Dear Reader, Apols! Butt I am laid a little low, with a bug, brought in off the street by a Healthy visitor…

*Clicky, that’s watt everyone says to me… /coughs into fist… ‘Scuse, me for that, Click… /wipes hand on trouser leg…*

*/lights fag… Don’t look at me like that… smoking helps… /small hack… helps to get the shit up and off…*

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First remembrance of a horse… I was five and our class went on a visit to the local Nick… and there were stables, and this horse… It was the biggest, whitest thing I’d ever seen… and a policeman picked me up from the straw-covered floor, and on put me on it’s back… Magnificent horsey stood placidly, with gentle snorts and tail-flicks whilst a wiggling, giggling slip of a girl stroked its velvety neck, and burying her face deep in it’s silky mane… All the other kids played with batons and badges, but I stayed in the stable… And I cried when it was time to leave, to go home…

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“Like Shadowfax?” Kit-Kat said with a cocky grin. We were standing in the Kit Chinwag room of the house (the place of food). He was damp and ruddy-faced from the rain-sodden walk home from school.

I stopped and looked up at Thing 2, who now towers over me “Who?”

He stripped off his school tie from around his neck and looked at me with a faint look of disgust. “Gandalf’s horse? Shadowfax… Oh do come on Mater!”

*If you like, Clicky… though I doubt Gandalf was employed as a Brixton Bobby in 1972…/small cough with side order of squint… What you trying to suggest?*

*Oh course I’m fucking decent? What sort of question is that?!*

*Ah… yeah… I don’t actually want to hang the Righteous fuckers… I just fink they’re a bit… /taps temple… mentally ill-like… ‘cos of their phobia toward smoke… /drags some more… Nuffin’ wrong with letting them accumulate rope, though… We’ve knot had much luck in stopping ’em with that particular pursuit…*

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Other best remembrance of a horse… In Barbados on holiday in the early 90s. Thoughtful Man and I decided to explore the Highlands… on horseback, as you doo, even though neither of us had ridden a horse before… I was on this big chestnut-coloured creature, with a shaggy, blond mane… sitting ram-rod with fear at the sheer power of the muscles quivering beneath my legs… No crash-helmets provided but worn, leather reins to grip… We set off, follow the leader… he seemed to know where he was going… Well it was his turf, so I just let him do his thing… And then, once in sight of the final destination, he opened up and galloped… And I squealed with delight at the rush, and lost my headband, whipped away by the cool but oh so warm air streaming over me…

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“We also went horse-riding in Antigua,” Thoughtful Man reminded me. “But that was shit though because of all the rubbish on the beach.”

“Yeah that wasn’t as good,” I replied, “And then in Arizona, but that was just too hot and cactussy to go any faster.”

Thoughtful Man agreed and turned back to his PC. He was putting Clicky through his paces tending to his Arse-about-Facebook ‘Kingdom’; his favourite game, all neat and full of surprises.

“And don’t forget we owned shares in a horse once,” he said. “That was fun.”

*My first ring-tone, Clicky… I loved that phone, it opened up, like wings, for the qwerty keyboard… /clears throat… I need a sweetie, Clicky… /hold up hand… No, I’ll get ’em… you stay there and… /gets up… Have a Song…*

*/jumps about… Ore that other one, Clicky… Both are good…*