A-M u s i n g s

Musings are thoughts, the thoughtful kind. For the purpose of these articles, a-musings are thoughts that might amuse, entertain and even enlighten.

You remember my brother, don’t you? I wrote about him some time ago, the way he sends me stuff. Well, just the other week, I celebrated my latest in a long line of birthdays – lord only knows why people celebrate these things, I certainly don’t. In fact, I am notorious in our family for forgetting dates and whatnots, even my own.

Well, to cut a long story short and I presumably don’t have as much time left as I did this time last year, my Dear Brother sent me this photo to remind me how old I have become. It was taken about 40 years ago when I was in my mid-thirties. He was visiting us in Sweden.

The photo shows our daughter and her horse Monsoon, and me of course. Like many of the girls in the village – isn’t it strange that girls seem to love horses more than boys do? – Anna loved riding. Monsoon was her first horse, our family’s first horse, and I was the designated driver. The people who sold us the horse must have been laughing their heads off as we drove away with him. He turned out to be the most difficult of equines. It took me many hours of patient work to get him to accept a saddle, but he was so lovable and gentle. He and our daughter became inseparable once she mounted him.

Monsoon was an escapologist, plain and simple. No fence was too high or too low for him to jump over or crawl under. I spent many a morning searching the village for him. He was the envy of all the other horses. His free spirit was legendary.

My best ally was the vicar; he should never have entered Holy Orders but as youngest son his path in life was mapped out for him. Rune was his name, and he loved horses. Once astride a horse, he forgot everything. Many a time he would come galloping out of the forest in full priestly attire to send someone off to the otherworld or officiate at a wedding that he had forgotten.

I remember once being asked where I lived. When I told them the name of our village the staffroom full of women erupted in laughter. “You mean you live in that village with the horny priest?” they asked. Rune was married with half a dozen children to his name but he clearly tended his flock well too. He’s dead now.

I am not very good at handling old photos, not good at all. My wife and the rest of the family can spend hours going through album after album of snapshots of the kids when they were young, but I can’t. Anyway, my brother meant well, and the photo did bring back memories, happy ones. I spent countless hours fencing in or rounding up horses in our small community. Because I worked from home people tended to knock on my door and ask for help with every sort of problem, driving kids to basket ball games, fetching them from school, all sorts of stuff. The usual way of asking was, “Do you mind …-ing? You’re just at home anyway, aren’t you?” despite the 18-hour days I put in writing my books. In Sweden, telephone directories include your title or job. I named myself Odd-job man Walker!