Tovey, Doreen - Raining Cats and Donkeys

Actually it was a blessing in disguise. The hat (nobody could have mistaken that battered coal-scuttle effect as anybody but Father Adams's even if it had been found on the railings of Buckingham Palace) appeared, tilted at a rakish angle, on the Adams's front gatepost an hour later. The Rector grinned so knowingly at Father Adams next time they met that Father Adams couldn't help grinning back. The next we heard, Mr Morgan had decided that he couldn't, after all, manage all that grass by himself and the familiar outline of Father Adams was once more seen progressing importantly over the Rectory lawn on Saturday afternoons – this time, to his intense satisfaction, behind a large and exceedingly noisy motor mower. Them cats certainly got things moving, he remarked, leaning reflectively on our gate one night.

So, if it came to that, did donkeys. We'd recently been given permission to graze Annabel on the adjoining Forestry Commission land, the only stipulation being that we should tether her to prevent her eating the trees. Surrounded by all the lush green grass that was a welcome change from her own moth-eaten paddock, Annabel wasn't the slightest bit interested in the trees, but we tethered her all the same. It prevented her from chasing horse-riders as they rode up the Forestry tracks.

It also, since one can't have everything in this world, presented us with an entirely new set of problems. Tether her to a tree and within minutes, having walked round it determinedly in circles, she'd be bound to it like Joan of Arc, bawling for help. Tether her on what appeared to be open land and in no time she'd be roped, head down and unable to move, round an ant-hill. Tether her, as we did once, on a piece flat as a billiard table with her rope tied to a last-war bayonet left behind by the previous owner of the cottage – she couldn't wind her rope round that, said Charles, and it made a jolly good portable anchor... the next thing we knew, a posse of round-eyed children were coming in to report that Annabel had a sword, and when we scurried out, sure enough there was Annabel running round in the lane with the bayonet clanking behind her.

We dared not try that one again. We went back to tethering her to trees. It meant we had to keep going out to unwind her, but it was safer. Until, that was, we tethered her to a felled Scots pine, high on the Valley skyline, in the belief that she couldn't move that one in a hundred years. Five minutes later Annabel, complete with pine tree to which she was still attached, was down in the Valley bottom. Right by our back gate, where our immediate problem was to get the tree up again double quick, before the Forestry people thought we were stealing it.

It was sooner said than done. At that point the hillside was practically perpendicular. The tree weighed at least a ton. Sweatingly we tugged and strained – with Annabel tied to the front end ostensibly helping us but a fat lot of help that donkey gave, if I knew anything about it. At last we got it up. It would have been better if we'd untied Annabel from it before we sat down to rest, of course, but one can't think of everything. In any case we were too worn out. So we sat there panting, with the sweat dripping off our brows, Annabel said that was fun, wasn't it, and started trotting down the hill again log and all. We got up and chased her...

It wasn't my day that day. I had got past the log and was close behind her when Annabel swerved and the rope tripped me up. While I was sitting there swearing soundly the log, which I had forgotten, came bouncing down the hillside on the end of the rope and caught me a thud on the bottom. I wished that donkey to Hades.

Perhaps she ought to be mated, Charles said later that evening. Transportation in ball and chain was more to my way of thinking at the moment, but there was something, when one considered it, in his suggestion. She was old enough now. It was springtime and the sap was rising. Not only might a foal be perhaps what she was wanting to steady her... but the idea of a foal, wobbly-legged among the buttercups... a foal, smaller even than Annabel, nestled in the straw in the stable... Wonderful, I said with dewy eyes. So we set about looking for a mate.

It was August before we found him and he wasn't quite what we'd planned. Our chief difficulty had been transport. There was a donkey named Gentleman at Maidenhead, for instance – handsome, well-bred and a tremendous success with the ladies. He was out of the running because to hire a horsebox to take Annabel to him would have cost – at a shilling a mile for two return journeys, one to take her and one to fetch her back – an absolute fortune. There was a donkey named Benjamin at the Siamese hotel at Halstock where Solomon and Sheba went for their holidays – dark he was, with a coat like plush, and when he'd first arrived to brighten their lives the two elderly jenny donkeys owned by the Francises had come galloping into season almost before he was through their paddock gate. Unfortunately there and back to Halstock with the cats was one thing; there and back twice, in a hired horse box, was again another.

A stallion eight miles away at the seaside was suggested white he was, and he'd sired some splendid foals. When his owner said Annabel would have to go over and run with the other donkeys to achieve results, however, Charles turned that down too. Annabel trotting to the sands in a posse harem... Annabel being jostled by the other donkeys... Annabel standing up in a field all night, and she used to a comfortable bed... He paled at the very thought. 'Do her good', I said with feeling, but Charles wouldn't hear of it. At which point I spotted an advertisement in a paper for horses for sale and a Shetland pony at stud some fifteen miles away and, thinking it might be a dealer, I rang the number at once. Had they by any chance a donkey at stud as well? I enquired.

They hadn't. Actually it was a breeding establishment for racehorses. But the owner had recently bought a black Shetland mare for his daughter, aged four, and being in the business he hadn't been able to resist a black Shetland stallion to go with her. Peter, having got Gilly successfully in foal, was now at stud for other Shetland mares. What about crossing him with our donkey? The breeder suggested helpfully.

Charles said no to that, too. Then I reminded him of Henry. A jennet, yes. But beautiful, gentle – and, when one considered it, with a definite advantage. We wanted to keep this foal as a companion for Annabel. She wouldn't tolerate a filly when it grew up, that was certain. No competition was Annabel's motto. Equally certain was that we couldn't keep a jack donkey with us for ever – mating back with Annabel and Miss Wellington being scandalised; breaking out to visit the local mares and little mules being born like ninepins... A jennet, I said, was the answer.

After he'd consulted the nearest Veterinary school and been assured that there was nothing wrong about the proposal... Annabel wouldn't have a Frankenstein... just a small black jennet with a mane and tail like a Shetland, a temperament like Mum's and the general appearance of a Thelwell pony, Charles thought maybe it was the answer too. If we could bring it off, the experts warned him. They wouldn't like to bet on our chances. Ponies didn't always take to donkeys, particularly if they had mares of their own. Any pony would take to Annabel , Charles informed them. And so the match was arranged.

We took her over one afternoon. We'd already met Peter ourselves and decided that she'd like him. When we'd gone to the stud-farm previously, however, it had been evening, and Peter, penned in a small enclosure for our inspection, had been the only animal we'd seen. Now, as we unlatched the horsebox, we looked around us. At mares with foals in the paddock, yearlings galloping like Pegasus across a field, a palomino watching us haughtily over a gate... Thoroughbreds, every one of them. Pretty small we felt, unloading a pint-sized donkey from a horsebox in the middle of that lot.