play and grow, hoping that a year’s planning and hard work had produced the type of beasts I had intended to breed from the blue-print in my mind. I never tire of watching lambs racing around the hedgerows at dusk like competitors in a cross-country rally.

But, to me, Springtime is mainly all about mornings. The perilous early frosts of late-winter giving way to eerie misty dawns, until the orange glow of the sun yawns its way through in a bid to give warmth to the new growth stirring under ground.

In this part of France, things happen a month or so earlier than they do in UK and today, being near the end of March, is unveiling one of those exquisite scenes. It’s just before 6.

Outside, a lone bird awakes a while after I have, and calls out its tuneful song to us insomniacs who have already arisen.

For once, instead of frantically pouring out words from a night full of creative dreams into my current novel, I take the time to listen. Although to human ears the song sounds like a random selection of notes thrown together in no particular order – in my mind, not unlike modern jazz – I am sure to the its perpetrator, it is perfectly coherent prose: a wordsmith busy at its job. We are similar, bird and I. A few times I have heard him, or indeed her, singing away and am pretty sure it is the same creature each time. I have named him Chaucer.

Up the road, my neighbours cock crows. I can’t say I like cockerels – or my neighbour as it happens – they appear to me to be belligerent creatures, too ready to give out orders like a sergeant major, summoning the troops and teasing the sleeping. “It’s morning,” he cries. “I know it’s morning, you know it’s morning, so get your lazy backside out of that bed!”

As the light settles into its new day, in our field two lambs are calling through the fence. “Come on, Mister!” they shout, “feeding time already.” These two had the misfortune to be disowned by their mother and have been reliant on Wendy and I to provide them with bottled milk, 4 times per day, since the day they were born. At 4 weeks old now, the pair of them have become bold and a tad greedy, bunting the bottle with the impatience of youth, often dislodging the rubber teat with catastrophic consequence.  What might sound to many like an idyllic and romantic task has of late turned the chore into an awkward human struggle, especially in a dressing-gown and wellington boots.

Before I get around to giving in to their demands, the cat throws his two-penneth into the fray, yowling for reasons only he can justify. I am none too fond of felines either, particularly this one, whose disapproving tones are unequivocal. I guess he wants food as well.

Then the dogs pipe up, awoken by the cat and optimistically awaiting their breakfast, calling out in dog-speak that is none too hard to translate. It’s 6.45am as I trudge to the kitchen, their distractions pulling on the handbrake of my creative writing for the day.

Words! Every creature has them at their disposal. Only a foolish author would write them down.

Today, once I have replenished all these beasts, I have a thankful task on my own agenda. This foolish author is off to meet a fan. I don’t get much fan-mail, I guess that shows! Ironically, this is a lady who won one of my books in a raffle and enjoyed it so much she took the time to write and tell me. After a few conversations, she has today invited us for dinner, albeit that I have offered to help her castrate her goat kids in the bargain.

Words. Funny things, really.

   

Engelbert is back

    I spend so much time rambling on about the weather  that I sometimes think I should be publishing this monthly column in the Gardeners’ Gazette. Well not so much the weather this month, as nature in general, which has just performed the most spiteful deed I think I have ever witnessed. You may recall how I have mentioned that all our plants are so far forward this year. In January, just about everything had been led to believe it was May already, after months and months of dry warm weather through what should have been the winter. It was like watching a child being lured with sweeties, as buds and then flowers started appearing on roses, jasmine and even lilies. And then, like Noah and the great flood, we get the coldest weather for 50 years. Not just one night either, but three weeks with constant days and nights of first snow and then temperatures down as low as -17. As with Noah and his safety-ARC, we at least had a log-burner to keep us warm as long as we could find enough firewood to put on it but, unlike the great flood, no pairs of plants were romantically saved from the tempest, 2-by2. It is still difficult to establish the total extent of the damage but I know we have lost entire climbing rose bushes, wisteria, a whole section of climbing jasmine (which it had taken me 4 years to train around our terrace) and 2 massive oleander trees as well as dozens of younger ones which I had lovingly grown from seed. It wouldn’t be so bad if mother nature had then offered a little Spring weather as a compensation, but instead, as I write, we are now back into a new summer, where the ground is still as dry as it was last autumn and the grass refuses to green-up in case Jack Frost might still be hiding round the corner ready to pounce again. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, at least I have my shorts back on again, but it will take a few years to re-establish much of our garden.

    A couple of years ago the French government introduced a ridiculous ruling that every car must carry at least one high-visibility vest for each person within the car at all times. Being caught without one, or even if yours was in the boot instead of inside the vehicle with you, incurred the death-penalty or a 3 week jail stint while being forced to listen to Johnny Hallyday records. Well, this year, yet another equally stupid law is coming into play in August; that of carrying a breathalyser test in every vehicle. What on earth is that about? Have you been drinking? Yes. Well don’t drive. If you do insist on driving while drunk, will carrying a breathalyser with you deter you? No. And anyway, these things are one-use only. So when you climb into your car after one half-shandy and are unsure whether you are fit to drive, blowing into the kit might give you the green-light, but you would then no longer be carrying a working kit on your journey, for which you will incur a penalty twice that of the drink-driving charge. Surely, it is the job of the police to carry such kits, so why should we be expected to do their job for them? Whatever next? Should we carry full medical kits in case we have a road accident to save the ambulance a trip? Or maybe have snow ploughs fitted to all cars because, as we found out last month, this country doesn’t have any.

    Living in an out-post such as this, we tend to rely on the internet for pretty much everything: from shopping to marketing and social activities to social services. Registering on multiple websites is itself quite tedious and I have to admit, like many others, I tend to stick to one password for all except the most security conscious ones. What really annoys me though, is that irritating little box you have to complete at the end of every registration known as a ‘captcha! For the uninitiated, this is picture of some jumbled up letters and numbers that you have to decipher and then type into the box, in the name of spam security. (If you think spam security is something to do with those little keys fastened to the top of tinned meat, then ignore this paragraph!) The reason that CAPTCHA’s annoy me it that I can never actually read what the damn things say, possibly because it is usually in French and, more recently, Arabic. You see, the internet has now got so clever that it knows exactly where you are. Not just the country either, but the village and house number. As I write, someone out there is going, ‘aha, this person is based in South West France’ and, having mentioned tinned meats a few lines earlier, they will be emailing me about buying some Foie Gras by the end of the afternoon! So when these stupid little pictures present themselves, in French, they expect me to have a French keyboard in order to include the accents and circumflex (eg: café dans la forêt) that are required in this complex language, and I don’t. Thus I am unable to register with many of them without having to go through a proxy-server (it’s complicated) to pretend that I am in UK. Basically, nearly 30 years on from 1984, despite all the denial, Big Brother not only watching us but ensuring that if we are in Rome, we damn well do as the Romans do.

    French news this coming month will be dominated by the forthcoming Presidential elections. Already, Nicolas Zarkozy, our current and flamboyant Premier has had to protect himself from angry voters by hiding in a bar, something that French leaders have possibly done for centuries. But, although much of the French electorate have had enough of his radical policies and tough stance on immigration and are swinging dramatically back towards socialism, there is still substantial support from those who want him back in for another term, just to see what floozy he will have an affair with this time. Ostensibly the French prefer to trust a man who does that sort of thing, which is considered perfectly acceptable behaviour amongst the middle classes, over someone who shares his surname with a neighbouring country. Word on the street is that our Nico will leak the news of an extra-marital affair any day now to help his ailing campaign!

    On the subject of elections, recent news has come to light about the overwhelming re-election of Russia’s president Vladimir (put-the-boot-in) Putin. Allegedly, in many polling stations Mr Putin’s name was on both side of the voting paper making him a sort of Hobson’s choice. The new Premier denies the allegations of course, stating that people were perfectly entitled to vote for the opposition candidate, known simply as AK47, who was more than willing to discuss policies with them at a prearranged time in the Moscovian forests after the hours of darkness.

    Finally, we have to question the validity of that institution that is the Eurovision Song Contest. For England, having won the competition with classics such as Boom-bang-a-bang by the screeching Lulu in 1969 and the unbelievably awful Save all your Kisses from Brotherhood of Man a few years later, it appears that our selection committee have decided to once again delve back to those halcyon days and wheel out Engelbert Humperdink for the job. At the tender age of 104, Bertie will be singing some modern numbers such as Greensleeves, My Old Man’s a Dustman and Roll Out the Barrel in order to woo some of the younger judges. However, he need not bother because Azerbaijan is to be the host nation this year so there will be only one judge, democratically selected by the Russian government.

What do you expect, for 99 cents?

Remember those days, not too long ago when you used to pick up a book in a bookstore? You would admire the front cover, read the back cover and possibly the forward? Then, if you were unfamiliar with the author’s work, perhaps have a quick glance at a few pages of writing inside, check out the font size (if you are over 50, this is highly important!) and decide whether to buy it or not.

Is it me, or, in those heady old days, were all books roughly the same size? Yes, there were some that were really fat, the sort of thing you would take on holiday. And the odd one, that was quite specialised, was a bit thinner than the rest. If someone had padded a book out by using large font and pictures, you could get an idea of it pretty much straight away.

    But now times are changed. To start with, things changed when we all started buying books on Amazon because they were cheaper. But still we might drop into a store, and give a solid copy the once over. At the very least, Amazon told us what size it was and, even if they didn’t, we trusted them.

Then along came ebooks. At first this wasn’t an issue because most, if not all, ebooks were just electronic copies of a paper book.

    Then, as we know, things changed. Along came the indie writer - self publishing, self editing and self marketing their own work. Amazon embraced them; why wouldn’t they? As the readership changed, the need for hard-copies in order to sell large volumes disappeared overnight and with it went our rights as a reader.

    Realistically, Amazon’s product reviews should continue to maintain the quality of the work on sale but – unless the book has sold thousands and thousands – that doesn’t really work. A book, with 4 good reviews could be great or rubbish, depending on who wrote the reviews - which could be, heaven forbid, the author themselves. All this we know, now.

     What they didn’t for-see was that by offering books at only 99 cents, readers would –and perhaps should - be prepared to accept less. Not just less in quality, but less in volume. As far as I can establish, that has to be the only reason that they have now removed the WORD-COUNT from the product description.

So my question to you is: How long should an ebook novel be? 

   Traditional publishers will advise that a novel is 80-100,000 words long. That is what it always used to be. But is an ebook that long? For 99 cents?

    I recently studied the case of John Locke, the first self-published author to sell 1 million books on kindle. Out of curiosity, I checked out a couple of his books, but they weren’t for me. As an exercise, I checked to see how many words they were – he now has a dozen or so on sale a claims to publish a new one every 8 weeks – but I couldn’t find the answer anywhere. Amazon weren’t going to tell me, were they? Eventually, I did find out, that they are 35-50,000 words only. And every one, sold at 99 cents, has made it into the Amazon top 10 sellers list.

    So we now establish that an ebook is acceptable at 40,000 words, half that of a paper novel. Next, I checked out a few other titles in the top 100, to find some are even less. Wool by Hugh Howley is only 12,000. He tells us it is a novelette: ‘Science fiction has a long history of celebrating the short form’ – his own words. At least he tells us.

    So, are we, the reader, being sold short? Or are out expectations just too high for what value we can expect for the meagre sum of 99 cents?

Fish-finger sandwiches

      Rain arrived at last in France to coincide with lambs, which is never a good combination. We only have a handful of them, but one pathetic little creature has not only managed to find her way into the sitting room by the fire, but into the hearts of a few followers via social networking. Under the name of Daisy Death-wish, this tiny lamb with all but zero chance of survival now has her own Facebook page and daily blog. What is the world coming to, when sheep take to the airways!? Please look her up online, if you get a moment!

      Earlier this month we took a tour of the UK to catch up with a few friends and family, combined with a bit of business. Firstly I found myself in Reading, which I have to say, is not very nice. After dining out in a local café on fish-finger sandwiches – which were surprisingly OK actually – we were checked in to a swish hotel that claims to have once been a railway station. All I can say is that the bed was so hard I would rather have slept in the railway station itself! At 3am I am stumbling around the sterile hotel room with backache and my neck permanently cocked at 45 degrees like a bent downspout, considering joining the numerous homeless in the street outside whose cardboard looks infinitely more comfortable. At dawn I sit at a desk in Reading, reading, and considering what a strange language English is. Note to self, never visit Reading again.  

      After a trip into London and then to Rock to visit family, we took a cheap flight to Edinburgh for the weekend, en-route encountering the most officious airport official I have yet to meet. Why do airport staff have to be so nasty? Perhaps I should compile a list of these dreadful people who go out of their way to make life of the traveller as uncomfortable as possible, and publish it annually. I could call it the Gestapo awards? Or perhaps the person-I-would-most-like-to-get-knocked-down-by-a-bus awards? He was definitely this month’s winner and it took incredible self control not to knock him into the middle of next week when he put his hand inside my trousers for the third time in the name of airline safety!

      Anyway, a few cold days in Edinburgh were quite a welcome change from the routine of constant animal husbandry back home, with the weekend centred around what has often been one of the best sporting events in the annual calendar; that of the Calcutta Cup, Scotland’s rugby-field battle with their auld foe, the Sassenach English. Sadly, this year’s encounter was a dismally disappointing affair as the home team, despite being hot favourites, took an uncharacteristic path towards self-destruction in the second half and the Red Rose went home with a hollow and cold victory. Needless to say, my white shirted celebrations were kept fairly low key; a wounded Scot can be an unpredictable and often dangerous beast. I should know, I live with one!

       Nevertheless, we had a good time touring a few pubs and restaurants and generally revelling. However, I am getting increasingly irritated by chic inner-city gastro establishments and their use of pretentious jargon to pad out restaurant menus. Is it absolutely necessary to inform me of the life history of every ingredient? Slow roasted hand-picked Northern Spanish tomatoes blended with a hint of the finest sauce from deepest Worcestershire. Yes, it’s tomato soup; the rest is b*llsh*t! Fresh cod hand-caught in the North Sea on a windy day by a bloke called Brian, subtly coated with crispy batter made from Old Cripplecock’s finest ale and cornflour hand ground from wheat organically grown on a tiny farm is west Lincolnshire, served with hand-picked hand-washed hand-sliced hand-cooked King Leopald potatoes grown on a Bavarian-style allotment by a pigmy gardener in the Virgin Islands. I don’t care. From now on I am adopting a policy of only eating meals that are described in ten words or less. ‘Damn nice fish with good honest chips, salt extra!’ Now that’s what I would buy.

      While on the subject of Bull, the next few days saw me exchange the city streets of Edinburgh for the cold concrete of Stirling’s new auction mart, while I helped a pal out who was exhibiting cattle at the national bull sales. Regular readers of this publication will heed that its usual bovine contributors are Tony Neath, with his well researched monthly history of cattle in general, as well as Clive at Westwood Farm, proprietor of one of the oldest and best pedigree herds of Hereford cattle in the British Isles. Both may occasionally wax lyrical that the older British breeds, from generations past, are now all but lost, as they make way for the greed of the Continental ones, with their faster growth and commercial appeal. Each of them will no doubt rue that day.

      Well, I am glad to announce that not only have space-hoppers and Bulgarian wine come back into fashion, but at least one cattle breed from the past has just made a dramatic return to prominence, witnessed by my own eyes. For a couple of days I had six Beef Shorthorn bulls under my charge, a breed from yesteryear that has spent at least a couple of decades on the endangered rare-breed list. I have to say what delightful creatures they were too. Kind natured and full of natural flesh, the size and structure of this breed has been greatly improved over the past five years and it is now back in hot demand. A packed ringside of buyers squabbled over each other to get their bids in and the six beasts sold to average a whopping £6000 each, at least treble what they were worth half a decade ago. Isn’t it odd how everything goes around in cycles? There must be a moral in this somewhere? Whatever will be making a revival next? Common sense perhaps? Or even, (heaven forbid) common courtesy.

       During our absence, we received a few messages to say that the bad weather in Eastern Europe had now reached our home in France, depositing 6 inches of snow around the place and then freezing over. Not being used to having this stuff around, the locals were unable to cope as roads and airports were blocked due to lack of snow clearing equipment. Friends reported that they were unable to get out of their homes and if it continued for much longer they would be forced to start eating each other. Our few sheep, including the aforementioned Daisy, would have been stranded were it not for a gallant neighbour who braved the journey with emergency rations for them in his 4x4 for a few days. I thank him most gratefully, as do many of Daisy’s internet fan-club. We returned home a few days ago to find the mains water frozen up somewhere underground and have no idea when it will thaw. As I write, it is -16 outside and we are making soup from bottled water while burning the remains of our furniture on the log burner in an attempt to stay alive.

Isn’t it strange how only last month I reported that we had roses flowering, buds on the shrubs and mosquitoes. As always, that old mantra prevails: Be careful what you wish for.

Another year

It’s a year ago, today, since I had a phone call to tell me that my sister was so poorly that she might not survive. She had an un-expected brain haemorrhage that was so severe that, at the very least, she wouldn’t ever be Sarah again or, at the worst, she would join her husband, Dave, who died the year before, by the morning. I have to say, it changed my life. At the time, I did whatever I could to help her, as well as our family and her friends. Fortunately, for me, I was in touch with a social network and, for all the right reasons, I aired my grief and inner feelings on the world wide web. In my haste, I wrote blogs about how f*cked-up I felt, and what I would give to get Sarah back in one piece. Despite not being religious, I still asked God if he could help out. I even offered my life in exchange for hers, a promise I was prepared to keep. The response from others, both friends and strangers, was phenomenal, and an incredible tribute to human nature.

A few months ago, Sarah came here to France and, despite a few minor issues, she was back in the real world, and could genuinely be classed as normal, sane and rational. Yes, her illness did take a huge toll, but, mainly due to her strength and tenacity, she pulled through remarkably well. I have to thank God and the NHS for that.

Coming from a farming background, our few sheep here at Chauffour are a hobby to me that indulge my love of livestock. I am not sure that I ever want to get my hands dirty trying to earn a living as a farmer again, but nevertheless I have never quite lost that desire to bring life to the world, under my own design, via pedigree cattle and sheep. It is a small but enjoyable task, and one that I gain pleasure out of introducing to Wendy who, bar raising a kitten or too, has not previously been exposed to.

Fate inevitably brings its upsy and downs and, 2 weeks ago, we were confronted with a hopeless case of a poorly lamb that should never have made it out of the blocks. Stupidly I gave it a presence on Facebook, in an attempt to highlight how the interference of nature can incur problems that we have to take responsibly for. We called her Daisy-death-wish and I never anticipated her survival. Next thing I knew, she gained a following, with well-wishers and shepherds alike giving her hope and encouragement. I am happy to report that she did better than expected, and have to wonder whether all this communal hope gave her a better prospect.

Does this seem familiar?

This morning, completely unexpectedly, the brother of said lowly lamb contracted an illness of a terminal nature. Somewhere along the line, I have to take full responsibility for this and, try though I might, I was unable to rectify the situation. It was a tragically sad moment when Wendy, whose faith and trust I had gained with my shepherding prowess, had to witness a recently healthy animal loose its life in her arms without biological explanation. Her grief was hard to console.

Only now, a few hours later, when I note the date, do I refer to my written prayer of a year ago. A life for a life! It was just a sheep. We called him Derek and enjoyed his short life, bouncing about on the drive. A coincidence, surely?

I hate to ask, but does that make it quits now?

Melons for sale

    As we cross the threshold into the year of the Dragon, I find myself wondering what good luck and fortune this Chinese icon will donate to us from its Far Eastern standpoint this year. Last year, the Chinese drove up the price of quality wine in this region by about 50% in their quest to homogenise their Eastern culture with Western consumables which was, if you are wine producer in France anyway, very kind of them. But, it seems, this year the Dragon is on the downturn as well, depending on whose reports you study, and that they (China) are about endure the backlash of a world recession, thus creating, yes you’ve guessed it, another world recession! Confused? Yes me too. Before I became a French peasant, I used to be an analyst until, somewhere along the way, I ran out of things that I actually understood. I think basically what they are telling us here, is that the tail which, until recently, was inadvertently wagging the dog is about to stop wagging itself, causing the dog to curl-up by the fire, and wait for its dinner from an empty cupboard until the year of the dog comes around again. In other words, once again, the spin doctors who control the world media are feeding the public another slice of B/S. Should we panic? Do we care? The real question is, not what will happen, but should we believe what they say will happen? There is a saying in France that goes: Ou est le papier? Which loosely translates as: ‘Today’s news, tomorrow’s toilet-paper!’ Isn’t it time we stopped listening to all this gloomy world forecasts and got on with our lives. Spring-roll anyone?

    Inside our own house, this year has become more like the year of the cat, although I am at pains to point out that the Chinese do not, in fact, have a year of the cat, possibly because they have eaten them all. I may have mentioned this particular cat before, his name is Spike. Although Spike may only possess the body of a half-grown kitten, he has claws of steel and the mind of a criminal genius. Never before has a domestic animal etched back the boundaries of the animal kingdom with such cunning. To start with, despite my best efforts with loft insulation, the wily creature manages to find new tunnels to get into the house, all of which somehow end up in the back of the kitchen cupboard. Every morning is like a new episode of Escape from Colditz, only in reverse, as I am greeted by the smiling cat when I open the cupboard to reach for the tea caddy. One of these days I expect to find a mountain of soil and fibreglass outside somewhere that he has sneaked out through the tiny gap concealed in his trouser pockets. The dogs are none too keen on his omnipresence either, especially Louis whose ever-wagging tail is a constant source of entertainment for a kitten of such advanced stealth and intellect. Outside the patio window we have quite a large bird-table which, during the winter months, Wendy keeps plied with nuts and birdseed. On top of this 2 metre high platform sits a pretty little bird-house, complete with perches, tiled roof and asymmetric windows. Inside that, however, silently sits a small kitten with its mouth open, for 3 hours every afternoon. The poor little birds are traumatised, when they drop in for a quick snack, only to be plucked out of the air and made a snack of themselves. You have to hand it to him: why go out and catch small birds to eat when they can come to you. I am only glad he is not human, or he would be Hannibal Lecter, or at the very least, Garry Glitter.

    My favourite time of year has arrived at Chauffour, that of lambing. Seeing young lambs prancing around in the evening dusk like fawns in a mystic forest, never fails to raise a smile for me. We had a couple of early ones this year, born just before Christmas and, against all advice, one of them has been given a name, Eve. It is doubtful that we will ever be able to eat that one now. However, one slightly larger problem still remains, that of the ram which lives here as a squatter, who still insists on attacking people. I have ended up being his most recent victim, when he hit my knee at full gusto a few weeks ago, confining me to a seat by the fire for 3 days. I am not really sure what his problem is? Perhaps, like our troubled gypsy neighbour who is his rightful owner, he just doesn’t like the English. Despite my asking this awful man, he still hasn’t got around to collecting the damn thing, which has now been in our field for nigh on a year, living free of charge. In the interest of our own safety, I feel the time has come to exercise my rural rites, and shoot the blooming thing. Only, I don’t have a gun, nor a licence for a gun, nor a licence for that particular sheep, nor a licence for a digger to bury the stupid thing with. All in all, the law is not on my side to overcome this problem, unless I turn vigilante and call in a couple of local gunslingers. Maybe I should set the kitten on the case, he seems to have the answer to most things?

    It is great to see that the French are once again in the world news, this time on the wrong end of a scandal about breast implants, known locally as tittygate. It seems that some surgically enhanced ladies have been prone to bursting in public, prospectively in some of Paris’s well known fashion boutiques. One eye witness was quoted saying: “Ooh-la-la, I ‘eard a loud bang, and zen my wife took off like a torpedo, shattering a chandelier before coming to rest in a stack of fruit’n’veg. Eet was terrrrrible. We ‘ad to buy two melons to take ‘ome!”

    Talking of fruit’n’veg; after last months revelation that we now have wheelie bins at our disposal (no pun intended), a rather handy Vente de Ferme, or better known in English as a farm-shop, has now opened down the road. My word, whatever will the French think of next? They will soon be having sliced bread, flushing toilets and round tea-bags!

    Although we didn’t make it back to Rock this Xmas, we did get furnished with a copy of the 2012 Rock X Buns calendar, which we purchased in aid of the Midlands Air Ambulance charity. Congratulations to all those ladies who took part in this exposition. I have to say that January looks good, although please excuse me if my amnesia causes me to forget to turn over the subsequent months!

    Finally, on the subject of Rock, I would like to wish my father, John Frazier, a slightly belated Happy 87^th Birthday. He is surely an excellent testament to the fine medicinal qualities of a good malt whisky.

Confessions of a travelling stockman

Introduction to a book I may just write sometime next year   

“Wake up, ya wee runty English bastard!”
Sharp and excessive pain swirls around my already aching ribcage.

       “Urrgghh! Wh’t time is it?”

      “It’s gone nine thirty. Judging started half an hour ago!”

      Diving out of my makeshift bed of a tangled sleeping bag on top of sweating straw, my head pounds like a smithy’s anvil as I grab for my clothes and hop continuously on one leg whilst trying to coordinate a bare foot into the correct channel of a mouldy pair of jeans. An inevitable fall backwards into the dusty straw doesn’t deter my frantic determination to get dressed and run in the same instant. As though hurrying through a knee-deep swamp of leak and potato soup, I head towards the alleyway where a group of well respected, well dressed and well orchestrated men smugly groom their shiny animals with intricate attention to detail. Mine is where I left it, lying in night’s worth of filthy mire, its hair matted with sweat, still adorned with brown hessian halter, dark green patches on its one side.  Struggling to produce a needle-sharp comb from my pocket, I drag at the tufts of dark hair whist pulling on a once-white shabby smock that looks as though two tramps have worn it in an Olympic mud fight. Whilst the line of impeccable animals disappear into the distance, my hands shimmer with pain as I drag my bloated beast to its feet by the razor sharp rope, pulling it into the direction of the show ring like a fisherman dragging a net-full of flapping mackerel onto a trawler. Somewhere in the distance, someone, perhaps everyone, makes a disgruntled tutting sound, the same one my PE teacher used to make when I failed to complete that handstand on the gym-horse many years before. Yet, somewhere in the depths of my battle scarred mind, I still believe I can win.

     Does anyone else ever have a recurring nightmare such as this? Do you awake in freezing sweat at 3am, tugging the duvet from the bed and yelling: “Come-on, you lazy bitch”? If you do, the chances you are not married? Not for long anyway. If you do, it is very probable that, at some stage in your life, you have earned your living as a livestock showman.