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When I was growing up in Cornwall, one of my summertime holiday jobs was loading and unloading the parcel delivery vans. This was a split shift, from 6am-11am, and then from 4pm-6pm. In the five hours I had spare each day, I would grab a pasty from the petrol station and then go surfing until I had to return to work. The car stank of wet wetsuit all summer. It was awesome. When the surf was flat, I used to visit my friend, Sarah, who lived in a caravan on her parent's farm close to where I worked. She had a few horses and I’d often pop over unannounced and give her a hand doing the more manual horsey type things, like clearing out stables or organising the storeroom. She seemed to appreciate this, and I quite enjoyed it. Every so often, we'd go out together for a short hack around Goonhavern way, her on whichever horse needed exercising that day, and I'd take one of the older, more plodding horses. One day, it was particularly sunny and nice, but no surf was forecast (it had been flat for ages, too) so I went over to see her and we went out. Today I was on Molly, or, as she was known "molly-clops", a horse rapidly approaching retirement. Not only had age taken its toll, due to a particularly nasty disease, she had lost an eye, hence the nickname. I'd taken her before, and was quite looking forward to a relaxed trot to shake off the remnants of a late night out previously. The thing about horses that have lost sight is they really don't like surprises.They prefer to be in known places and so on. I’d been around Molly a fair few times, and it wasn't ever too much of a problem, as all I generally did was watch Sarah do her dressage stuff around the field that had been used to keep sheep in. So we set off, and went down the road, down a track and into the field and trotter up and down a bit having a chat about mutual friends (Sarah was from the girl's private school in Truro. I’d met her through a friend when meeting for cocktails after they finished school one day) and it was lovely. Sarah went on put the horse through its paces (I think she was showing later on, that month) and I ambled about the field on Molly clops, half paying attention to Sarah and the other half on keeping Molly happy, which was easy enough. After about then minutes, I walked Molly past a cattle field ring in the field. Stupidly, the feed ring was on her blind side, and I was too close to it. Far too close. A stick that had become attached to the side of it when it was rolled into position brushed against the horse's flank, and molly really didn't like this at all. This was beyond her usual safety zones. Molly reared up and bolted, for the safety of what she could see to her right, unseating me, and dumping me into the ring, and the quagmire that was in it. Sarah saw Molly running and was able to catch her, and then came looking for me, finding me covered in mud and stagnant water. She found it really funny, after working out I was fine and funnier still when I was stood in the yard in my underpants, her hosing me down and her mother came back. Luckily, I was able to borrow some clothes form her brother's wardrobe and get back to work on time.
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Mr Chris wrote: MaliA isn't just the best thing on the internet - he's the best thing ever.
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