THE HORSE DRAWN HEARSE

Another cold,wet,grey winters day (sounds like some Simon and Garfunkel lyrics) the sort of day that inspires you to contemplate having a duvet day,especially when you have not slept well.

We all got up and went through the motions,my son took out the trash, I made my bed and tidied the bathroom while Pa set about getting dressed. I would not say that we were miserable ,but, subdued would ,I think best describe the general mood of the morning.

We ate our breakfast of hot griddled pikelets with maple syrup,(I thought it might cheer us up a little) after which my son went back to his writing and Pa and I washed the dishes while I bemoaned the fact that I to go out to buy some special cat food for our fussy cat Twiggy.

The light drizzle turned to torrential rain the identical moment I stepped out of the front door and continued unabated until my return,shortly after the weather reverted to a lighter drizzle... typical!!

As I jettisoned my soggy togs I noticed a funeral courtage passing our house. Living a we do between a church and two graveyards it is in fact quite commonplace. Of course the old grave yard at the rear of our cottage has not seen a burial since 1800 and frozen stiff , however the new one situated at the other end of then lane is quite busy.

For instance, at the bottom of the cemetery there is a small pedestrian gate ,and it is inside this gate under the shelter of some coniferous trees the smokers,wretched outcasts of the smoking staff of a nearby hospital congregate to enjoy their surreptitious fags. At lunch time their can be quite a crowd and the pile of cigarette butts can be a serious hazard to suede shoes!

A little further up the cemetery path are some rather lovely but unfortunately derelict buildings some of which once held services for the dead of various denominations ad faiths. Another equally ornate but much smaller building once housed the gravediggers tools of the trade,mattock,spade, that sort of thing. This building is now used by the spliff smokers who had gained entry through a damaged side door.

Some what further round the building the serious junkies hang out, the hospital is on the other side of the cemetery wall so they don't have far to go if things go wrong.

Isolated as it is ,it is used by the local contractors as a good place to park up and down a few tinnies in hot weather of take a snooze if the weather is bad , as I said the place is quite busy.

Back to the hearse. It was exactly like something out of a dickens novel, four beautiful black horses,plumed with black feathers and caparisoned in black harness. The driver and his assistant wore black cloaks an each black top hate. The hearse itself was polished to the last degree, shinning glass, sparkling brass fittings ans the black wood look as it it had been lacquered.

I had heard the sound of horses hooves seconds before I saw the hearse and would have loved to photograph this spectacle, unfortunately the whole courtage were travailing at such a pace that they had disappeared before I could reach for my camera.

The horses at the gallop careered down the lane followed by a long line of black limousines attempting to keep up while maintaining their dignity, in this they failed.

Now I have to admit that I have no idea why the horse drawn hearse was behaving like the lead wagon when the redskins attack, to me it just seems odd that in an age when every blesses thing is done at the double why go to the trouble of hiring this antiquated form of travel to slow things down to a sedate pace and then drive live Jehu past the waiting mourners, they behaved more like a Victorian Fire engine than a hearse. If it had been summer time I would swear that one of the horses had been hit by a warble fly. Or perhaps the entire party were trying to get the burial over before it began to rain again,who can say ?

Whatever the reason dignity and decorum were definitely not amongst us today, I just hope the driver managed to get the horses to stop at the cemetery gates, otherwise next stop, Great West Road.