Symon & Symon

My Dear Princess and Dear Friends,

I arranged to meet Shenée for lunch today and she very kindly insisted on paying for my eggs on toast while she caught me up with all of her latest news. 

She tells me that, even though she's not working, she has never been busier. She has determined to spend more time with her horses this year, and to compete in cross-country horse events. 

And in fact she turned up today wearing her "My Therapist Eats Hay" t-shirt, which I bought her for Xmas. 

"Do you want to meet my horses?" she asked, over lunch.

And so that was that. I wasn't going back to work this afternoon. I had a lovely time with Shenée, she tried to teach me to speak horse by driving her horses Finn (brown) and Amar (grey) away from me by twirling a rope in the direction I wanted them to go, and then to STOP twirling the rope.

"They will lick their lips and put their head down, and that means they want to be allowed to come back and join your herd," she explained. She called this exercise "join ups" and it basically bonds a horse to you. 

When they come back, you then have to hug the horse and thank him for being good and also rub the twirly rope on him so that he knows it doesn't hurt and won't harm him.

And by golly, it works! Amar & Finn (see extra) came back to me and then they wouldn't stop following me around! In fact they are sitting right next to me on the couch now!

Ahahahaha. Just kidding. 

But seriously, it is really something. After this, I met some of Shenée's chickens. Including the one in today's picture. She didn't have a name, so Shenée decided she was "Symon". Then she put Symon into my arms and I had to carry her around, buck-buck-ing in my arms as Shenée put together Finn and Amar's dinner. 

It was so nice seeing Shenée in her natural environment as it were. She is definitely at her happiest around animals and she drove me back to the train station after a lovely couple of hours on an absolute high.

I can see why she's in no great rush to get back to work. And quite right too.

S.