A load of bull

The bull in a field near my house lives like a sultan, surrounded by his many wives and children. He is immense: his enormous, disproportionate neck dwarfs his not inconsiderable back end, where the business side of things dangles dangerously between his legs. He has a chestnut coat stippled with star-shaped dapples and nostrils pierced by a huge brass-coloured ring. Despite the trappings of his position, I believe he is a benevolent despot; the atmosphere in his kingdom is invariably relaxed.

Last year, some of the girls fed him handfuls of grass over the gate. Surrounded by curious calves, he took the offerings and chewed with a look of contemplation. Later, he chivvied his children along, curling his lip like a horse when they stopped to pee. I think he is probably a good and patient father.

In the winter, he lives in a big hemmel with another similar coloured bull. I see them from the road when the Grey Mare and I pass their farm. He and his companion chew contentedly, whiling away the hours like a couple of old blokes sitting on a park bench.

I think bulls, have on the whole, an undeserved reputation. But I can’t help feeling ever so slightly wary. My reaction is coloured by being chased by one when I was very small, and from a passage in my favourite pony book, Ruby Ferguson’s Rosettes for Jill. Our heroine and her pony Rapide find themselves in a field with an angry bull; the only way out is to jump a giant hedge. A bull, Jill informs her readers, may ignore someone on foot but will generally chase a horse. I have once ridden through a field containing a bull. He didn’t bat an eyelid.

The chestnut chap’s disposition is similar. When I climbed the gate to cut across his field the other night, his children scattered; slowly, he raised his huge head and observed the stranger in his midst, before returning to the more important task of grazing. Still, I remained close to the fence. Just in case.

Something old

I am spying signs for summers fayres and fetes everywhere at the moment. They spell homemade cakes, fudge and jam – and jumble. I love jumble: rooting through other people’s cast-offs is great fun. I am not proud when it comes to second hand items. Perhaps I should say pre-owned, pre-loved or even vintage, because somewhere along the way, the act of buying someone else’s clobber received an image makeover and new price tags to match.

As teenagers, a friend and I would buy men’s jackets, jumpers, shirts and waistcoats from the second hand shop in the village. I was enthralled by the slightly musty smell, the knowledge I was wearing something that had a history and the fact it was different to the identikit clothes in the mainstream shops. I was also pleased with the prices: babysitting money didn’t go far when you had a pony to keep as well.

When I went to university, second hand student chic was everywhere. In those days, the word vintage wasn’t yet being bandied about and you could still buy 1950s and 60s clothing for affordable prices. There were clothes stalls every week at the students’ union and little niche shops in town selling old Levi’s 501s, waistcoats, suede jackets and other wonderful stuff. I bought a loud printed 50s skirt with a starched underskirt and a dinner jacket, which still had a first class London rail ticket in the pocket. They went well with my platinum bleached hair, scarlet lipstick and elbow length white gloves.

Over the years I have picked up some marvellous things: I have a 1960s butter-soft brown suede jacket that cost all of £3, a three-quarter length fake fur coat of around the same age and an astrakhan swing coat that makes me feel very Jackie O. I have found Jaeger jumpers for a couple of quid and I can’t remember the last time I bought a new pair of jeans. I can’t pass a charity shop without going in.

The T-shirt, cardigan and shoes I wore to work today were second hand; only my skirt and underwear were new. Even I draw the line at other people’s knickers.

Of wrinkles, rabbits and roadshows

'Watch the mirror, count the lines,
The battle scars of all the good times'

So sang Soft Cell. It’s Marc Almond’s birthday today, too; I wonder if he feels old? I certainly do after a weekend of carousing: out for a meal on Friday, out to make the repeated acquaintance of Mr Gordon’s and Mr Bombay Sapphire on Saturday, then rounded off with a barbeque (of course it rained) on Sunday.

I need a weekend off to get over my weekend. I just can’t take the pace anymore. I don’t know how I ever did. At one point, going out three nights in a row would have signified a good time; now it signifies that a week of early nights is in order if I want to catch up on my beauty sleep and forestall any more on those insidious wrinkles.

The most bizarre thing about my weekend, however, was the taxi ride home on Saturday night. We climbed into a car with an avowed killer: our driver’s day job was in vermin control. He claimed to own more than 35 ferrets. Apparently they don’t smell if you clean them out every morning.

I spend much of my time avoiding rabbits when I’m driving. The taxi driver, however, spent most of the time trying not to avoid them. I postulated that knocking them down on purpose wasn’t really very fair. On the contrary, he responded, he was doing them a favour: the ones he knocked down had myxomatosis. How he could tell in the dark, while driving, I don’t know. I certainly couldn’t: maybe I should eat more carrots instead of giving them all to the Grey Mare, or it could be that my age is beginning to tell on my eyesight.

The Antiques Roadshow is in Alnwick tomorrow. Perhaps I should take myself along …

The lore of the road

My driving instructor was a strange little chap: we couldn’t start my lesson until The Archers had finished (in case it affected my concentration); he could smoke and I couldn’t (ditto). “You drive like you live your life,” he told me once. I took it as a compliment.

But I remember him most for introducing me to the rudiments of the lore of the road. “Beware of Volvo drivers,” he cautioned, “they think they own the road.” The father of my boyfriend of the time drove a Volvo and perfectly satisfied the stereotype. Saab drivers were to be given a wide berth too: “Their cars are built like tanks so they’re not too bothered if they hit you.” I quickly learnt that BMW drivers (especially those in black cars) were part of the same clique.

Today, Audi drivers appear to have adopted the mantle. There seem to be more Audis on the road: they always used to be aspirational motors that were confined to the affluent. Either Audis have come down in price or people are buying cars out of their class. They certainly don’t show many manners. They think nothing of pulling out in front or cutting you up. For such expensive cars, I find it quite curious that most don’t have indicators fitted as standard.

In that respect, they are almost on a par with the kings of the indicator avoiders – the boy racers. It seems to be a badge of honour – along with fat exhausts that look like empty baked bean tins and a mind-numbing bass beat that they nod to like the Churchill dog – to turn off or pull out without signalling their intention to other people on the road.

I spend two hours commuting, five days a week. I have developed a very thick skin and can string together whole lists of expletives in a most artistic manner. Audi and BMW drivers, I have found, are especially good at tailgating you at 80mph. I don’t move. If they flash their lights, my foot involuntary removes itself from the accelerator. I am also quite handy at gesticulating and blasting the horn. “Once you’ve found the horn,” says one of my colleagues, “you never forget where it is.” She’s so right.

Hare, there and everywhere

“They’re the size of foxes,” said my friend as we sat on our horses watching a pair of hares gallop away across the field. Not only are they large in size, this year’s crop of hares are large in number. They appear to have been breeding, ahem, like rabbits…

Hares are the stuff of folklore and fable. They are touched by magic. People used to believe witches transformed themselves into hares to escape capture. In Precious Bane, Prue Sarn’s mother believes her daughter was born with a harelip because one ran in front of her while she was pregnant. At sea, fishermen consider the word ‘hare’ unlucky. In The Wicker Man, the grave of the supposedly missing Rowan is occupied by a hare …

They are shy and secretive creatures. Like partridges, they wait until the last possible moment to flee - which can lead to some very hairy moments when they suddenly bolt from beneath your cantering horse’s hooves. Once the Grey Mare and I were idling along, neither of us with our minds in the here and now, when I was transfixed by a large, unusual stone. Suddenly, it shot off across the field, rudely jolting us both out of our reverie.

Elegant, enigmatic and supreme athletes, hares are amazing to watch. They are speed and grace, bodies designed to sprint. Apparently, you can now buy pet hares to keep in a hutch. I find that rather objectionable: it would be like locking Raphael Nadal in a broom cupboard.

Music for the Millennium

I am not a member of the iPod generation. I like my music to be more touchable and tangible; I like CDs, I like cassettes, I like vinyl. I have music in abundance in all of these mediums.

The fact that ‘virtual’ music on a computer can just disappear when the mood takes it was graphically illustrated to me when my computer died and had to be resurrected a few months ago. But it’s more than that: I like to look at album sleeves, read the notes and see the case sitting on the shelf along with its compatriots. I like the smell of vinyl records. I like the car compilation tapes I have made over the years.

I bought three albums on eBay over the weekend for miniscule amounts to replace some rather ropey tapes that are near the end of their useful lives and would probably – in their wisdom – allow themselves to be eaten by the stereo. But the problem with Internet shopping is that you don’t receive immediate gratification. I can understand why downloading tunes appeals in this context, but I want CDs with cases.

What we need is someone clever to invent a transforming machine, where the seller could load the item in at their end, and send it through the ether to the recipient’s machine. Something like the Flue Powder or Portkeys utilised by Harry Potter. If I’m not mistaken, the Americans have secretly been able to do something of this sort for decades ….

A night at the races

I returned from Friday’s night at the races with a cold, blisters on my feet and a lighter purse. The cold and blisters were, I believe, caused by my pursuit of glamour despite the intemperate weather. The lighter purse was due to a number of factors, including gin, Pimm’s and having to buy my own ticket.

I don’t normally pay to go racing on the night before the Northumberland Plate – my mate usually provides me with free tickets. Somewhere along the line, we managed to cross our wires and he got me tickets for Plate Day itself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to go racing two days in a row – especially with jugs of Pimm’s (or should I say jugs of fruit and ice with a trickle of Pimm’s) costing £15 a shot. One of my friends was determined to drink champagne because she felt her usual pint wouldn’t complement her dress; she saw the price of the champers and stuck to lager.

Jump racing is my sport of choice, so each time I go to a flat meeting, I am bowled over by the Munchkin-esque stature of the jockeys. I am not terribly tall and I did have 3.5in heels on, but these guys barely reached my shoulder. I wonder how many of them are the equivalent of a female size zero and how many eating disorders are hidden under the brightly coloured silks? I wonder if the thrill of galloping home ahead of the opposition makes it worth missing your dinner. I contemplated this as I paid for my Indian takeaway on the way home.