It is Kevin’s birthday today, and once again he is not in the country. In fact, his ship the Isaac Newton, is lying at anchor in Taichung harbour, Taiwan. He is well overdue for his shore leave because they are still awaiting authorisation to do a crew change. The onboard crew are anxious to disembark, and the new crew are anxious to go on board. I think he had a reasonable day. They apparently baked a cake for him, but during our FB Messenger chat (his phone is broken so we could not do the usual WhatsApp call) I did detect that he was feeling a bit down. Probably not missing us as much as he’s missing Lucy…
While feeding Donkey yesterday, Marlene got a slight start when she thought that he would bite her hand. Not an unjustified fear; horses and donkeys have a very powerful bite. That of course brought back another plot memory.
We had a lovely honey-coloured Basotho Pony called Queenie. The Basotho Pony is famous for being extremely hardy. Its stamina, docility, and good temperament made it ideal for life on the plot with people that were not ‘horse’ people but had kids that wanted horses. Eugene was an exceptionally good bareback rider and one afternoon he really pushed her in a race with his friend. Back home she was brushed and pampered before settling down for the night. Much to our surprise, she presented us with a foul the next morning! None of us realised that she was pregnant when we bought her. The little foul was christened Prins. He was absolutely adorable with his big eyes, long, long blond eyelashes and stiff-legged little struts to try and peek past his mom. Queenie, of course, would not let anyone near her youngster; she would constantly put herself between Prins and who-ever came too close.
After about two weeks Francois managed to gain her confidence and slowly started edging closer to the foul. She kept a watchful eye on him and then, without warning, decided “that is far enough”. So, she bit Francois in the ribs. He kept his composure and slowly backed away to a safe distance before he let out his scream of agony. The bite mark was just a warning, but nevertheless it created a huge bruise, probably 120 mm in circumference. It took a long time to fade, and as long before Francois again, carefully, attempted to make friends with Prins. He grew up to be a lovely young stallion and Eugene broke him in when he was old enough.
We left Eugene and Marlene’s at 11 am to go back to Silver Creek Gorge. There we had coffee and a chat with a whole group of friends. Roger took Buzz out to have a little engine run and blow away the cobwebs, while I did the dishes and prepared to come back home.
All too soon our illicit weekend was over. The trip there and back was uneventful (thankfully!) and we arrived back home in Rosebank at 5:30 pm. I once again realise that we are a social species and not made for isolation. We need contact with others, and especially our family.