"Hands in the air dirtbag!"

I’m being a real grouch. It’s August, it’s hot and humid.

I should be somewhere else, where lemon groves shade my head and cool breezes blow in off the Mediterranean, making the ice cubes in my long glass clink, softly.

I’m not feeling well. I’ve got problems but I don’t write about other people here, it wouldn’t be fair.

I spent the whole day getting everything wrong and being messed about. Haggling with insurance companies, shopping. Sorting things out – badly. Taking a mess and making it worse.

Hurting, grinding.

I’m all ground out.

So, I took all the ‘old’ carrots from the fridge and tramped off to see my new friends, the punk horses.

I’ve been up there a couple of times to see them now. They are on a ‘waste ground’ which is actually a ‘site of special scientific interest’ and they are working hard to change the plants and the landscape. They’ve made a huge difference in just a couple of years, just by being wild.

This ‘Crew’ doesn’t have an easy time of it. They don’t get brushed down or pampered. There’s no patting, they have thistles in their manes. No horse whisperers here, no vets, they aren’t the kind of horses who have tasted carrots before. They can be rough. When you push, they push back - hard.

This youngster was waking up as I got near, drowsy from a hot sun.

 

 And these two were saying; “Put your hands in the air dirtbag and leave the carrots where we can see ‘em ”.

 

 I feel a bit more human now.

But I shouldn’t have ordered a forty foot container for tomorrow, I’ve no idea what I'm going to do with all those carrots.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)