Jenny - @jerrybanfield SWC

My grandparents had a small farm in a rural area of northern England. My grandfather had semi-retired by the time my earliest memories started but he still kept 3 or 4 calves to fatten into bullocks, hens, rabbits and various ducks and geese along with a dove loft high up in the grain drying store where beautiful white doves would fly around the ramshackle old stone buildings. As a child, I loved the place. I loved helping my grandad on his tractor as he sowed wheat and barley. I'd ride the machine with the ladies that harvested and sorted the potatoes and I loved being in the stackyard, climbing the bales of straw and making dens.

Most of all, I loved being around the animals and spent a lot of my time as a small child of 6 or 7 giving them extra food. I loved the way the hens went crazy as I threw them a crafty extra bowl of corn, or turned the big handle on the chopping machine to slice up a few extra beet for the cows. They were idyllic Enid Blyton type blissful long summer days in the early 70's.
My grandad loved his animals too. Even though we both knew and understood the need for them to go to market, and that none of them were pets. That Saturday trip to the local livestock market we took every couple of months was both wonderful to see all the animals there but also sad as we said goodbye to the cows and welcomed in some new calves. My Grandad was strange, as he always gave them names, more personal than any of his farming friends and it was he who encouraged me to talk to them and stroke them and how to be gentle and approach them delicately and slowly.
And the cows always responded. Even though my visits were only once or twice a week I could walk into the field, and the cows would approach me, they would let me rub their noses and treat them as though they were well-trained horses used to petting. Even grandad couldn't always get them to come when he called them. My mum would go crazy at her dad for letting me in the field or the stalls alone but I remember one Saturday night, as we always stayed for supper and watched the corny but classic old 70s comedies and variety shows on their old black and white TV, my mum berating grandad for giving me so much freedom so young, and pointing out the dangers. She asked why she never had that much freedom when she was a kid around the animals. Back then, horses were used to pull ploughs and they had had a whole herd of cows and pigs. Grandad smiled at her and said, "he understands them, he has a gift, you were good, but not like the lad is." I didn't quite understand what a gift was, or quite what he was saying but I know mum never mentioned it or got angry again. I mulled it over as I stroked Jen, my grandad's chocolate brown cocker spaniel who never left my side when I was there and then I forgot about it till many years later.
Jenny was beautiful and the only living creature ever allowed in the farmhouse. Even the semi-feral grumpy farm cats were fed outside, but not our Jen, whenever Grandad left the house to walk across the fields or do his rounds around the yard, she was there by his side.
One Saturday evening upon arriving with my parents, I could hear Jen barking behind the door of one of the stalls down the yard, "why is she locked up?" I asked. "whats up dad?" Mum looked quizzically at grandad who himself was looking sad and not his usual chipper self.
Grandad explained some teenage boys had got in the yard and started messing around and Jen had run down to them barking. By the time my grandad had got there, they'd given her a good kicking and although not too hurt, every time he'd taken her out during the week, she'd barked and tried to nip anyone who went near her and had had to put her on a lead which just made her worse.
"I'll go down and see," I said. "No lad, she's not right now, shes even had a nip at me today". I was so sad. I was just 7 or 8 and I loved her. After that, she never stopped barking. Day and night. Only my nana could get close to feed her, grandad never went near. Later I realised that it was only because he couldn't bear to. The next school holiday I was spending a couple of days with my grandparents and Jen, as usual, was barking in her stall and grandad was reading his newspaper so I went out. No idea what took me down to the bottom end of the yard, perhaps Jen's barking finally broke my resolve and drew me there, and I opened the tatty, red, wooden stable door and walked towards her stall. Jen had suddenly gone quiet, and as I walked in, I saw her laying on her side in the hay. She looked up at me and I sat down beside her and began stroking her head and her floppy curly brown ears, and it was just like before. She took a big breath and then she was still.

I guess my visits to the farm, became less frequent after that day and as I became a teenager, football and cycling took over. My Grandad died in 1980, I was 14, he was just 66.

In 2002, I was married, but it wasn't working out too well. It wasn't a happy time. Business difficulties only compounded the problem, but despite this, my wife and I decided to have a day at the coast. I love the sea air and fresh sea breezes but as we walked across the sand, we were again, bickering about something or other.
I don't know when I first noticed this tiny bundle of brown fluff hurtling across the beach directly towards me but it caught my eye and got closer and closer, until, still running and without slowing took a huge leap. It hit me in the midriff and managing to stay on my feet, I grabbed it and lifted it up. It was a chocolate brown cocker spaniel puppy. There was a bone shaped tag attached to the collar with a name.

HIS name was Jasper. Sorry. Give me a break will you, this is a true story, it's not 'Tales of the Unex-fucking-pected'!

He was such a joyous fella, going mental and loving all the attention and I was suddenly overcome with happiness. All my woes disappeared and even the wife smiled and took some photos. For a few moments anyway, until she became bored and complained about being chilly and went back to the car.
Jasper and I ran up and down the beach, playing and looking for his owner until a frantic looking and very beautiful young women rushed over from the promenade, leash in hand.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, he slipped his leash and ran off, I was panicking, I haven't had him long and I love him to bits. Thank you so much."
"You're welcome."
Our eyes met for a few seconds, and she smiled. Jasper yelped and then looked straight at me, smiling with his tongue hanging out as only a cocker can and they walked away across the sand, not looking back. The drive home was frosty to say the least.

We split up soon after and were divorced in 2004, and no, I never saw Jasper or his owner again either. No, just no. I know what you were thinking! Don't worry, not long to go and I swear to you there is kind of a relevant point to all this.

So, here I am living in Thailand and married again. There are lots of animals here! Cats and dogs wander the streets and I have my own semi-adopted street dog who I named Jessie. I've known her since I first arrived and she lives outside my local 7/11 as do many street dogs. There are rats and mice all over the place and so many gorgeous Doves, sadly not white but still beautiful brown zebra doves who are almost always to be seen in pairs huddled up together. Although we live just outside Bangkok in a built-up area, we still see an occasional snake and there are of course lizards and geckos of varying sizes a plenty. I love them all. Every time I see an animal I need to go and see it and 'talk' to it, its just me, I simply feel so comfortable and at peace around animals.
One day the neighbours had a dove fly in the house and they were rushing around trying to chase it out, it didn't want to leave, it was only tiny and was beginning to tire when they called me, after seeing me nurse a number of young birds who seem to have the habit of falling out of their nests, they thought I could help.
It was sat atop a bookshelf and I remembered grandad teaching me to be quiet and slow and so it was as I approached him. He watched me but didn't move as I slowly lifted a single finger, perch like towards him. As I touched his legs, he hopped on and I very slowly and smoothly lifted him down and walked outside at which time he flew up and away.
The neighbours and wife were in awe and since then I've been known as 'Bird Farang'. The neighbour exclaimed, "he can talk to the animals". It stuck, and I suddenly remembered the conversation between my grandad and my mum all those years ago, but of course this time. I understood. Since then half the neighbourhood has called me for problems with mice, rats, birds, street dogs and cats and even a snake wrapped around a water tank which I just gently shooed back towards the trees.
Instead of having bad karma by killing it, they call me and I sort it without hurting it!

So finally, here's the point. I am quite a reserved, quiet introvert and I don't really get on too well with people. I find socialising awkward and I'm shy. If I'm honest, most people simply piss me off and I can't be bothered with them. Communication, I have problems communicating with people. it's difficult for me, both verbally and in writing. I don't even enjoy writing. The only thing that allowed me to finish this was that the more memories I brought to the fore, the more that came out, and I enjoy reading back this small biographical snippet of my life. Perhaps if there is an 'awakening' it's the finishing of this exercise as opposed to being the reason I started it. The coincidence was meeting Jasper that day on the beach which triggered a sad memory from my past and linked a happy to it.

Communication, however with animals, I don't have a problem with. I automatically seem to know what they need and what to do. It's a kind of communicative consciousness but on a different level to human which I have the problems with. Thats not to say I'd walk into a den of lions, of course not. They'd eat me, but we would have a connection.
We all need to try and tune into the natural world. Create synapses and understand that we are all living creatures and are interdependent upon each other for our survival. Listen and understand all our needs and act accordingly.
I am still a cynic when it comes to the supernatural, and to 'things happening for a reason' even though I myself have been through amazing coincidences and have always managed to be in the right place at the right time.
I've actually lost the plot a little now and can't put into words what I'm trying to say. Perhaps that's all part of the mystery.

There is so much we can't understand in life. I choose to accept what I don't understand and not to just find an answer that fits. The universe is, because it is. So enjoy and love and live in peace.

Thanks to @JerryBanfield and to the poor bugger who has to read this !