A Nose for Coffee

I'm sure I've written about coffee before but I'm obviously not getting enough vitamins because I can't remember. So I'm not going to - why risk it?

Nor am I going to write about horses, real or otherwise. No I lie; I am going to write about them – just keeping you on your toes.

I rode one for about three hours about thirty years ago and I was wearing Crimplene trousers (just one of my many fashion faux pas). I can assure you that you cannot ride a horse successfully when you can't grip the saddle with your knees. Three hours with a horse's back coming up to meet your backside coming down is not conducive to a happy relationship with any animal.

I should have known I was in trouble from the beginning. When we arrived at the stables the owner took one look at me, grimaced, and shouted to someone to 'fetch Ginger'. Ginger turned out to be a monstrous beast, possibly cloned from something in the ‘Book of Revelations’. Its outlook on life had obviously been moulded in an atmosphere of dissent and bloody mindedness. That horse had attitude. It might have also had issues but, as I've remarked before, we didn't have issues back in the seventies.

I got my own back eventually - I wore it out. It shouldn't have taken on a 6'3" heavy weight. It was one tired horse that retired to contemplate its oats that evening.

And one bruised rider who wasn't fit to contemplate any sort of cereal.