horsing around

bonzo, originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

dear readers, today's post concerns the equine member of our family. as regular readers will know, the magnificent bonzo resides with uncle gary. he has a lovely stable with a little round window high in the wall, and a huge field which he shares with some other hosses. a hoss could not be happpier. young dave and i help herself with stable duties. young dave is a dab hand at clearing a pile of manure in double quick time, and i sit and supervise from the comfort of the sawdust.

in the winter, the hosses go out in the field in the day and come into their stables at night. in the summer this arrangement is reversed in order to keep them away from the flies in the heat of the day and to prevent the magnificent bonzo's magnificent pink nose from burning in the sun. when the hosses come in in the morning they are usually very tired and lie down for a kip after breakfast. the reason for this tiredness has not been altogether clear, although mrs rose, who lives by the field, has heard thundering hooves in the night.

a couple of days ago the gardener at the big house called over to herself.

"your hoss has been attacking the trees!"

it appeared that the magnificent bonzo had been seen going at a eucalyptus tree in the field with more than a little energy. he had pounded at the cage that was supposed to protect it from harm with his hooves until it had given up the ghost and had then munched through the tree, leaving it more of a bush. there had been several witnesses, all of them amazed at the ferocity of the attack. herself was rather concerned about the effect of munching eucalyptus. in the antipodes there are little bears who live in trees and eat eucalyptus. they become drugged by its chemicals and fall out of the trees. i suppose we should be grateful that the magnificent bonzo ate the tree before climbing up into its branches - i suspect having a beast of his size fall out of a tree onto you might hurt.

the next day herself noticed that the magnificent pink nose was a little runny, and that one of the eyes was also a little damp. she concluded that it was unlikely to be remorse on the part of bonzo and decided that perhaps he had a little cold and had been attempting to treat himself with herbal remedies from the trees. when she saw the gardener she shared this theory with him.

"perhaps i'll bash him over the head with a tree to help with his headache," said the gardener, only half joking. it appeared that a second tree had falled foul of the magnificent bonzo's charms. this time it was a london plane. a brief search of the interweb brings up the following on plane trees:

"Legend has it that in ancient Athens there was a long avenue of Plane Trees that became a popular meeting place for Greek philosophers. They used to pace the long avenue amidst heated philosophical discussions, and so they appointed the Plane Tree the emblem of ‘genius’. Apparently the Plane tree offers a remedy to heal general ills, simply chew the bark straight off the Plane Tree. For a cold remedy, the bark should be boiled first."

it would appear that the magnificent bonzo is something of a genius. and his cold has completely gone...

car, bra, hoorah!

 

dear readers, in an effort to keep up the newly re-established writing habit, i have persuaded herself to write about today's adventure.   the background requires me to refer to matters pre-dating today.

as i have mentioned before, herself is a little flakey at the moment.   the collie-wobbles do not help with ones confidence.  earlier in the week she was round at her friend kt's house for coffee.  kt has an issue with her paperwork.  herself offered to help tame the paperwork and in return kt is going to provide advice to herself on a number of things, including style.  this came about because herself happened to mention that she could not bear to look in a mirror and that she did not have any full length mirrors in the house.  kt promptly steered her to a mirror which had the effect of making herself cover her face and squeal.   it was obvious that she needed some sort of boost.  an appointment was made for today for the paperwork and style session.

when herself called to make sure things were still on, kt told her that she had no wheels as her car had died.  she was going to try and hire a car for a few days while she bought a new one.  herself offered to drive kt to the car hire place and it was agreed that the outing would incorporate a trip to marks expensive to purchase certain foundation garments.  these are necessary in order to avoid looking like a sack.  those of you with long memories will recall that on a previous occasion herself was taken to marks expensive by her maamship for exactly this purpose.  the garment purchased on that occasion no longer fits and was abandoned by herself some time ago.  

when herself arrived at kt's house she found kt on the phone.  more accurately she was on two phones, as you can see from the picture.  this was something to do with the car hire plan.  herself suggested they just get in the car and drive around until they found a car hire place.  on the way kt updated herself with the full story and explained how she had to buy a car very soon or there might not be any cars for sale anywhere (kt makes herself look patient).  herself took a lofty tone about the whole matter.  only someone who drives an old skoda would dare to get lofty about buying cars.

sure enough, they found a car hire place soon enough.  the only trouble was that it didn't have any cars until tomorrow. kt was reeling from herself's discourse on the merits of patience so she agreed to pick one up in the morning.   they then turned towards marks expensive.

i will not dwell on the whole bra-purchasing saga.  it bore a distinct resemblance to the previous visit, with the added complication of herself's current heebie-jeebies in shops.  there was some amazement when herself came out of the changing room in the bra.

"you look like you have lost half a stone!" said kt.  there is some scientific reason why hoiking up the ladies should make you look thinner but i am not sure what it is.  whatever it is, herself looked less like a sack afterwards.  as they were walking back to the car, herself mused in wonder at the size of her new bra.

"i'm a 38d! that's quite big! no wonder the other one was too tight."

"my dear," said kt, "you're practically a porn star!"

i'm not sure i'd go that far. mind you, it depends how far the re-style goes...