bored of excitement – the griefjunkie blog 

Dear Rachel,

I was talking to a bloke on Nelson Road the other day, who was at odds with his horse because, remarkably, he felt it was sarcastic. I was fairly taken aback, as you may expect, and took him up on his offer of a closer look. The horse – Barry – did have a slightly quizzical air about him, I suppose, but so would you if you were a large equine quadroped with a market trader of murky repute looking at you and saying ‘Yeah he probably just wants some crisps’.

I am, however, in an excellent position to judge the mood of horses and other mammals as I like to talk to them and do their replies back, mainly for the entertainment of small children, but also if I have nothing else to do of an afternoon. Because of this, there is a large part of my mind that is entirely at ease with the idea of horses having bank accounts, schools, library cards and putting on hats and false moustaches in order to buy Pringles and Kit Kats from local retailers, and while my conversations with them over the years have revealed them to be kind hearted, wise if somewhat ninnyish, and fond of practical jokes, I can’t really imagine one saying ‘Oh yummy – Greenwich again! Fanfuckingtastic! You really have made my happiness perfect, complete, and infifuckingnite’ or whatever. On that basis, I clear Barry of all charges of sarcasm.

Also, I am the citiest of city dwellers, and while the countryside and I bear each other no ill will, we long ago agreed to basically shake hands manfully and say no more about it. Therefore, on my occasional frolics among the fields and birdsong I am always surprised by how big animals such as horses really are. I thought they were about the same height as a domestic fridge freezer, but actually I can now reveal that they are fucking huge. I’m used to seeing police horses and such, but I don’t really take it in, mainly because – as we have established – I am too busy talking about, I dunno, them being glad of the overtime because their wife has her sister over and they just sit there nattering through Match Of The Day or whatever.

Other countryside animals that are bigger than I anticipated include cows, which I thought were the size of a wardrobe placed horizontally, and pigs, which I imagined would fit in a large kitchen cupboard. This poor sense of mammalian scale would I’m sure have proved a hindrence if I’d wanted to be, for example, a vetinary scientist when I was a child. Happily, I wanted to be a football hooligan, so it never really troubled me.

Twitter.

Reluctant Facebook Group.