Bonked by a Bullock

Today I thought I would regale you with an amusing tale from a long long time ago. I spent most of my years of growing up at an all girls boarding school. When I did come home for the holidays, I would disappear up to a local farm, where, in exchange for extremely hard work, I was allowed to ride some rather lovely horses. My favourite horse was Goose. She was part thorough bred and part Irish Draught with fine feathers around the fetlocks. She was a grey mare (white for the uninitiated) maybe the original Grey Goose - or perhaps not.

The lady that I worked for was a tough taskmaster and my duties were not confined to the stables, and the farm had an eclectic assortment of other animals. There were a few cows, some geese, ducks and arising from the cows at one time a shed with some young bullocks in it. The bullocks were always a little lively and in their shed they had two areas, one for sleeping which was on deep litter (layered straw that was allowed to accumulate) making the low roof rather low if you were tall, as I am, when you were trying to tie in a fresh hay net filled with the sweet smell of summer. The other area was much larger and allowed the bullocks to move about freely and before anyone gets upset, the bullocks were only kept in during the coldest spells of weather. I used to wash down and sweep the bare floored area first. 'then I would go into their 'bedroom' clearing out the most prolific amounts of poop, before scattering some lovely fresh straw. Then I would refresh the water, and the last job was tying in a freshly filled hay net.

On this particular day, I was just finishing and performing my final task with the bullocks, tying in the hay net. Due to the floor level, I had to stoop slightly and all of a sudden I felt this crushing weight! Slightly stunned I then noticed a hoof over each shoulder. Half a ton of young bullock was doing his best to shag me! Although this is extremely funny, I was actually in quite a dangerous position. I knew if I went down I was in danger of being trampled by a sexually aroused bullock. Fortunately, I was able to heft him off and escape. 

I was pretty shaken but even I exploded with laughter as I was checked over and hoof shaped bruises were found on my shoulders! I wonder - is there anyone else out there with a similar tale? Somehow I doubt it.

Falklands Veteran - My Friend Bill

Yesterday I bumped into my friend Bill. We often cross paths in our favourite coffee haunt sharing a love of decent coffee and talking endlessly about food - a lovely topic for conversation with much to both agree and disagree about. Bill won't mind me describing him as a giant of a man, I am sure, as he stands at about 6'10" which is, I'm sure you will agree, pretty tall. Bill is an ex-service man and yesterday showed me some pictures of him proudly standing guard outside Buckingham Palace wearing a Bearskin. Apparently he was a little over 8 foot tall with the bearskin on! He served mainly with the Scots Guards.

I noticed that he was not quite himself yesterday and being a pretty direct sort of person I ventured,

"Whats up Bill? You seem a little sad today" He replied that it was a bad time of the year for him. I  realised it must be an anniversary of some kind and asked if it was someone special that he was remembering. He hesitated and I apologised and said how tactless I must seem, perhaps we should talk about food again. He replied that no, it was alright, he felt comfortable talking to me. 

He started to talk in a soft Scottish burr, he is a giant but the phrase 'Gentle Giant' could easily have been tailor made for Bill, "Tomorrow (today) is the anniversary of the Sir Galahad and the Sir Tristram being fired upon in Bluff Cove during the Falklands conflict."

His eyes are down and he is making no movement apart from the constant rubbing of his fingers with his thumbs. I feel the need to fill the silence; "Were you on one of the ships?"

"No - I was about 300 metres away and watched in impotent horror"

"That must have been very traumatic for you" I venture.

"You can't imagine it - The noise, then the silence as you are deafened by the noise, the chaos, the smoke, then the noise comes back, the screaming, the horrific screaming of dying men wanting their mothers. Bodies, bits of bodies, the sea on fire, the smell of fuel. the smell of fuel burning, the smell of bodies burning...."

I need to bring him back to the hear and now I realise as his eyes are watery and his hands are shaking.

"Bill. Bill? Its ok" He looks up at me and the shutters to the pain slowly roll back down. He smiles at me and says, "You probably think I'm stupid" he looks down again.

"No Bill, I think you are an incredibly brave man." I put my hand on his for a moment and give him a smile, and for a brief second we both have a view into each others soul. Then we laugh it off and normality is resumed. 

Conversation about food is soon resumed and all is good, but something has has changed. We all need a mask to wear, to hide behind, to keep the demons at bay. Never judge the book by the cover they say and in Bill's case that saying has never been truer. I hope that he doesn't find today to painful alone with his memories, or indeed anyone else who may have been at Bluff Cove on that dreadful day on June 8th 1982. 

Our conversation was far more in depth and covered much more ground than I have written here, but I feel that it would be an invasion of privacy to write any more. We need to look after our servicemen. They risk everything for us, sometimes at the whim of stupid politicians as in more recent times (my opinion). Bill survived the Falklands and no less than five tours of Northern Ireland. I'd say that was something he should be allowed to be proud of.