setting off

One minute I was surrounded by a group of excited travellers with their assorted steeds and the next....there was a flash and bang, and I found myself alone in a clearing in a forest with my donkey Patience. She would have to be patient. I had never learnt to ride and had no idea of how to take care of her and as for riding......I had never ridden anything in my life. Never mind. We would have to learn to look out for each other. I scratched her long ears and she placed her muzzle into my neck before wandering off to find somewhere to graze.

I looked in my bag. Hidden at the very bottom was my secret item. I knew why I had chosen it, but was not sure when I would need it but it was safe. I removed the map and began to study it closely. I did not recognise it as being anywhere in the known world. In this enchanted land it might be a map of the subconcious mind, or of hidden desires, or secrets untold. It might also be a place where adventures would take (or had taken) place.

I thought being alone would be unnerving but I felt surprisingly calm. The day was warm and balmy, the sunlight filtering through the leaves in the trees above me. I drank clear water from a stream and decided to set off down the hill towards a smudge of blue in the distance which I thought might be the sea or an inland lake.

I called Patience and she ambled over slowly.
"Slow and steady wins the race." I remembered my mother's words over half a century before.

I also remembered that she had told me
"Patience is the virtue of the donkey." This had driven me through life, until I had finally realised that donkeys were wise and then developed the art of being patient. I don't know or remember whether my mother was being ironic.

I decided to mount Patience. I put one foot into the stirrup and hauling myself up found myself sitting facing backwards. Patience snorted - I assumed she was laughing at me. Grumbling I climbed down and started again. A heave, a gasp, and I was finally sitting facing forwards.
"Walk on Patience," I said with an attempt at authority. "We need to get going."

Patience lurched forward and I fell off. This was not going to be as easy as I had hoped.


Several difficult hours later before we descended from the forest onto the costal plain, I dismounted and decided to walk alongside Patience for a while and give both of us a rest. As I walked I became aware that we were being followed. A little black dog with white socks had attached herself to us and although I tried to send her away, I finally decided that she could join us and so we came that first afternoon to the seashore, me, my donkey and my little dog who I decided to call Sox in honour of her paws......