Giving it the office ...

I've known Richard for many years - I first met him, I'm sure, at a party, or in The Village Home - he's a poet - he crafts poems which take root in your heart - we've aged together - but my hair is now white, whilst his is still dark brown -

I can remember the smell of the leather seats in the MG Magnette - there would be a crate of Gales HSB in the boot - Richard was training to be a teacher -

We've experienced many things together - we've reeled out of The American Bar, honed verse in the garden of the King Street Tavern - in Sautens, we played Fuchs und Jaeger in the kegelbahn - in Verona, there was a difficulty about a railway ticket - with Jay, we gulped whiskey and ate fruit cake on the Isle of Skye -

Richard places bets on the horses - he rings up tipsters, considers form - he calculates odds with the assurance of a Bletchley Park code breaker - Richard spent the winnings from one race on a Cathay Pacific ticket to Manila -

When Richard visits us, he will sit at this lap top, in the snug, making his choice of horses - he will later murmur into his mobile phone - I marvelled at the names of possible bets - A Goliath and a  Super Heinz were my favourites -

I am much taken by the arcane lore and language of the turf - one phrase Richard used especially stuck in my mind - when a horse really got going, galloping as though carrying an angelic messenger, the excitable commentator would exclaim that the jockey, whoever that was - was giving the horse the office - 

I would sit next to Richard, whilst he reckoned up his prize money, murmuring - giving it the office - giving it the office -