The Lucky Horseshoe.

Since I was feeling desolate yesterday, I decided to take my lunch to the churchyard and eat it in the company of a few people even more desolate than me. I was half way along Church Lane (still feeling desolate) when I spied a horseshoe lying in full view on the road. I thought it odd, since you’d think a rider would notice a missing shoe, wouldn’t you? Instead of going clip-clop, clip-clop, the dear beastie would start going clip-clop, clip-mysterious silence, right?

‘Oh dear,’ they would wonder, ‘is my horse trying to dance, or could one of its legs have fallen off, or has it lost a shoe, maybe?’ So they would stop, turn around, and exclaim ‘Aha! There be a horse’s shoe, which probably explains the mysterious silence. I’ll take it home and await the attention of that nice man with burly arms, a rakish smile, and a leather apron to wipe his hands on when they get sweaty. Heavens, I’m all a-dither. Isn’t life exciting?’ But no, whoever it was had left the shoe lying in the middle of the road.

The mystery encouraged me to think that maybe Lady Luck was smiling on me for once, leaving a horseshoe in my path to bring me a little good fortune. I picked it up and continued on my way.

Well, I met a Dutchman in the churchyard, but that wasn’t very exciting, so I decided that the winds of favourable fate might take a while to reach me and took the horseshoe home.

There were two nails still in it, and when I got back I armed myself with my biggest pair of pliers to remove them. The first one came out easily, but the second was a pig. It was curled over at the sharp end and wouldn’t go through the hole. I wrenched and wrenched, and squeezed and squeezed, and just when I was exerting a particularly hard squeeze, the pliers slipped off the nail and bit the base of my hand – hard. It hurt, and now I have a big black blood blister there which hurts every time I wash the dannies. 

So it seems that Lady Luck wasn’t smiling on me at all, but chuckling an evil chuckle. I’ll buy a lottery ticket tomorrow, just in case I’m wrong.