Equus Asinus

A Rubí donkey Saturday Special.

Being fed up with it all, I really didn’t want to write a blog today, even though I’d written the title already: «Pandora’s Box.» So I thought I’d suggest it to Rubí donkey.  Readers will be accustomed to the occasional «Rubí Tuesday» blog, but today is the first time she has written a Saturday blog.  This was only made possible because I craftily whispered a suggestion to her as she was eating her breakfast of straw and alfalfa.

«What a lovely quiet, perfectly still morning, Rubí. What are you going to write your blog about today?»  And from there on, Rubí assumed it was Tuesday.  «Pandora’s Box ia a good title,» I added.  «I’ve written it already. Ask Morris to look it up…»  Rubí continued chewing, her teeth crunching on straw with the regular rhythm of an old steam engine slowly climbing a steep incline in a slate quarry with the occasional clunk as a loosely riveted rail is pushed down on a wooden sleeper.  She looked interested in the idea.  (The blog post, that is, not the immensely complicated metaphor.)

The Rubí donk is very obligingly suggestible, so she started to write a Tuesday blog on a Saturday.  As regular readers know, Rubí donkey writes but she doesn’t know how to read.  On the other hand, Morris reads but we have never seen any evidence that he can write.

 

 

It is a lovely quiet Tuesday morning and the air is quite still. I’ve had a good breakfast of straw and alfalfa and I’ll take for my subject today the Panda’s Box.  Our Peasant suggested the title to me and I think it a good one.

I should explain about the Peasant.  When our keeper used to have his previous blog, he called it Brother Lapin’s Pilgrimage, so we used to call him the Rabit Person and carried on doing that after he started this Equusasinus blog for us.  However, Morris has been reading a book that our keeper left on the field one day when he went to school.  It is called The Second Republic and the Civil War in Benidorm (1936-1939). I should explain for people who have never heard of a war in Benidorm, that it would have been in Roman times: a period that much interests me, as readers will know.

From the book, Morris tells me that a person who kept donkeys was called a Peasant.  I always thought that a peasant was something like a grouse or a partridge, but Morris explained it is a man in a straw hat. It all seemed to fall into place.

I told Morris: «The Peasant told me the title of my blog today must be called the Panda’s Box. Was there anything about that in the book about the Roman civil war in Benidorm?»

Morris said there was nothing about it but «Any six-year-old can get stuff off the internet these days» and he came back with the explanation.  «It’s not panda but Pandora. She was the girlfriend of Adrian Mole in a comedy book cult. Adrian Mole was once aged fourteen and three-quarters; but he was fifty this year.»

So it must have been that Pandora’s box, but I wasn’t getting much further with the blog.  I don’t think the Peasant is very good at titles.  He is quite good at flying flags, however, and that is prolly what peasants do best.

 

 

I like the pretty flag and Morris likes the pretty flag, although he is a bit miffed that it has been put up too high, so he can’t chew it off the flagpole.  The Peasant told us he put up the flag in solidarity with the rest of Spain.  One problem with this is that is wasn’t very solidarible with donkeys, as he bought it in a Chinese supermarket and he said he was boycotting everything from China due to the donkey skin trade, as brought to our attention by the Donkey Sanctuary.  The Peasant said it was a difficult decision but the only place you can possibly buy a Spanish flag is in a Chinese shop, which is prolly right but still a questionable decision.

As I stood at the water fountain and Morris was looking to see if the Peasant was bringing any apples, I said «Tell me about the book of the Roman Civil War in Benidorm, Morris.»

Morris frowned.  «Don’t be a silly Rubí-mother: it was the Spanish Civil War in Benidorm.»

«Oh, they had one of those as well?»

«The amazing thing about it was this,» began Morris.  «In Benidorm everyone knew each other very well.  It was a town which already had a lot of holiday visitors – called veraneantes – people who came for summer, when the civil war started in July 1936.  So there was a lot of contact with people from outside, and everyone was more outward-looking.»

«Can you get to the point Morris,» I said.  «I don’t like long and compliflated explanderies.»

«The people from both sides of the civil war in Benidorm looked after each other and – when the dangerous times came – hid each other away from the gunmen.  Wasn’t that kind?»

«I think the Peasant prolly plans writing something about this on the blog,» I suggested.  «Look, it’s his half-term holiday and he’s sitting in the sun with a glass of wine reading the book.»

«Did you know half the Catalan parlament walked out, led by opposition leader Inés Arrimadas, leaving half the chamber empty when the separatists voted to declare independence yesterday?» said Morris.  «This was actually reported by the BBC as… some representatives did not vote.»

«I haven’t got a clue what you are talking about, Morris,» I said.  «Why did Adrian Mole’s girlfriend Pandora have a box anyway?»

«No idea,» said Morris.  «I think the Peasant is bringing some apples.»