Harrumph

It's not exactly 'harrumph, but it's a noise something like that, the noise horses make when they blow down through their noses. It's endearing. I was harrumphed at yesterday when, with the help of my friend Julia, I visited a stables. The purpose was a research trip, and will be followed by a few more. Yesterday I was just asking a lot of questions, making notes, and being harrumphed at by a big black beastie with a carrot fixation, but one of these days I'll find out if I can still sit on a horse without falling off.

While we're harrumphing, put crafty ponies into a search engine. Sew your own pony. Brilliant!

Julia is a woman who gets results. The vicar had asked her if she knew anyone with a donkey, because wouldn't it be great to have a real donkey for the Palm Sunday procession? By the time we left the stables, Julia had a good lead. This was something like 'there's a woman called ........... ........... who lives down there somewhere and has a donkey, you'll see it in the field'. Picture us bucketing over the moors in Julia's car, looking for a donkey in a field while I tried and failed to contact the vicar on my mobile phone.

Reader, we had a sighting. We knocked on two wrong doors before we got the right one, and met a delightful woman who lives surrounded by animals and was more than happy to bring her donkey to church. The donkey is a seasoned processioner, and was already visiting two other local parishes that day, but there was nice time to fit us in between them. Donkey can have a nice rest and a feed when the children have stopped feeding him apples, carrots, and probably a few Polo mints. He's such a pro he probably knows all the hymns by heart. He dosen't harrumph, but he may hee-haw.

By the way, I haven't mentioned anything about The Archers for a while, but it's not nearly so exciting as donkey hunting. There are protestors demonstrating against Brian's proposed indoor dairy unit. Jim, by a huge effort, has given up making scathing remarks for Lent and is trying to offer a compliment every day. Shula bought the late Nigel's horse. (Harrumph.) And Tony Archer had a heart attack. It hasn't been much fun since Nigel fell off the roof.