Wild horses

A lot of people already know this story. In fact it's almost legendary. Or legendarily embarrassing, which is why I'm going to share it with you all.

Any respect you had for me is highly likely to disappear after hearing this.  At best you'll feel sorry for me. At worst you'll unfollow me/delete me.

I'm going to explain where we live at first. It'll probably help you understand the logistics of my woeful tale.

Our house is right at the top of a 'lane' which is essentially a really long cul de sac.  You can only get out of the top of the street on foot, through a gate onto a huge field.  This field is part of a walk called 'the black path'  If you keep walking (as most dog walkers in the area do) along the black path you come to a gypsy camp.  Its a well established camp, and has been there for decades.  It's so well established that it featured on 'big fat gypsy wedding'.  Remember this camp, and the fact it's near to where we walk the dog, its an important feature of this story.

Half way around the black path there's a field with long grass. We inventively call it 'the long grass field'  The dog loves it. She goes wild, bouncing and rolling in the long grass. Anyway for a while there had been 3 or 4 horses grazing in the field.  They were big horses, with those leg warmer, legs (yes I am a horse expert) and my husband had explained they were shire horses, or something similar.  Anyway they were lovely big horses and I'd been taking an interest in them for a while.

Having spoken to other dog walkers (as you do)

THINGS DOG WALKERS SAY TO EACH OTHER

• Lovely Day
• Looks like rain
• No sign of rain
• This is set in (raining)
• Its just a cloud burst (raining)
• Its a bit blowy (windy)
• There's snow in that sky
• Mind the black ice

.......Yes we truly are an interesting bunch....

Anyway, so having spoken to other dog walkers it would seem the horses on the long grass field were from the gypsy camp.

This is where my story really starts.

I'll set the scene.  It was nice summer evening, around 7 o'clock and we had just about reached the long grass field.  We're strolling at this point, the evening sort of demands strolling (oooh I went all 'waltons mountain then) I might be wrong but I think me and Phil might even have been holding hands.  The dog was running and rolling, Syd was kicking his football (Joe was probably at home on his laptop trying to chat up a 19 year old girl) but it was a lovely summer evening.

As we walked onto the field I noticed the horses were galloping towards a man.  He had with him a couple of buckets and he was throwing food to the horses.  I shouted Syd to come and have a look, and the three of us stood on the bridge over the pond and watched the man feed the horses. 

I was pointing at them when Syd started to chase Mica, so I shouted him back. 'Syd' I shouted, in my delicate voice, 'come and watch the horses'.....he came back but I must have caught the mans attention.

He started to walk towards us (in hindsight he may have just been walking towards the path that lead to the camp).

'Hello' I heard him say

'HELLO' I shouted back, 'YOUR HORSES ARE LOVELY'

'How are you doing' he said,

'WE'RE FINE THANKS'  I shouted again 'AREN'T YOUR HORSES LOVELY'

No reply. I presumed he hadn't heard me so I decided to shout louder,

'YOUR HORSES ARE LOVELY......LOVELY'

'Ok', he said

Encouraged I continued with the shouting,

'WHAT KIND OF HORSES ARE THEY'

'I know' he said

'YOU KNOW WHAT' I shouted, 'YOU KNOW WHAT KIND OF HORSES THEY ARE'

The horse man was quite close to us now, so I was about to shout to him again. When Phil grabbed my hand. He was still standing beside me, and without turning to look at me, said something, which to this day still fills me with shame.

'You do realise he's on the phone'

Then, like someone, who wasn't very well 'mentally' he put his arm around my shoulder and lead my away from the field.

No one spoke on the walk home.

Needless to say I've never been back to that field again. The shame would kill me.