BRANCHING OUT

Bloggiana has had an inspiration.

A coup de maitre, she pronounces.

A fucking genius stroke of a brainwave, she adds, flicking her cigarette nonchalantly over the side of her saddle and watching it idly as it tumbles down Nag's shoulder onto the fallen leaves below.

It is autumn once more. Saddles ahoy, bridles aboard, horses flicked with a brush so that any scurf lurking in their coats is now jumping about on their backs, we are taking our daily amble round the lanes, giving the hedges one last once-over before all their secrets become laid bare to the winter. Around us, rainbows are jumping up in hoops. Overhead, the starlings are swarming, every now and again mottling us with a thousand filigree shadows. Is it morning or afternoon? Neither of us could say. There is a watchfulness about the sky which holds neither promise nor threat. The air is muffled and the leaves - those that remain on the trees - are still and the white crow that last year scudded over the late pasture like a small unfamiliar cloud now only dances before us in legend.

All of a sudden our peace is disturbed by the ringing of Bloggiana's mobile phone. It's the bank.

Shitting hell. Name in god of all things aubergine d'you want now? Bloggiana barks.

There follows a short conversation. From aboard Dobbin, I can hear Miss Pinprick from the collections department of the HSMC (Have Some More Cash) trying to get a word in edgeways. The reception is not that good but I can just about decipher from the other end a succession of but-buts.

But-but, Miss Pinprick utters before she is rudely interrupted.

But-but, she ventures again before being snapped back once more.

But-but-but. And then the hapless woman is finally cut off for good.

Next thing, Nag stumbles and for a few steps, hobbles. He is beginning to show his age and the hobbling takes several strides to dissipate.

Christ, Bloggiana says. Hell's going on around here? Feels like the day of the fucking apocalypse, she adds.

And sucks so hard on her cigarette that she momentarily turns a nasty shade of aubergine herself.

For some time thereafter, Bloggiana and I, Nag and Dobbin continue on our journey wordless. Bloggiana is clearly preoccupied. When a kingfisher flashes up the beck, she does not appear to notice. When the postman slides past us down the lane in a blur only a couple of inches from Nag's tail, she omits altogether to rant. When Mister Nasty's dog does a huge crap on the road in front of her, then barks like a Loch Ness banshee until even Nag sits back on his hocks, Bloggiana sails on in silence.

Still I refrain from asking my old friend if she is alright for I know that to say anything at this point would be to court almost certain verbal electrocution.

Then the coup de maitre must strike. It is preceded by counting sounds. By words that rhyme with overdraft and others that chime with bailiff and some that sound like collections agency and others whose resemblance to last fucking penny I own is uncanny.

Coup de maitre, Bloggiana suddenly blurts out. Fucking genius stroke of bloody brainwave. Coup de fucking maitre.

We'll start a shop, she says. We'll have our very own One World One Chutney outlet. You Piccalilli can write a blog. And I Bloggiana will run a shop.

For a moment, I Piccalilli am lost for words. The idea - coming as it does from the woman who most in the world suffers from random access tourette's syndrome (RATS) - seems beyond fathomable.