Me and my shadow

This is Teddy. He's a donkey from Ireland. When I was a child in Ireland, a gentleman of the road, who happened to be giving us rides on his donkey told me that all donkeys have a cross on their backs because their ancestor once carried Christ on his/her back. It seems I was misled. Please tell me there are still crosses on hot cross buns! Otherwise they'll have to be renamed. Hot Spiced Buns? Hot Buns with no Religious Connotations? Lenten Buns?

I digress. We went to Sapperton today. CleanSteve has already written about the donkeys from Chalford, who live at Westley Farm.Many years ago, my sister TML rented a holiday cottage there, and we enjoyed a heavenly week with her girls Christina and Immy, then aged eleven and three. Correction: It was almost heavenly, apart from Immy's complete aversion to walking anywhere more than 10 yards away! My favourite (silly) activity was, on hearing the train whistling along the valley, to sprint across the fields, through the woods and down to Jackdaw bridge in time to see it pass beneath me. Once I ran all the way down in my nightie. My legs got suitably scratched, but I never did make the train.

More recently I camped at Westley Farm as part of Camp Zero, which was a weekend conference/event about discussing ways to live more sustainably. I learned to make a little stove out of an oil drum, and spent a lot of time playing with a sculptor friend's enchanting daughter, as well as hanging out in the play area, which was being run by the Woodcraft Folk.

The donkeys were there too: they were touring the whole county with people from Fairgame Theatre, putting on travelling plays and workshops in village halls, and carrying the camping equipment. I was so tempted to run away and join the travelling caravan for a week or two, but at the time I had a job as a nanny in London. Couldn't see the donkeys clip clopping into Finsbury Park, somehow! As it was, I knew someone who was touring with the donkeys, and thus it was that I was invited to attend a drinks party in a field, in fancy dress, with the donkeys standing around peacefully grazing. We sat and talked and watched the sun setting, gold over gold.

Thanks so much to Anna Usborne for letting us blip her delightful donkeys, and for sparking the memory of such carefree days and nights in the fields.