Recently I watched a re-run of the Great Pottery Throwdown and even the judges were inclined towards a kind of natural emotional support. On the spectrum of Robin Williams to Gordon Ramsey they fit alongside kindergarten teachers and people who volunteer to marshal marathons and then make trays of sandwiches and salty potatoes for the runners.

“So it’s slightly misshapen,” said one judge about the tenth hand-thrown pot, which was a very loose interpretation of the demo. “But the height is almost perfect.”

Tenth meant last, or worst if you’re Simon Cowell, but in the Great Pottery Throwdown it was only ever referred to as “the tenth.” The one before the eleventh which happened to not exist.

Another judge got tears in his eyes while praising a contestant for her use of colour and texture. “It’s your best work,” he told her, his voice cracking.

I don’t watch much TV but The Great Pottery Throwdown immediately became my favourite show.

Out of everyone in that episode, Stephen was the best. Stephen was a potter with a frizzy beard and twinkling eyes. Quiet but observant. In the natural world he would definitely be a prey animal but cheerful about it. Not Bambi’s mother, more like a capybara – busy, wary of an anaconda but still hopeful for a snack. In the human world he looked like someone’s favourite uncle. When he spoke you wished you could be that someone.

In the first challenge he did not do well. He wasn’t tenth but almost. The judges seemed to sense his distress and asked him what he did in his spare time. Stephen revealed (cheering notably) that he is a former national hula hoop champion. He then did a demonstration where the hoop flipped jauntily around his solid midrif, up his neck and then one arm, before sliding back down past his hips to the floor. I need to stress that Stephen is not lithe. You would never expect him to be the master of such a coordinated wiggle.

Then came the Noah’s Ark challenge. All the potters had to create an ark with five pairs of animals suitable for a child to play with. Stephen’s was wonderful. Bright. Well-crafted. But after the first firing, the deck (which was meant to be removable to store the animals in the ark’s hull) become stuck. It would not budge. The animals could not enter the ark. In the event of a flood things would get awkward. (You had one job, Noah.) Stephen held his despair in check, but only just.

One of the judges/creative saints suggested that the deck might loosen after the second firing if the clay contracted enough. It seemed unlikely, more an effort to avoid an onscreen breakdown, but Stephen put all his energy into that possibility, tapping away starboard and port. The gesture had the same quality as covering a sodden cellphone in white rice, floating somewhere between delusion and denial. But hope is hope. Stephen clung to it.

It was near the end of the show when the moment of truth arrived. All the arks were brought out for inspection. Stephen confessed that he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before.

The firer pushed his boat towards him. “Do you want to have a go?” she asked gently.

Stephen took a breath and closed his eyes as he grasped the deck. When it shifted and came free, he was so overcome he had to hide his face while another potter hugged him. For multiple seconds. The scene cut before he was able to lift his head. I’ve never seen anything so dear in my life.

Even though it was predictable that someone would not make the next round, when the Tenth Contestant was revealed a few of them cried. Potters, right? The Tenth however was stoic. He smiled bravely and said, “Pottery is a tough game,” which is something I did not know.

Afterwards, in bed, I googled Great pottery throwdown hula hoop champion and there he was. My favourite uncle. Capybara with moves. ChatGPT informed me that he holds a Guinness World Record for owning the largest collection of Smurf memorabilia in the world. He has over a thousand Smurf items, which he started collecting at age ten.

I stared into the darkness. Who is this guy? Stephen the uncle, the potter. Stephen the hula hoop champion, the Smurf connoisseur.

Stephen is why I’m finding it difficult to write fiction. Because it’s true what people say. You cannot make this shit up. Even if I had the imagination to write Stephen into a book, no one would find him believable.

If I read him in a novel I’d think, Sure, buddy. Maybe roll my eyes.

But Stephen exists.

He’s out there in the world.

Isn’t that lovely?

The book finally came out in April. The first time I saw it in a store was kind of surreal. One of those moments where background noise fades out and there it was, an actual book, in my actual hands, with an actual News24 Book of the Month sticker on it. WTF! The best part was seeing the pictures of my dad and Scollie in it. I guess my dad was a pretty memorable person to a lot of people but Scollie was just my little, poppy-eyed best friend, and even though the book in no way immortalized her, it meant a lot to me that a bunch of strangers know her name and maybe would even recognize her face. That was a lot to wrap my head around in the best way.

Since then it’s been such a fun journey. I have to confess there were moments so vulnerable it felt as if my skin was on fire. So much of my heart just out there in a stranger’s hands or on their bedside table. It’s been so interesting seeing people’s responses. Someone once said to me about having a wedding (or equally a newborn) that the people you expect to just be amazing sometimes aren’t, and others really step up. It’s the same with a new book. Some silences are extremely loud, and other times an acquaintance or even a complete stranger will take the time to reach out to discuss it or give their opinion. Classmates from all around the world sent selfies with it, some nap trapped or at school cricket matches or in the middle of long shifts at work. The messages from OP students have been probably the most special.

It’s been a rollercoaster because for every proud moment there is a humbling one. I’ve walked into some stores where Unleashed is on the bestseller shelf, and then others where it’s nowhere to be seen. Once, quite soon after it came out, I went into an Exclusive Books and asked if they had it.

The teller looked dubious. “Who’s it by?”

“Uh....” I swallowed the desire to say no one, frowned vaguely instead. “Someone called Caitlin Venniker, I think?”

Tap tap tap on the keyboard. “It’s near the back. By biographies.”

“Ah. Thanks.” Left the store coughing up blood.

My favourite story has to be when one of my closest friends overhead an old lady talking on her phone about the book.

“I want to get it for my granddaughter,” she said. “But I think there might be too much swearing.”

I love that I have a PG 16 book, especially considering I had to walk out of The Dark Knight movie within the first five minutes. Basically as soon as Heath Ledger started playing with the pencil in the meeting with the mob, I was out. The letters qualifying the age rating for Unleashed would probably be L and S, which feels pretty badass. Definitely no V. Who’s got time for that?

The Franschhoek Literary Festival and the Kingsmead Book Fair were undoubtedly the highlights of the whole experience. So many readers and writers gathered together, with talks about everything from how to get a criminal to confess, to environmental poets, to cookbook demonstrations. I was fortunate enough to have my very first panel with Karen Lane, an avid reader and well-known reviewer, who is extremely warm and easy to talk to. On the short walk to the discussion venue with her I brought up the awkward topic of how fear-sweat smells worse than the regular kind. Karen immediately told me I was right, along with an anecdote about how once she was on a game drive when the car broke down and they all had to walk back to camp with the armed ranger. She anxiously walked very close next to him and got a whiff of his fear-sweat (the more legitimate version of the kind which was currently pouring off my own body). Anyway, that pretty much sums up how sympathetic she is, and it set my mind at ease.

For Kingsmead, Pan Macmillan booked me into a hotel for two nights. I feel the need to say here that there have only been a handful of nights I have spent away from my kids since they were born a few years ago. I’m not proud of this fact, it just is what it is, and the truth is almost all of those nights have involved an overnight stay in a hospital. The Rosebank Southern Sun was bliss. When I arrived the sense of freedom was so overwhelming that I immediately ordered a hamburger on room service, ate it sitting on the bed and then had a bath, all in the middle of the afternoon. I cannot describe what this did for my soul.

The last thing I want to say is just about the writers I met and how kind and interesting and supportive they were. Even the big guns. Even the old boys who have made a proper living out of writing for decades. Deon and Marianne Meyer asked for a photo with ME. That was a moment and a half. Jeff Wicks the investigative journalist followed me on Instagram. Haha. Imagine a man who tracks down killers and fights for justice on the daily looking at pictures of my dogs. Tony Park was so generous with his advice and funny stories. I finally met Mike Nicol in person and we shared more than one bottle of Malbec and a lot of laughs. Sven Axelrad made me tea. I was having such a good chat with Bonnie Espie that I forgot to check the gate number and accidentally missed my flight.

I loved hearing about how the characters in their stories, whether crime or thriller, mystery or literary fiction, boss them around. I was introduced to a dimension where real and imaginary people seem to interact. For example, Tony Park has a deal whereby a person can have their name in one of his books provided they make a donation to a wildlife charity. Deon Meyer, via Cape Leopard Trust, featured in one of Tony’s latest books, Die by the Sword. These two authors go way back so Tony had no qualms about making the fictional Deon Meyer sketchy af, bulleting him in a gun fight, and having him flirt shamelessly with a helicopter pilot during his recovery.

Anyway, thank you to every reader for joining me on this rollercoaster ride, it’s been one of the most memorable experiences of my life. In case you haven’t yet read Unleashed and would like to, it’s in all major bookstores in SA, on Kindle worldwide, can be ordered on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Blackwells, and should be available on Audiobook in the next few months.

As always, thanks for tagging along

x

Things I didn’t expect to ask ChatGPT lately:
Is Dubai currently considered a war zone? (No)
Would it be safer to sleep downstairs if you are currently living in Dubai (Yes)
How does a fighter jet sound vs a plane? (Louder, a rip rather than a hum)

As you can probably gather, it’s been an intense week. I watched my five year old daughter wish on a “shooting star” which was in fact a missile. She wished for a parrot, which I thought had appropriate scope - more conservative than world peace or meeting a dragon, but more ambitious than sushi for supper. Considering how long-lasting and blazingly bright the rocket/meteor was, the chances for a successful outcome should probably be better than for a regular star (but they are still not very high).

What’s happening here is not remotely comparable to what is happening elsewhere but even so it’s been horrible. Today however is a great day because the cover for the book is finally out, and here it is:

These days the author of a book doesn’t usually talk directly to the cover designer. The publisher stands as a solid barrier between them to protect the designer from the ego/demands/neuroses of the author. I loved my cover so much that I stalked the designer, Marius Roux of MR Design, online so that I could thank him. Marius has been making book covers for 30 years and he said he chose a Golden retriever because they are so universally appealing. He’s right. Who doesn’t love a Golden?

The dog in the author pic on the back is not designed by anyone, or if she is they scribbled her into existence in a rush or possibly when they were a little bit high. She’s called Indy and she’s one of those dogs that feels like bones with scruff on them. You know the type. Quite a lot of eyebrow. Long toes. Technically she belongs to my mom but over time that fact became lost in the small print that no one ever reads, least of all Indy herself. Indy thinks she’s mine, and I am hers, as you can see from the way she’s grinning at me. My mom finds her enormously irritating, mostly because Indy leaps over the stable door which is sometimes used for keeping dogs out of my mom’s kitchen; and also because she’s very dramatic about storms and requires medication as soon as there’s even a dark cloud on the horizon; and also because if there’s any kind of dog squabbling or drama Indy can always be found in the middle of it.

I showed my mom the cover a few weeks ago. She looked at it in silence for a long time. I waited nervously, proudly. Here it was at last. Had she noticed how intimately the viewer is placed inside a consultation room? Did she like the handwritten style of font? How about the extract for the blurb? I waited.

Eventually she shook her head, gave a small smile and said, “Fucking Indy.”

It was, in fact, such a typical comment from my mom that it immediately became one of my favourite things about the cover, even more than the intimate spacing and the handwritten font and the manicured hands which are not mine but definitely are goals.

Anyway it feels surreal to be here, less than four weeks out from an actual book being in actual stores. I’d like to thank every single one of you for subscribing and following this journey. It really made a difference, to me and also to the people who look at these things.

In case you want to be even more of a super supporter, this is the pre-order link for within South Africa. (Preorders basically tell the bookstores how seriously to take the book - how many copies to stock and how close to the front of the store to position it, cool things like that.)

There are quite a few new followers so I’ll share below what I wrote for the reviewers of the book for them to get an understanding of who I am and what to expect. It’s incredible for it to be a few weeks from hitting the shelves.

Dear Reader

It was 2022 when I realised something needed to change. We were all still in that aftershock of COVID, tentatively resuming normal life. I was a new mother in a new country (the UAE), and at that stage unregistered to work. My visa said ‘housewife;’ if I wanted a bank account I had to ask my husband for permission. You get the picture. I was lonely and lost and, to be honest, a bit hot. Everything felt dry and dusty – the landscape, the air, my career, my sense of self. I found a website of international writing competitions and decided to enter as many as I could. Short stories, flash fiction, poetry, I would try it all. The entries cost anything from 5 – 11 pounds/euros/dollars and each one was a gift to myself. A new direction, a focus separate to nap schedules and what the hell to cook for dinner. Perhaps it would show me if I should pursue that old dream of being a writer.

The first competition I entered was the Mogford Prize – judged by Michael Morpurgo and Andi Oliver for 10 000 pounds. What a joke, a story of 2500 words going for money like that? I wrote a story about a truffle pig discovering an extramarital tryst in a forest and when I won that competition, the feelings I had and still have towards the pig, Flora, became powerful enough to be called love. She changed my life, that pig. Afterwards I won a couple more competitions, enough to convince me it wasn’t a total fluke, and then I decided to do a writing course with Mike Nicol. His fiction class was closed, so I went for non-fiction because I was desperate, and then the memoir just became a part of my life. I wrote when I could, loved the process, took a break for a second baby, started again, learnt so much.

Someone once told me that by the time you’ve run your first marathon, you will have run your way out of Runner’s Knee. Amazingly, I found that to be true. In the same way, writing a full length book showed me the ropes of pacing and dialogue and voice. It was enlightening. To say I wrote this book for the fun of it, when there are much nobler reasons to choose from, is no minor confession. A more impressive reason would be to raise awareness about the mental health crisis in the veterinary profession, to remember all those animals and people whose lives intersected so intimately with my own, to celebrate the incredible relationships between pets and their owners that I get to witness every day. Those things were all part of it, of course, but writing this book was a joy. I hope the reading of it gives even a fraction of that pleasure.

Thank you, as always, for tagging along

x

The thing about books and publishing, I’m realising (as possibly are you), is that it takes time. Time is a slippery thing, stretching and contracting like the calves of a ballet dancer but on a quantum level. Having fun? It flies. Waiting for a dose of pain medication? It drags. Anticipating feedback on the last 15 000 words of a book? Time goes to yoga, stretches its length into a downward dog that defies measurement. That’s where I am. Tucked in the angle of Time’s hip, trying to breathe deeply while it leans into Pyramid pose.

Were the 15 000 words any good? I hope so. I loved writing them, even the one chapter which made me cry so much I had to hide my red eyes from my children. It wasn’t planned but, actually, in retrospect, I had to go there. Alastair McAlpine’s Prescription: Ice Cream opened my eyes to how far heart and honesty can take a story. He, a palliative care paediatrician, doesn’t flinch from the truth, no matter how painful. I loved Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt, but Alastair took the medical memoir genre, made it South African, and gave it a pulse of its own. 10/10 recommend. If I can achieve even half of what he did with my book, I will be very proud.

In the meantime, a couple of other exciting and surprising things happened with the words. Firstly, Album Magazine, an audio magazine of short stories, has been released on more than a hundred streaming platforms including Spotify, Amazon, Apple and YouTube Music. There are six stories in the first issue, including one of mine.

Here’s the link if you would like to have a listen:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=COP4JUkLafk&si=QM3jBb-bVX5c7N6nf

I love the idea of stories being accessible in the same way as podcasts or music, and it was so cool to hear the interpretation of the voice actor and composer. Jojo Moyes once spoke about how mind blowing it was for her to step onto the movie set of Me Before You and watch her character, Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), come to life before her eyes, walking through fake rain. I cannot even imagine how trippy that must be but it was fun to hear my teenage antagonist nuanced by a professional narrator, especially because he did such a good job.

Secondly, a poem of mine finally made it into an anthology! I’ve written a fair amount of poetry over the years, and they’ve mostly been thrown into the void without an echo. This poem, If You Could Have Sex With Any Song, was an expensive one because I was in such a rush to write it down that I reversed our car into the garage door. The poem was longlisted for the Winchester poetry prize out of more than 2000 entries, but, sadly, did not make it into the prize money to redeem the cost of car repairs. However I did stalk the other long-listers extensively and they were almost all Real Poets, which felt like absolution. I had no idea that so many people were poets by profession. There was in fact a whole roomful of them at the prize giving, which was sadly a bit far away for me to attend, but I do have my copy of the anthology arriving from the UK in December, and a tote bag which says Winchester Poetry Festival, and, according to my sister, a notebook. I have a strong suspicion that the tote bag and notebook will become immediately two of my most prized possessions.

I’ve attached the poem below. I feel the need to say that, to the half of my Substack followers who are here for all kinds of writing, this is for you. To the other half, here for the book and its updates, I’m sorry. If you loathe this poem, I can assure you that my older brother would too, if he ever reads it (I hope he never does).

I get the book back in December for another round of edits. At the moment, the title is set to be Unleashed: Textbooks, Tinder and other unreliable tools for the everyday vet. Let me know your thoughts! And as always, thanks for tagging along xx

If you could have sex with any song

I’ll go first..

Come Back

by Pearl Jam -

that song probably hasn’t

showered in days but still

I’d lean into those calloused hands,

close my eyes as Eddie

Vedder breathes down my neck,

his voice rough as unshaven skin.

That song tastes of cigarettes but still

at 3 minutes 40 the guitarist

starts doing something

with his fingers,

teasing out a rhythm

with the kind of strum

that can’t be taught.

That song,

that song is leather

and graffiti and bad news and still

the hum of bliss and sound

and girl as notes drift over hips

and he rocks

he rocks

my world.

It’s taken me a while to get to this email because I figured, if enough time passed, I might be able to write it in a way that sounds cool and casual, rather than hysterical and frantic. I’ve tried. I’ve waited. It’s not happening. So I’m just going to say it, without CAPs or exclamation marks, and hope for the best.

I got a book deal. With Pan Macmillan. I could talk about my heart bursting and cup runnething but honestly what it feels like is that a giant helium balloon is trying to fit inside my chest. And it’s singing. I keep expecting to wake up and it’s all a dream but then my alarm keeps ringing, and there’s lunchboxes to be made and nappies to be changed and it seems suspiciously like real life. But with a book deal.

I’ve got some editorial feedback to work on - mostly just filling in gaps. This has been quite fun so far. They want more info on my parents (two of my favourite subjects) and more dirt on the ex-boyfriend or two who come up (may they prepare for a long, slow burn). In the meantime, Pan Mac is working on the cover (!!!!) Then in December I see the manuscript again for another round of edits; in March I read proofs to check for errors; and then I panic all the way til May 2026 when it comes out. Get this. It will be in EXCLUSIVE BOOKS. I’m sorry, I tried to say that without CAPs but it didn’t work.

Anyway, that’s my news. Unfortunately, I can’t share more extracts from now on. But thank you for reading my words. It has felt like having a private team of cheerleaders at my back. You may not have pom poms and tight outfits (although this is encouraged), but when I think about what the number means, and how it would feel if 340 people were gathered in a room to listen to or read something I wrote, well, the helium balloon strains at its latex. That sounded far more sexual in print that it did in my head.

There are actually a couple other exciting things ahead with other bits of writing, so I’ll share those when I’m allowed.

In the meantime, thanks for tagging along

xx

P.S.

The working title is Doing Little: Textbooks, Tinder and other unreliable tools for the everyday vet. But it’s probably going to change. If you have any ideas please let me know!

P.P.S.

This is me trying to get an “author pic” with my dog, Indy. She has no idea why we’re so happy but she’s fully on board.

Onderstepoort taught us a method for delivering bad news. Take the owner to a quiet room. Talk through what happened. Explain the efforts to treat or resuscitate and how those efforts panned out. Only then should you get to The Real Bad News. Don't hug, they said. If you need to, give a wrist squeeze. Pretty cold, but I get it. No one wants their vet to be unprofessional or catalyze a public breakdown. But a wrist squeeze? No. I tried it once. Felt bracing enough to be almost an act of violence. The owner's eyes widened because not only did they have a terminal pet but also a psychopath hanging onto their arm.

On a smaller scale, publishers have a similar method. The nonfiction department at Penguin SA were lovely. They explained how book sales are declining and how they are having to turn books down that they would happily have published in the past. But from the first few words of the final email - “Thank you for your submission...” - I knew I was being lead to a quiet room.

Even so, the manuscript made it through rounds of readers all the way to being presented by the managing editors at the acquisitions meeting, which is where marketing and finance get involved, so it did really well. I’m proud that it got to that point. Also I had done some “defense visualization” so I had steps to implement immediately:

1. Make hot chocolate – a good first step in general

2. Buy new pajamas – retail therapy is a thing

3. Go for a walk - because you can push a pram and cry at the same time (follow me for more parenting hacks)

Anyway there are a few other great publishers in SA so there is hope, and if not, fun was had.

I'm going to post an extract today from a time when I worked at a small village in the UK, but first I need to share the beginning of a poem called Moose, by Gareth Writer-Davies.

Moose

zen masticator of the woods

a cow

made from spare parts

antlers

that could hang twenty hats

I mean! I will never think of a moose the same way. Here's my chapter.

As always, thanks for tagging along xx

The day was nearly over. Long shadows had crept up the gravel driveway outside and doused the parking lot in darkness. I was wiping down the consultation table and already thinking about dinner when headlights swept in a wide arc across the window. I hoped it might be someone just picking up a bag of food but a few minutes later a message popped up on the consultation screen:

“Clara” Fielding: Lump.”

I sighed, rifled hopefully through my handbag but there was only an empty wrapper floating at the bottom of it. Dinner would have to wait.

Clara was bright and cheerful and didn't have any objections about an evening visit to the vet. The man trailing behind her seemed less keen. He was middle-aged, wearing a suit, and stared morosely around the room while I examined her. When I asked Mr Fielding about Clara's appetite and energy levels at home he told me she was fine. That was all he said. Fine. Twice. I wondered idly if he'd be the type to write HBD in a birthday card. If you lent him your car for a month would he thank you in an email that said “Tx.” I glared at him, just in case.

The lump was just behind the corner of her jaw. It was the only abnormality I could find when I examined her besides a slightly elevated temperature which didn't tell me much. Temperature is one of the most important values in any clinical exam but it isn't always significant. It's like a capital X at the end of a message. Sometimes a capital X positively pulsates with lust. It's worthy of a screen shot to your best friend with at least five brinjal emojis. Other times it means absolutely nothing. How are you supposed to tell the difference? I guess it’s the context. Of the message. Of the dog. All of it.

Usually a dog's temperature will be below 38.5°C but if they're excited or nervous, from say, getting into the car and hanging their head out of the window and watching a cat in the waiting room and then, oh, seeing the actual vet, it can spike enormously. If a Labrador comes in bouncing off the walls and spraying slobber in every direction and detecting the joy of life like only Labradors can, a temperature of 40°C may be purely incidental. You could call it joy fever.

Clara wasn't showing that kind of exuberance but her temperature was only mildly elevated. So I figured it was probably an incidental capital X, like one at the end of a message from your great aunt or an old school teacher who doesn't know any better. The lump was firm and not painful. Clara gave no indication of discomfort when I felt it except to swallow, which could have been from feeling awkward at having a stranger up in her face.

Mr Fielding cleared his throat. He seemed slightly impatient in a way that made me wonder if he had somewhere else to be. He checked his watch a few times while I listened to Clara's heart and lungs so that I was tempted to point out the large clock on the wall to save him the bother. Unfortunately for him there's no obvious diagnosis for a lump in the neck so there was no magic injection I could give Clara to make it go away. I wished there was so that I could send them on their way and finally go find something to eat. I thought briefly about ordering in, maybe the Indian place in the village, a Naan bread would sort me out; then turned to Clara's owner.

“There are a few things that could be going on here. I'd like to draw a few cells out of the lump so that I can look at them under the microscope,” I told him. “I can do it right here if you can just hold her for a second, it's only a little needle prick.”

He didn't say anything or move towards Clara so I continued.

“It could be a few different things. There are lymph nodes in that area that can increase in size because of an infection or even cancer. It could be a salivary gland that has become blocked. It could be an abscess or a foreign body that has got lodged there. Sometimes if a dog chews a stick a splinter enters that area from the mouth and it can cause a swelling that looks like this.”

Because he wasn't saying anything I was starting to vomit information all over him. I tend to do that. I recognized it happening so I closed my mouth before I could spew out any more facts, shutting off the flow of projectile babble. Maybe he needed a moment to process. I held the needle and syringe and waited. My stomach grumbled.

He just looked at me.

I began to wonder if there might be some kind of communication block so I spoke again more slowly, putting emphasis on every syllable. “It could be a few different things.”

Another silence. I felt a prickle of panic. Premature, maybe, but South Africans are nothing if not vigilant. Could something be a bit off here? The lump was a nice touch, but could it all be a ruse? Covering up sinister intentions as the rest of the veterinary staff drifted off home for the night?

The stethoscope felt hot on my neck. I tried to remind myself that I was in a country village with one pub and one church and daily headlines which focused on schoolboy rugby, but I couldn't deny my instincts. These villagers were odd. Take away the mince pies and the weather talk and what was left? I wondered if his house had a basement. Not one to go down without a fight, I was scanning the room for a potential weapon when he finally spoke.

“Do you think,” he sounded hesitant but I was so relieved to hear his voice that I nodded at him as if watching him take his first steps. “Do you think it could be...” He paused again and I gave him the friendliest and most approachable expression I could muster.

Go on, my eyes beamed at him. You can do it.

He shuffled his feet and then looked at me intently. “Do you think it could be an ectopic pregnancy?”

I felt my eyebrows pucker together before I could stop them but I managed to seize the corners of my mouth by biting down hard on my cheeks.

“No.” I said simply. “Not that.”

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a foetus develops outside the uterus, usually in the tube leading from the uterus to the ovary. It generally happens because the fertilised egg moves too slowly on its short journey from the ovary to the uterus and stops prematurely. It does not happen because it's switched on sport mode and decided to go on a road trip around the body.

I stared at him and imagined the miraculous journey those cells would have to take to reach the lump in Clara's neck. I imagined them whooping while they boarded the trans-Clara express, ready to pioneer a new life. Almost biblical, it would make the great migration look like a skip across the park and swallows crossing oceans seem as if they were just taking the scenic route to the grocery store. The fact that I managed to keep the roar of laughter coiled up tight inside my chest is something I still marvel at. It was only later, grinning into my Naan bread, that the giggles began to bubble out of me.

I'm not any good at Afrikaans but I can't deny it's expressive. It's the G’s, thrown out of your mouth as if you're hucking up phlegm. It also slips seamlessly into the intensive form. Doodbang. Yskoud. When I think about how extremely ectopic a pregnancy in the neck would have to be, how epically lost and confused, only the Afrikaans intensive form can do it justice.

Waar-die-fok-is-ek-ectopic.

It's the only way.

Penguin Random House.

Pretty nice words separately but together they really pack a punch. They’re one of the Big Five publishers globally so getting an email with PRH on the footer requesting the full manuscript was a rush. I deliberated over my reply, desperate to ask lots of needy questions, but finally settled with only:

“I have attached the full MS as requested.”

Typing that sentence momentarily made me feel the coolest I have ever felt in my life, as if I might be someone who drinks their coffee black and has a meaningful but dainty tattoo somewhere on their body. Since then I have remembered daily that I am not that person, checking my email anxiously and steeling myself for rejection. That was five weeks ago, not a long time in publishing terms, but an eternity nevertheless. It's a tough business. Sometimes I think I'm not cut out for it but as I get older words seem to matter to me more and more.

During the wait my horse, Irish, got sick. He stayed in hospital for three weeks until it became clear that this wasn't a fight he was going to win. Usually I'm on the other side of this. I've learnt to ask things like, “When did you get him?” and “What was her favourite food?” because it opens up a conversation about the life and the love shared between a person and their animal. You can't ever really explain it though, can you? I remember Irish as a gangly gelding 23 years ago, learning to jump over stands of kelp on Hout Bay beach, and going Open against his pigeon-toed odds, and how hard he tried for me always, and how proud he was to carry me down the aisle on my wedding day. What a friend he was to me. How could I plan his death? In his last hour, standing close to him, I could feel a faint tremor in his neck and a phrase of a poem reached me.

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you,

You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, it is within reach.

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,

Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

It is not far, it is within reach. Animals seem to understand that so much more than we do, that death is not artificial or abstract. I took Irish right to the edge of it and he stepped onwards with the same natural grace he always had. I was left behind with Walt Whitman, gone 120 years but still right there, holding my hand.

A little while later another poem found me, this time by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

I like my body when I'm in the woods

and forget my body. I forget that arms,

that legs, that nose. I forget that waist,

that nerve, that skin. And I aspen. I mountain.

I river. I stone. I path. I flower.

I like when I evergreen, current and berry.

I like when I mushroom, avalanche, cliff.

And everything is yes then, and everything

new: wild iris, duff, waterfall, dew.

Beautiful, isn't it?

xx

It’s been a minute! I’m amazed how I always (twice) underestimate what having a baby actually entails. Not the having it so much as the keeping it alive afterwards. I had huge dreams/denial about all the things I would achieve in the months following her arrival, but alas.

2024 was a year of virtually no writing. I blame the lack of sleep but also two soul crushing rejections. One was from an agent in London (does this sound familiar?) who had been very interested in the manuscript and then wasn’t. The other was from a publisher in South Africa for a picture book which went through multiple rounds of meetings before being finally set free. Golly WOLLY, as my four year old would say. Rejections are rough. I don’t have a thick skin at the best of times, but show me some interest and then drag it out for months, and I become a gecko. If the light is bright enough you can see my heart beating inside my chest. So the rejections basically eviscerated me from the neck down.

Luckily, there’s Mike Nicol, the amazing wordsmith and writing guru, who took my limp, clammy hand and lead me back to the manuscript. I’ve started again recently and it’s starting to come together at last. The word count is sitting at 62 000 words of a first draft with only a few chapters left to go. This time, I’m taking the pressure off publishing and focusing on enjoying the writing and everything the book has taught me about dialogue and pacing and other fun things (but really, they are fun).

I want to finish the thing and then see what happens. Even if it ends up in a drawer forever, how many people do you know who own a drawer with a full manuscript inside? (You’re soon to know one more)

Here’s a little scene I hope you enjoy.

As always, thanks for tagging along.

xx

I counted the tablets and scooped them into a pill packet.

“It's only a quarter twice per day,” I told Mr and Mrs Reeves. “But you must finish the course.”

“Can we just crush it up and put it on her food?” Mrs Reeves peered into the cat carrier. Ninja glared back, the end of her tail flicking. She was grumpy at the best of times, even without a urinary tract infection.

I pulled a face. “That probably won't work.”

Unless Ninja had somehow descended from a Labrador or a vacuum cleaner. Cats and crushed tablets go together like orange juice and tooth paste. “Look, let me show you. There's a knack to giving cats pills and it's a useful one.”

I removed the top of the carrier, leaned over Ninja and placed my palm on the back of her head so that my thumb and forefinger grasped her cheekbones. “Like this. Now tilt her head straight upwards, see how her jaw opens slightly. Put the pill popper to the back of her mouth and push the trigger.”

Ninja recoiled slightly and her eyes flared wide.

“That's it.” I released the cat and gave one quick stroke down her arched back. “If in doubt blow on her nose and she'll swallow.”

“So that's the trick?” Mr Reeves nodded slowly.

“Yup.”

“You just blow on her nose and she swallows.”

“Yup”

“Huh.”

“Simon.” Mrs Reeves shot him a look.

I glanced between them as I fastened the clips on the carrier. One face with narrowed eyes. Another blooming into a wide grin.

“Reckon it'll work on my wife?”

“For God's sake, Simon.”

“What do you reckon, Doc?”

“She doesn't need to hear this.”

“Oh she loves it.” Mr Reeves' laugh was surprisingly high pitched. He inhaled deeply and blew in his wife's direction.

I felt my eyebrows jolt upwards. Was it insulting? Yes. Was it courageous? Also yes.

“Pfffffff...” The puff of air lifted the tips of Mrs Reeves' hair as she turned away.

“I'll be in the car.”

The door clipped closed and another giggle ricocheted around the room. As it dwindled into silence Mr Reeves heaved a sigh. “Ah, she'll be pissed now.”

I nodded. “Was it worth it?”

Mr Reeves stared at the cat carrier with a pucker of a frown between his eyes. He lifted it off the table, braced it against his chest, and raised his eyes to meet mine. “Always.”

It’s been a minute! I’ve been progressing through pregnancy with the ease and elegance of a turtle through peanut butter. The last time round when I was called a “geriatric mother” I felt outraged. This time I’ve never felt more understood. So the book is still a little way off being born, it will be interesting to see who comes first.

The good news is that the chapter, Conversations in Colic Season, which won the Pages Prize for non fiction run by Pinch magazine, is out at last. I can finally share it! Also I was invited onto a cool podcast by the very warm and welcoming Carra Walters on her platform Paws and Effect by Dr Carra. Take a look if you are interested in seeing me initially very awkward and then very deep (the two main modes of my existence).

Thanks for following along, you guys are the best.

xx

Conversations in colic season

Johannesburg, 2014

Winter in Johannesburg is colic season. The dry cold turns the grass silvery brown in sparse patches and puts a chill in the water so the horses don't drink. You can pour steaming kettles into their buckets, or gloopy scoops of molasses syrup. Sometimes that will tempt them to suck it down in long gulps, softening their food and washing it round the kinks and corners of their guts. Other times it doesn't and they wrinkle their nostrils and sigh over their buckets, the crisp surface trembling under their breaths.

I'm on call at the equine hospital. Sunday night quiet; the only sounds are the snorts and stamps from the row of hospital stables. The whiteboards outside the doors list mostly lamenesses and viruses - daytime problems. They're not why I'm here. The horses munch on hay or stand with their legs locked, asleep on their feet. A couple stare over their doors to the lawn outside.

A little mare is stretched out on the grass. Large drip bags hang in a cluster on a stand beside her with a thick intravenous line looping down to her jugular vein. The fluids run fast. I check my watch every few minutes, anxious to top up her pain medication as soon as I can. Her name is Honey. She can't get up.

“She's just a leisure horse,” her owner said when he declined the cost of surgery. “She'll have to take her chances.”

After that, my boss told me good luck and left, taking thirty years of experience with her. As her van disappeared down the road silence sank over the yard, a stillness that felt like a holding of breath.

At first Honey had pawed the ground, striking it rapidly while I tugged on her halter. Then, buckling under the weight of her pain, she rolled, yanking the rope from my hands. As darkness fell she lay curled, neck bent and limbs furled; as if returning to a long-forgotten womb. Now she is too tired even for that. Her legs sprawl loosely; her head is heavy on the grass.

Most things die at night, slipping easily into a deeper darkness - that's why it's called the graveyard shift. Hormones and adrenaline ebb as twilight falls and medical support dwindles. Usually between 3 and 4a.m. death comes quietly. It peers over stable doors, stepping lightly through the shadows. It's easy to feel small.

“Come on, girl.” I smooth Honey's forelock out of her half closed eyes.

I press the stethoscope into the crook behind her elbow where the hair is thin and soft. Her heart beats rhythmically but much too fast, a clamour of chambers turbulent with blood. It tells me she's fighting for her life. Any faster will mean the gut has ruptured and I'll hate myself for making her try so hard, for pushing her to hang on when I should have let her go. Sometimes nothing is more cruel than hope. It spurs us on, as bright as a blade.

The night is stubborn. There is no horizon. I wait for a glimmer of light to trace the seam of earth and sky but none comes. I check Honey's pulse often. I release the gas ballooning in her gut via a cannula pushed through her flank. It hisses from the hub with a smell that is sour and sweet. All that is left to do is wait and watch for death. I'll see him coming in the colour of her gums. I'll hear his step in the hammering of her heart.

If it comes to it, there's a place just off centre on her forehead, a measurable distance between her ears and eyes. There's a pen to mark the spot. There's a gun.

Dear God. If you're there.

It's a rare conversation and it never comes easily. Even in my head the words struggle awkwardly against each other. In the end I settle with just one.

Please.

I pull a blanket over Honey's legs and talk to her constantly. I tell her how clever she is and how brave and that she's going to be just fine. One of her ears is pressed to the ground but the other stays turned towards my voice.

By the time the stars are fading I've run out of words. Propped against her, I stroke the crest of her neck, twine my fingers in the crisp strands of her mane. I stir my stiff legs and pull the stethoscope from my shoulders again. I listen for 20 seconds, 40, a minute to be sure. Honey's heart rate is falling at last. When one of the horses in the stable block neighs, she lifts her head.

She stands up just after dawn. If I wasn't so tired I would cry. Instead I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Monday is here - vets in clean scrubs are on the way and somewhere there's a cup of coffee with my name on it.

It's a few days before I see Honey again. She's grazing in the paddock of her home.

From first glance it's clear that she's already picked up some of the weight she lost in hospital. At the sound of my footsteps she lifts her head and walks towards me.

She waits quietly while I check the site of the cannula - now just a small scab in a square of shaved hair. She doesn't fuss while I inject the last dose of medication into her neck. Afterwards she nudges me gently and we stand together, her breath warm on my chest.

There are times when I wish that animals could speak. I wish they could tell me where it hurts or what they're feeling or if there's anything they'd like to say. I don't wish it then. Honey's message is clear.

If you’re not into poetry, this one is probably not for you. The thing is, recently I’ve come across some really powerful poems and it’s hard to keep that shit to yourself. I thought I’d share one of my favourites and then one of mine.

I’m not particularly good at poetry. I’ve sent off a fair number to competitions and none of them have brought me any fame or fortune so far. But like so much art, supply and demand of poetry seem to be uncorrelated. My poem is an old one about lockdown - if you’ve seen it already I apologise. The other poem is by Ruth Schwartz called The Swan at Edgewater Park. It kind of subverts your expectations of what you expect from a swan in a poem, and it took me on such a journey - I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I did.

Wishing you a great week. Thanks for tagging along.

xx

The Swan at Edgewater Park

Isn’t one of your prissy richpeoples’ swans

Wouldn’t be at home on some pristine pond

Chooses the whole stinking shoreline, candy wrappers, condoms

in its tidal fringe

Prefers to curve its muscular, slightly grubby neck

into the body of a Great Lake,

Swilling whatever it is swans swill,

Chardonnay of algae with bouquet of crud,

While Clevelanders walk by saying Look

at that big duck!

Beauty isn’t the point here; of course

the swan is beautiful,

But not like Lorie at 16, when

Everything was possible - no

More like Lorie at 27

Smoking away her days off in her dirty kitchen,

Her kid with ashthma watching TV,

The boyfriend who doesn’t know yet she’s gonna

Leave him, washing his car out back - and

He’s a runty little guy, and drinks too much, and

It’s not his kid anyway, but he loves her, he

Really does, he loves them both -

That’s the kind of swan this is.

That ending though. It virtually makes me grunt in pain every time I read it. My poem is very different. It’s written in meter, with every second syllable stressed. Not my usual style but I think the rigidity of the format does serve a purpose, given that the poem is about a time when unforeseen rules became our reality. Reading it now takes me back to a crazy time in our lives and I hope it catches a little of the madness.

Lockdown

The day sprawls wider than a yawn; a mouth

that sucks a ticking clock; a door that lets

the wind blow in, but no one comes to lift

their fist and knock. The rain outside is free

to run and fall and fling itself through puddles

on the ground. I watch it slide down drains

and kiss the pools below like fish with open

mouths. I push the windows wide to let

it in, and wish a meadow's green would come

for tea. The kettle's on, for goodness sake

come in and I'll invite the sea, eat chocolate

cake with tiny spoons and sit on the

settee. We'll be together outside-in,

the sky below the roof. We'll lean on clouds

with dragonflies, smoke cigarettes and talk

about our youth. The wind will tell us where

he's been, through all the empty streets. A sapling

sits beside a stream, a starfish on his lap,

with fog pulled tight over his knees, and sunshine

on his feet. And when we're done, they'll bend

their boughs, pick up their acorn buds, anemones

and leaves, and say goodbye and kiss me at

the door. The house will pull its sleeves of silence

up once more, and all that will be left

to show they've been are teacups in the sink

and raindrops on the floor.

The writing is still slow. Sometimes it’s helpful to write little sections of description or pieces of memories and so today I’ve included two of those, which may not find their way into the final manuscript.

The first is a very subjective description of dairy farms, and the second is a memory I have from OP. Really, it’s just a bit of silliness. I met some wonderful and inspiring characters at OP and I look back with real fondness, and try to make more fun of myself than anyone else. They were good times.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I tend to neglect description, it’s something I need to work on. And anecdotes like this one, well, I guess I’ll see if I lose any followers!

Wishing you a great Sunday, and thanks for tagging along.

xx

1.

When I enter a dairy I take a deep breath, savouring the scent of hay and manure. I can never understand people who complain about the smell of cows. Maybe it's because they don't know about the digestive process of herbivores, the fermentation through a series of stomachs which produces dung that is almost like recycled grass. It's clean. It's nature at it's best.

And then, if you look around, take in the long acres of pasture and the smooth backs bent to their grazing. If you stand close enough you'll hear the squeak of grass as it's clamped by thick molars and then pulled, with a twist of the jaw or a quick tilt of the head. And farther off the lowing of cattle wandering slowly to the milking parlour, udders heavy, to the gathering pen slick with mud where they wait, tails slapping, thick skin shivering off flies.

2.

It was a bad, sad night and I needed to leave. The captain of the rugby team found me crying as I reached the parking lot. Piet-Piet Swart was generally considered prime hunk material, if you were into muscles and strength and testosterone, which most of the girls on campus were. He led me to a sofa propped against the wall of Old Res and made me tell him what was wrong. I did.

I don't care about rugby at all, but he was the captain right? Basically famous. Pretty much Onderstepoort royalty. On the scale of sacred to profane, respect for Piet-Piet was virtually religious.

Even so, when he put his arm around me, I jerked away. It was only then, as he shifted his arm onto the back of the sofa, with a slowness usually reserved for frightened horses, that I became aware of how I must look. Shivering with cold. Face pale. My brown eyes - in daylight a dark poo brown, tending towards malaena - must have been almost black in that light, and sparkling with tears. Perched forward, my collar bones gouged out of my chest as if they could snap at any moment. I could see it in his face, generations of good Afrikaans stock, straining with protectiveness.

I confess. I leaned into it.

“Piet-Piet,” I sniffed. “What makes you happy?”

It was a low blow. In my defense, I did want to know. I felt desperately sad and the moment called for more than small talk. But still. If we'd been playing rugby, I would have earned a red card.

“I think...” Piet-Piet stared across the parking lot, a frown settling over his handsome features. “I think farming sheep in the Karoo.”

It was a good answer, solid enough that I could almost hold it in my hands.

Since that night my friends have coined the term, “doing the shivering whippet.” It gets brought out if any of us do anything worthy of the label. They can laugh all they want. When Piet-Piet tracked down my number a few weeks later and asked me to the Onderstepoort dance I wasn't entirely surprised. I learnt a valuable lesson that night and I'll tell it to you right now:

Don't underestimate the brown eyed girls.

You blue-eyed babes, the windows to your souls may be the colour of the ocean and the sky and duck eggs and some rare and extraordinary Siamese fighter fish. But just sit in a corner for once and listen to me. Our eyes may be the colour of mud and manure but we have a lot going on. I’m not talking about the song - you know the one. We’ve got more than that. We’ve got skills.

Turns out I don’t manage to write as much in South Africa as I do in Dubai, probably because there are so many other things to do and also because I’ve run into the dreaded writer’s block.

I’ve been told that the answer to writer’s block is to drink and to read which seems like a pretty generic solution to most problems. I’m reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt again and it’s even better than the first time. The novel starts with a killer opening line:

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

It’s absolutely gripping and unexpectedly funny. If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favour. I also have been listening to Billy Collins talk about poetry. About form, and the way a poem keeps turning back towards itself on the page, he said:

“Poetry is the displacement of silence while prose is just a contination of noise,”

a line which made me stare into space and feel happy to be alive.

This week I’m sharing a short story called Goodbye Mrs Alston which won the Wells Festival of Literature prize last year. It’s not vet-related but animals seem to always find a way into my stories somehow. It’s about small moments that define us and what it means to be a hero. I hope you enjoy it.

Happy Sunday and thanks for tagging along.

xx

Goodbye Mrs Alston

Mrs Alston is a MILF. I don''t use the F-word much in real life, but I'm pretty sure that Mrs Alston would be a worthy candidate for a good F-ing, one day when I'm older and know how to do it. She's getting on a little, sure. You can see it around her eyes. They're blue, with a few wrinkles at the edges - call me crazy but I find it sexy as hell.

And then the backs of her knees. The skin is sort of translucent and there's a blue vein slipping down like a secret. I remember reading something about the back of the knees being the most vulnerable part of a woman. The most un-glamourous part. I'm no expert on women but I think that's true. Mrs Alston isn't exactly the type that most guys my age fantasize about, but she has a really nice, soft way about her. Her hair has that silky, clean look and her nails are usually painted, unlike my mum who bites hers like a savage and always has a bit of cuticle just hanging there threatening to bleed.

Another nice thing about Mrs Alston is her fridge. I never turn down playing a bit of Counter-Strike with Dylan because we usually get there just in time for lunch. And today, sure enough, there's a whole spread laid out. Fancy rolls with seeds on top. Cheese already sliced. Mayonnaise in a little bowl with a teaspoon next to it, if you can believe it. Not like at home where we scrape around the bottle to get the last of it out of the grooves, dodging the bit of Marmite that's stuck there like a pioneer in the bloody Arctic. At least I hope it's Marmite.

Mrs Alston tried to give Dylan a hug but he shrugged her off. I wouldn't have minded a hug from her myself but she didn't offer.

“How was your day, boys?”

“Same as it is every other day.” Dylan rolled his eyes. Mrs Alston pretended not to see. Dylan can be a bit of a dick sometimes to be fair.

Mr Alston accepted a plate of food on the corner of his newspaper laid across the table. “No mustard then?” was all he said.

He wears shiny shoes that are pointed at the end, as if they belong on Felonius Gru, and it suits him. At least when Felonius was still a bastard at the beginning of the movie. Not so much when he became all warm and cosy and had the minions on his lap. Mr Alston wouldn't have a minion on his lap if his life depended on it. He has long lines down the side of his face as if his cheeks are exhausted from all the smiling he's done in his life, but if that's the case it must have been a long time ago because I've never seen it myself. Not even once.

When lunch is over I stood up to help clear away the plates.

“Never mind, hon, I've got it,” said Mrs Alston.

I started to protest but Mr Alston cut me off. “It's not as if she has anything else to do.”

There was a horrible silence. Then Mrs Alston said quietly, “Please, Edwin.”

I just stood there. When I finally sat down it felt as if I'd betrayed her. I may as well have clapped Mr Alston on the back and said, 'Right you are, could you grab us a beer at the same time, Love?'

I'm not great with that kind of thing to be honest. I saw a shrink a few times after Dad left and she called me 'conflict-aversive'. Mum said there's nothing wrong with that and anybody who's conflict-versive or whatever needs to get their head checked. But that's classic Mum for you. She doesn't really care about being heroic, she just wants us to get by.

Dylan's room has lots of posters of movies and the odd girlie one. My favourite is one of a helicopter silhouetted against the sky, with the words “Black Hawk Down” next to it. Those guys were something. Leave no man behind and all that. Kids these days have no idea. It's like we deserve a round of applause just for wearing school uniform the right way and resisting the urge to spray paint public property. Like if a teenager happens to do his homework instead of watching porn and eating Cheerios all afternoon he's some kind of saint. Not that it's just us. Once upon a time people built railways and pioneered and believed in things. Now they just bitch about the weather and what's on TV.

Below the poster there's a cage with two mice in it called Spit and Whistle. White mice with red eyes. They always look like they've been out on the bend, eyelids all pink as if they'd kill for a cup of coffee and maybe some paracetamol. Once or twice I've seen them cruising around on their wheel but when Dylan turns up his stereo they hide away in their bungalow.

“Game time,” said Dylan. He's even more into Counter-Strike than I am.

We pulled on our headsets and ran straight into the desolate desert town, keeping close to the sides of buildings and ducking behind old cars. Dylan got taken out early in the first round, and then in the second had a dagger rammed into his back. He slammed his hand down on the table and stood up.

Slayer21 has disconnected popped up on my screen.

“Hey, Dylan,” I called, “Don't rage-quit, we need you.”

He didn't answer. Honestly. Such a dick sometimes. More messages popped up from remote team mates.

ChairM4ster5000: Thanx a lot, mate!

N00bKiller184: What a team player :(

I couldn't try to persuade him otherwise because a sniper started shooting at me from a broken window. I ducked and ran for shelter. Three rounds later we'd managed to get almost all the bad guys and then their bomb exploded and ended the game. We lost. I leaned back in my chair and exhaled. God damn terrorists.

“Hey, come check this out.” Dylan called from the bathroom.

He was laughing. His back was towards me but as I got closer I saw he'd filled the sink and put the mice into it. They were swimming back and forth, then they bumped into each other and circled away. They looked very earnest, their noses pushing the water into V-shaped ripples that fanned out behind them.

“What are you doing?” I said.

Dylan had a huge smile on his face as if he had just cracked some hilarious joke. “They need a bit of exercise sometimes.”

He lifted one of the mice out by its tail, its tiny paws reaching for something to hold, and then he opened his fingers and let it fall. It went right under the surface with a splash and came up with water running down its face and off its whiskers. Its ears were pressed against its head but I could see the water was in there too.

“I don't think they like that, Dylan.” My voice sounded stiff and small, as if it came from a child even I wanted to slap.

“What are you like the captain of the fun police?” He laughed again, then turned on the hot tap.

“Dylan.”

“They're fine.”

The mice were swimming away from the turbulence and some water washed over their backs. The air in the bathroom was getting a bit thin and wished I had my asthma pump. I looked towards the bedroom, as if maybe Mrs Alston would miraculously materialise, even Mr Alston, but all I could see was the poster of the helicopter. For sure those guys never needed an asthma pump. They probably had lungs like nobody's business.

The mice were trying to clamber up the side of the sink but they kept slipping back, and I knew the water must be getting warm. They didn't look hungover any more, just desperate.

“Dylan, come on, let's go play another round.”

He ignored me, blocking the sink.

“Dylan, come on.” I leaned across him to reach for the tap. He shoved my arm but I grabbed the faucet and twisted it closed.

“What's your problem?” His voice was loud. His face was too close.

“Why can't we just carry on with Counter-Strike? Instead of playing with stupid mice.” I thought he might hit me and I felt my face screw up but I didn't let go of the tap. Then he nodded and walked back into his room.

I took the mice out carefully. My thumb was right against one of their chests and I could feel it's heart beating, really fast. I didn't feel so good myself to be fair. I pushed my breaths out all the way, emptying my chest. The trick is not to hoard all the old air.

I suddenly wished Mum was there. Not like right there in the bathroom watching me suck on gas, but having tea downstairs or something. It was dumb because she's never been to the Alstons' house, she's never even met them, but there's no accounting for the things you wish for. It's like dreaming or falling in love, all bets are off.

I took a careful breath then eased a handful of wet mouse into each of my pockets. Dylan was logging on again and in the silence the keyboard sounded like a rally of shots. I didn't sit down.

“I think I'm going to head actually.”

“Oh yea?” Dylan stared at the screen with a vacant look on his face. I saw two little spots of red firing up in his cheeks.

“Yea.”

“You sure?” He looked up just for a second. Then his eyes settled on the cage behind me, the wire trap door still open.

“I'm sure.”

“Suit yourself.” His face was flushed. His eyes looked a bit glinty. I'm pretty sure he knew.

Walking out I was quite conscious of the damp, mouse-shaped bulge in my pants, and I crouched over a bit when I saw Mrs Alston in the kitchen in case she thought it was what it wasn't. As if that's all I could muster.

“Going already?” she asked. “Can't I get you something else to eat?”

It hit me that I probably wouldn't be back here. I might never see her again. A bit of hair had fallen out of her ponytail at the back of her neck and the MILFness was radiating off her like sunlight.

“Maybe one of those seedy rolls if that's all right?” What the hell. The mice would love it.

“Of course. You boys don't eat enough. Would you like some cheese on it?”

“That would be great actually.” They could have a bloody celebration feast.

Mrs Alston buttered the roll and I just stood there. Awkward as hell but worth it just to be kind of hanging out with her. If things were different, or if I was different, I could have told her how pretty I think she is and how kind; and that I don't like Mr Alston's shoes and I'm sorry that Dylan is such a dick sometimes. Maybe if I was some other guy totally I'd take her face in my hands like they do in the movies, our lips really close like we might bust into a kiss at any moment, tell her how bangable she is in a really smooth way, and that I like her nails and her hair and even the backs of her knees. Maybe especially them. But there's no way in hell I could ever do that even if I had ten asthma pumps.

Instead when she gave me the sandwich I looked into her blue eyes and smiled and hoped that somehow she knew.

I was lucky enough to be contacted by a literary agent in London to chat about the manuscript this week. One criticism she had was that the book might be too South African for an international audience. It’s a good point, but also something that I think would be difficult to change and something I’m not sure I’d want to.

It made me think about what great characters South Africans are. Funny. Resilient. Quirky. I’m glad to be one.

I had so much fun writing this scene. It actually had me grinning in the coffee shop where I go to write and at the end of the day, maybe that’s what it’s all about. Also, when I asked Karlien how I could try to rip off English speakers, just to make it fair, her reply was, “You don’t have to try. They’re English.”

Burn.

If you think you know someone who might enjoy the extracts, please share so they can subscribe.

Wishing you a happy weekend. Thanks for tagging along.

xx

Thick beams of steel divided the inner paddocks of the barn. They separated a cow with mastitis from a knot of depressed-looking sheep and a goat with an abscess on his belly. The goat tossed his head at us as we strolled down the passage past him.

The large animal unit is a more relaxed rotation than most. Cattle are stoic. Unlike horses, they don't tend to collapse in a trembling heap. Unlike horse owners, farmers don't either.

The owner of Grote was as far from the hysterical end of the spectrum as you could get. Even the name Grote was an understatement. The Brahman bull was not just big. He was massive, his mighty flanks crammed between the bars of the crush.

The farmer took off his hat when he spoke to Prof Adams, the clinician on duty, and nodded slowly at the bull. “He's not doing so good.”

Prof Adams pressed his stethoscope against the bull's side, sliding it over the thick hide to the dip behind his ribs. “Gut sounds are reduced,” he said. “Is he eating?”

The farmer’s blue eyes were piercing in his weathered face. He moved his head incrementally from one side to the other. “Not much for Grote.”

The G's in Afrikaans are a growl. To me, as English as the queen's favourite corgi, the level of the growl seems to vary according to context. Sometimes, like the G found in grappie, which means joke, it's a gentle sound. It's the sound of someone clearing their throat before they read a poem to an intimate audience drinking spritzers. But for Grote, the big one; standing like a monument in the crush, flicking his tail laboriously against his muscular thighs, the G is something else.

“Hy is 'n groot een,” said Prof Adams, the G sounding as if it was being dragged behind a bakkie down a gravel road.

“Hy eet ook nie gras nie.” The farmer inclined his head. Even the grass got extra emphasis by merit of not being eaten by Grote.

“We may need to consider a laparotomy,” Prof Adams said. “That's where we go in and explore the abdomen. To check for a blockage or whatever.”

“Ggaan jy in daardie maagg ggrou?” The farmer squinted at the immense bulk of the bull.

“Ja,” Prof Adams said. “En eniggiets gggryp wat nie daar behoort te wees nie.”

I stared in wonder. They sounded like a pair of tractors dicing at a traffic light.

The farmer nodded. “As jy moet aanggaan, is dit regg.”

A rumenotomy is an astounding surgery. Prof Adams performed a line block, injecting local anaesthetic strategically along Grote's side and back. After shaving and cleaning the area, he sliced a scalpel firmly down Grote's flank where he stood within the crush. The bull merely twitched his ears as layers of skin and muscle were separated to access the abdomen.

Within minutes, Prof Adams was arm deep. He stared at a place over our shoulders while he rummaging the cavernous depths of the bull's first stomach.

“Daarsy,” he said, lifting out a thick tangle of wire and chewed grass. Carefully, he placed it on the sterile drapes beside him and beckoned for a reel of suture material. He must have seen the look on my face because he gave a small smile before picking up his needle. “Ja, nee. Better out than in.”

I’m a bit behind schedule with the writing at the moment so today I’m just sharing a couple of character sketches. In some instances I’ve combined characters for fluidity of narrative, but these deserve their own amount of airtime. They are two of my favourite people from Onderstepoort and maybe the world so, for those of you that know them, I hope I did them justice.

Until I’m back on track, I’ll only send an email every second week. Wishing you a great weekend. Thanks for tagging along.

xx

Marnus was known on campus as Kuite because his were massive. Not being blessed in that department myself, I admired them greatly. They weren't really calves at all, more like full grown cattle. Not weedy Ngunis either, I mean proper oxen. The type a Voortrekker would call Oubaas and love to show his neighbour.

Marnus was badly injured in a rugby game during his early years at Onderstepoort. He had to learn to walk and talk again before he could carry on studying; maybe that's how he became everyone's darling. Or maybe it's just the way he was.

When you first meet Marnus he'll tell you to feel the drain from his brain. He'll insist. Academically, you understand the bump below the skin siphons off extra fluid. But as you get to know him you realise it also magically dispenses of caution, rules in general and any kind of bad vibe. A lover of life, rugby, blondes, beer - not necessarily in that order - his signature phrase - Hou die gees hoog - is a rule he lives by.

I always thought “cute” was a condescending word, a few rungs below “beautiful,” until I met Karlien. She showed me it's far more than that. Cute is an art form; a bewitching combination of looks and a kind of subtle magic. I've had plenty of attractive friends. I'm very at home in the vacuum of eye contact that comes with walking beside a willowy bombshell, but Karlien was different. Small, with a contagious, gasping laugh that makes anyone within earshot smile. Piercing blue eyes and, when she’s concerned, a frown that makes you want to solve the world's problems to smooth it away. Or at least punch someone and buy her a cup of coffee.

She worked it a little sometimes, to be fair. An only child, a “test tube baby” she'd tell you proudly; she'd never had brothers to dunk her underwater or rough her up in any way. She simply expected men to carry heavy things for her and stop whatever they were doing to give her directions. And they did. Eagerly.

But her charm hadn't become what mattered about her. She carried it like an extra appendage - useful but random. I didn't mind waiting while boys on campus used any excuse to talk to her, nodding earnestly at every word she said. They didn't know the half of it.

Something different this week. I wanted to share a piece of flash fiction that I wrote last year. It was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction competition and published in their annual anthology. (Here’s the link for the book)

Flash fiction is by definition short - in this case the word limit was 300 words. The aim is to deliver something that is thought provoking or emotive and feels complete. I’m proud of this piece because I think it’s powerful but it’s sad, which is possibly a cheaper shot when it comes to evoking emotion. I think it might be easier to elicit sadness in a reader than it is to make them laugh or feel other things like hope or solidarity or inspiration.

The piece is about the hardest part of being a vet. I like how it combines a cold, clinical voice with a subject that struggles to be contained in purely physical terms and which takes us to the edge of science. Because that’s how it sometimes feels.

If you’re reading this there’s a good chance you’re South African, which means you already have to deal with Carte Blanche later. What a way to end the week - thanks, Derek. So I’m also going to include another piece from the anthology which was placed higher than mine and which is so funny and also really trippy. I love it.

But first, here’s mine.

Journey through an Old Dog's Vein

Hyacinth blue. Cerulean. That's what I am. Beautiful, though I stay in the shadows, vampire-like. Just once, I have a few seconds in the sun. For a moment I am a syringe-full of sky, as I pass between dark bottle and dark vein.

The cephalic vein usually, just before it slips into the crook of an elbow. I join the throng of erythrocytes, oxygen-spent, returning to their heart. I fall in line beside them and give even the scurfiest mongrel a flush of blue blood, a transient taste of royalty. I make every dog a king.

Axillary vein. Subclavian. Brachiocephalic. Just words - I know the way. At last we enter the great, beating house, ushered from room to room, and then spill into arteries, moving faster now. I spread my fingers, map out every limb.

When I get to the brain I start taking things. Consciousness first, from the back quarter. He gives it up easily, almost willingly, as if it's a relief to lay down his head. Then down to the brain stem for his breath. This takes longer, lungs reluctant, savouring the air. But I insist and so does his heart, pushing me further, deeper.

Finally, the frontal cortex. Window seat of wonder. I wipe away the place where he hides his ball, lost now, with the dogs next door, running along the fence. There's the park. The way the leaves scatter under his feet, sending up shivers of scent. The joy of puddles.

It's nearly over. His heart slows, trembles. I keep pace, steadying, settling. Is he a dog now or the body of a dog? There's just one more thing, the last thing he lets go.

It's you. Your smell. The sound of your voice. Your fingers in his fur.

Eish. I know. The next one is written by someone called Debra A. Daniel. I don’t know her but I’m pretty sure if I did we would be friends. It’s amazing what she’s done in just 280 words.

I hope you have a great Sunday, and thanks for tagging along.

xx

Grand Canyon Official Form 447D

Standing at the canyon’s edge, I see my ex struggling below. But maybe not. Maybe it’s a bear. Or a clown. Or a clown wearing a bear suit. Or vice-versa.

Although it could be my ex being eaten by a bear. That seems like something that would happen to him. Then he’d lie about it later. He’d make up some story, some half-truth difficult to trace.

“No,” he’d say. “That bear didn’t eat me. We were just joking around.”

“No,” he’d say. I went to school with that bear. Great guy, Gary. Gary Bear. He lived two doors down. His mom always baked cookies for us.”

I look again. Hmm. It looks more like a clown now. Yes, a clown, for sure. My ex was afraid of clowns, ever since that Stephen King came out.

Not that he read it. He never read anything. Not even my stories. He just thought it was cool to be scared of clowns.

Now, looking again, I’m pretty sure it’s a clown eating a bear.

Still, it could be my ex. He’s so far down in the distance. I can’t tell.

“Is anyone missing a clown?” I ask a ranger. “Do bears suffer from coulrophobia? Have you ever been married to a pathological liar?”

The ranger shrugs. “I can’t answer unless you file an incident report,” she says. “Go to the welcome center. Ask for Official Form 447D Ex/Clown/Bear Attack.”

I take one more look into the canyon. There’s definitely a struggle still going on down below. I hope my ex isn’t being eaten by a bear.

But my tour bus is loading up, and he really isn’t my problem any more.

Most books are between 60 000 and 80 000 words long, and this week the manuscript reached a point where it’s teetering about halfway through the first draft. It’s a solid chunk of words now, and the whole project is beginning to feel quite real.

This is a short extract but I wanted to test it out because I’m a little unsure about how much to include from my personal life. It’s tricky because I think those details can help to root a story in real life, but it also feels a bit off topic.

Interested to hear your thoughts so please feel free to share any in the comments or via private email.

Wishing you a great Sunday, and thanks for tagging along.

xx

It was 11pm when the on call phone rang. As always, the bright tune tore into my sleeping brain like razor blades that had set themselves on fire. There’s no sound like it. Not a wailing toddler. Not fingernails scraping down a board. Not even gentle chewing, wet lips smacking. Nothing comes close.

The on call phone is probably what jerked Frankenstein’s monster from the realm of the unliving. It forces the eyes to snap open and the body to lift, stiff with a combination of rigor mortis and existential dread. It drives a low moan from pursed lips.

Somehow, it never has the same effect on Scollie. She merely twitched an ear and nuzzled deeper into the warm folds of the duvet.

“I've got a colic.” The woman was brisk. “It's bad.”

“Okay, where are you?” My voice was gravelly, as if half of it was still lost in a REM cycle.

“It's not a nice area,” she said. “Do you have a gun?”

“Is the horse that bad?”

“Not the horse, the area. Do you have a gun?”

“No I do not have a gun.” The other half of my voice returned with a sharp edge.

“Oh,” said the woman. “Pity. I was going to say keep the gun on the passenger seat in case.”

“Okay, well there is no gun so we don't need to talk about where to put it.”

I pulled on my scrub top and dialled Liam. Colics in the middle of the night aren't fun as a rule, but even less so when they come with a gun recommendation. Liam and I had only been dating for a few weeks and it was a Friday night, but it was worth a shot. Maybe he'd come along. Maybe I could pick him up from the pub on the way. Having a six foot presence in the car definitely wouldn't hurt.

“Sorry, Sunshine,” Liam said. Music and laughter floated down the line. “We're just getting started here, but you'll be fine.”

Scollie trotted beside me to the front door. I bent to kiss her head before slipping out into the darkness. “Okay. Have fun.”

“Good luck, Munchkin.”

“Sure.” Munchkin, my ass. Liam, I thought, not for the first time, was possibly a bit sketchy. Probably I needed to think about setting him free. But that was a problem for another day.

Here's the thing about colics. In the day, they aren't too bad. The horse is probably sniffing at it's food, poking a hoof at the ground, maybe stretching its top lip. The owner faffs. Offers it a carrot. The horse considers eating it.

At night, colics don't look like that. As the sun goes down, the small disagreement between the horse and its gut escalates into civil war. By 11 pm, the gut has won. The horse is galloping towards the big paddock in the sky. It's bolting away from life at full speed and you, half asleep, must leave your bed, which was probably nice, and try to steer the horse off course, saying WOOOOAAAAH WOOOAAAH without letting panic creep into your voice (the horse will know and run faster) and above all try not to get dragged along in the charge towards death.

Getting to the colic is the first step and it sets the tone for the entire exercise. In South Africa, having to drive down lonely, unlit roads at night is not something worth mentioning to your insurance broker. You're probably going alone. Most vets do, especially ones with shitty boyfriends.

The van skimmed over the corrugated road, visible only as a narrow circle of dirt within the beam of headlights. When at last their light swept over the iron gates of the property, I kept the engine running and the doors locked.

“I'm here.” I held the phone against my ear. The bell was only a few steps away, but I ignored it like unsolicited advice.

“Oh good,” said the woman. “Come straight down to the stables.”

My friend, Tess, came to stay with me in Dubai this week. We lived together in Joburg while I was studying and after I qualified, so it brought back a lot of memories from that time.

The highlight of her stay was going to a camel farm where we took part in Camel Hugging Therapy (10000/10 recommend) and a desert ride at sunset.

I know everyone is obsessed with camel toes, but have you seen camel hocks? Under-rated. I couldn’t get over how they fold up and tuck together. So close and neat you could put a hairband around them and it wouldn’t break.

That’s all.

Hope you have a great Sunday, and thanks for tagging along.

x

Only one university in Africa has a school of veterinary science and it's recognised internationally for its excellent standard of education. Onderstepoort is a big campus. There are freezers the size of small auditoriums loaded with formalin-soaked cadavers of dogs, cats, horses, pigs, even fish. There is a private garden blooming with toxic plants. There are barns and coops, stables and kennels, a piggery and a pathology lab displaying freshly cut organs every day.

Even so, some of the most valuable lessons come later. Every young vet, for example, soon learns this useful truth: a shower makes an excellent cage. If a veterinary textbook existed that outlined the benefits of showers, it would mention things like handy dimensions, efficient drainage and secure closure. But the real kicker is the taps. The first time you hang a drip bag over the faucet you marvel at how it's just the right height. You admire the makeshift kennel and pat the sick dog and feel just a tiny bit smug. Because people who say you must never bring your work home with you have missed one vital fact. Home is where your bed is.

That night a newly diagnosed diabetic was in the shower. After the first dose of insulin blood glucose needs to be checked every two hours; but the owners couldn't afford to refer for 24-hour monitoring. Instead, the dog settled snugly onto a continental pillow mere steps from my bedroom. My house mates were used to this kind of visitor and welcomed him in their own way.

“Love and healing light,” said Tess, placing her hands on the dog's scruffy head and gazing into his eyes. “I can see you're an old soul.”

Emma was more casual. The digs had an open door policy when it came to bathrooms so I could hear her chatting to the dog from my bedroom. “Been a bit busy with the pies, have you? I understand.” The tap ran and the sink gurgled before she continued. “No more doughnuts, you hear? Only salad. It's for the best.”

At first Scollie padded along to witness every bathroom check. She stood at the door watching the prick of the ear, the drop of blood pressed onto a test strip. She waited patiently for the numbers to flash on the glucometer. By 10 pm, satisfied that we weren't sharing snacks or going for secret walks, her FOMO levelled out at zero. She stayed tucked under the covers, keeping the bed warm.

Quite a few people wanted to know what happened after last week’s extract so today I’m posting the rest of the chapter. (Spoiler: I’m still alive.)

Thanks for all the follows! More than a hundred subscriptions in the last week. I’m still figuring out how Substack works and how much to post each time - any suggestions or feedback are welcome (comments below).

This week I had to help an owner come to terms with saying goodbye to his cat with FIV. I knew the cat when he was well and full of character. He was one of those cats that would say howzit bru with a bump from his broad, pink nose but you never knew when he might change his mind and casually take a piece out of you. I love cats like that. All these animals that keep us on our toes. They make us sweat sometimes, and laugh sometimes, and we miss them when they’re gone.

Hope you have a great Sunday, and thanks for tagging along.

xx

While I waited for John, Patronage let out a big sigh. It rumbled out of his chest and through his nostrils with such force that even his hooves seemed to rattle on the ground.

I ran a hand up his neck. “You're just a big baby, aren't you?”

Patronage looked at me glumly and I felt a wave of compassion for him.

“Just a regular hooligan.” I rubbed his ear. “If we were in a crowded football stadium you'd be the first to run over a granny, isn't that so?”

Patronage dipped his head to my fingers as if conceding that yes, he might not bother about a granny in a crowd frenzy.

“Shall we just get it over with, you and me? It's not so bad you know.”

I have a good voice with animals. It's meant to lull them into comfort and calm, but sometimes it does the same thing to me. As I crooned we both relaxed into an entirely false sense of security. I was already imagining telling Rita about my masterful horse whispering as I lined up the injection and murmured, “It's okay.”

But as the needle pricked Patronage's skin, nothing was okay.

It was always going to happen fast. Anything with that kind of power, pepped up with adrenaline and big opinions, is always going to perform on sport mode. I don't know exactly what happened - probably because I operate in a dimension where hummingbird wings move as a blur instead of isolated flaps - but I know it was remarkable. A display of agility and strength worthy of all the poems ever written about horses. Even so, for all their grace, when you really get down to the nitty gritty of horses, there is still this one truth: One end kicks and the other end bites.

I found myself stuck in the middle, crammed between Patronage's shoulder and the wall. I clung onto his halter as if my life depended on it because, possibly, it did. Patronage was dead set on sending me to the back end. His motives were clear. Those hind legs were going to smash me into next week or the wall, whichever came first (definitely the wall). I squirmed for the front end. There lay the stable door and my escape.

Pinned in place, we struggled in silence. As his long neck strained against the halter I clutched onto the rope, knowing that the moment it tore through my hands, he'd swing his quarters and I'd be decorating the wall like an abstract painting.

Being kicked by a horse is marginally better if you have somewhere to go. If some of the force can be diffused into kinetic energy that sends you flying across a paddock, that's not so bad. I was trapped between a horse and a hard place. As my hold on the rope began to lose purchase, I felt the passage of every fibre across my fingers. Things were not going well for me. I knew it. Patronage knew it. He knew I knew it. So I did what any sensible person would do if they were losing a wrestling match with a horse - I played dirty.

In between the kicking end and the biting end of a horse is a wiggly bit in the middle. I'd like to say I hesitated. Considered animal welfare. Dignity. Things like that. Instead, I bent my head swiftly and sank my teeth into his shoulder as hard as I could.

I have two things to say about biting animals. Firstly, if you're doing it, you're not winning at being a vet. Secondly, if you must, choose one with a bit of loose skin. Give yourself a fighting chance.

A horse's shoulder is a smooth plane of muscle overlying the scapula. There's a slight crest where the deltoid muscle curves into the neck. Nothing to write home about. Nothing Mike Tyson would ever consider marking with an X. But I had one shot and I gave it my best effort, pulling back my lips and angling my head to grasp a sliver of hairy flesh from my unsuspecting target. It paid off.

Patronage shot to the opposite side of the stable and swung to regard me with huge eyes. He shook his head and a snort tore from his flaring nostrils.

Crafty little bitch, he seemed to say.

He wasn't wrong.

“That's right,” I said, backing away on trembling legs. “Won't turn your back on me now, will you?”

“All okay?” John's face appeared at the door and he rattled grain in the bucket.

Immediately Patronage stomped over to plunge his head into the food.

“Perfect.” I swallowed hard. “But I think maybe...” I lifted my hand to Patronage's shoulder, stroked it firmly to smooth out a double row of tooth marks. All that remained was a patch of damp fur. “I think you might be right about the twitch.”

Thanks to everyone who has subscribed, I really appreciate the support! A lot of vets and horsey peeps joined this week, so I’m sharing a longer extract than usual which I hope some of you might relate to. It’s from when I worked in mixed practice in Joburg and it’s a memory that always makes me smile.

I was so chuffed to win the Pages Prize for one of the chapters. It’s an award for creative non-fiction run by the University of Memphis. There’s a fair chance this book will never get published but hopefully the award will stand me in good stead when it gets to that stage. And also, you guys - social media counts with publishers and agents these days. Every follower is a vote of confidence so thank you.

Please feel free to make comments or suggestions about what interests you, it’s a work in progress and any feedback is welcome!

Wishing you a great Sunday.

xx

Rita, my boss, was not lavish with praise. Even with Vicky, who was clearly her favourite, she didn't dish it out. So, on the occasion when you did get some kind of recognition, you wanted to write that shit down. Keep it in a small box in your bedside table. Take it out every now and then to mull it over. Relive the moment. Not that I did that. I'm just saying.

When Rita called me aside that morning I had a fleeting sense of panic. Was this about my zombie teeth? Had I given too much of a discount to the pensioner with his cat? I braced myself.

“Caity.” Rita's voice was low. “You know that Patronage horse, the one for the injections?”

I nodded. We all knew him. Patronage had clear ideas about injections - mainly that he didn't need any.

“He's...” Rita hesitated. “...Tricky.”

“He is quite,” I said. The understatement of the year. He'd started off tricky when we first stitched up a wound on his leg, but then we'd had sedation on our side. Over the course of daily antibiotic injections, he'd progressed from balky to bolshie to downright mutinous.

“I think you should go.”

“Okay,” I said without enthusiasm.

“You know horses,” Rita glanced over her shoulder to check that no one was in earshot. “I think it might be best for you to do it.”

I nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

It was a smooth move. Frankly, when she put it like that, I felt kind of honoured to be sent off to the most difficult horse of the practice. So what if Patronage was a half tonne of hostility? I felt special. And in fairness, I do know horses. I've lived and breathed horses my whole life. Dogs are great, and I love a dog in the bed. But if horses were smaller, my bed would be full of them.

It's not something you want to go on about because Horsey Chicks don't have a great reputation. At Onderstepoort, wearing a cap that said Out Riding was social suicide. The Afrikaans boys would shake their heads; mutter darkly, horse bevok; and your only friends would be other girls with the same kind of caps. So I picked the sawdust out of my hair. Sprayed myself down with deodorant when I left the stables.

But there were signs. The South African derby is my favourite day of the year. Before the main event the commentator recites the poem, The Horse, and it never goes well for me. Usually around There is nothing so powerful, nothing less violent, There is nothing so quick, nothing more patient, I start falling apart. Because it's true.

If you look at a cow, it's a practical structure. The skeleton is a strong scaffold for a complex set of stomachs and an udder. A cow is a simple, functional unit. Likes grass. Says moo. The end.

Now look at a horse. It's something else entirely. The graceful sweep of neck, the dips and arcs of gleaming muscle, all strong planes and sensitive angles and then the way it floats and frisks – it's enough to make you believe in God. And besides the beauty, the emotional intelligence; have you ever stood up close to a dozing horse and watched how its ears droop sideways? How sometimes, the bottom lip will drop - the inside smooth and pink, the outside soft and whiskered – and just dangle there? And, if you move slowly and are gentle enough, you can take that lip and wobble it? In your fingers? That's a thing. Highly under-rated. I won't try to convert the non-believers, but if you think horses are average I have only one thing to say. You're wrong.

Patronage was a beautiful animal. Big, with a strong hindquarter and a coat that shone like old brass. He knew he was big and he wasn't polite about it. He had a way of leaning into your space when you were near him; a looseness of movement of his head and neck; a stomp in the strike of his hooves on the ground that warned you to watch your step and sent your toes curling up in your shoes. You could tell he was used to getting his own way.

When I entered his paddock he immediately swaggered over to see what business I had being there.

“Hello, big man.” I gave his ear a rub which he tolerated for only a moment before changing his mind and, seeing my tray of equipment, rounded away and strode to the other end of the paddock.

“I'm coming, Caity!” John, his groom, waved a halter in greeting.

“Let's get him inside, John,” I called back, watching Patronage prowling the perimeter of the field. “I think we're going to need some food.”

Once inside, Patronage leaned over his stable door and neighed shrilly.

“It's all right, boy,” I said, but he was not convinced. At the sight of the needle he barged to the other end of the stable and flung his head as if shaking off voodoo magic.

“I think we'll need the twitch,” said John, picking up a bucket and heading towards the feed room.

A twitch is a device for restraining horses. You hold onto the handle at one end, and twist a loop of rope around the horse's top lip with the other. You pull it tight. The idea is that horses blank out any other sensation besides the pinching of their lip. They squint down their noses at the twitch as if it may in fact be the actual centre of the universe. It's not supposed to be painful or cruel, but I'm pretty sure if horses could write reviews on Amazon, they'd score twitches a one out of five, and then complain because there isn't a zero stars option.

While I waited for John, Patronage let out a big sigh. It rumbled out of his chest and through his nostrils with such force that his hooves rattled on the ground.

I ran a hand up his neck. “You're just a big baby, aren't you?”

Patronage looked at me glumly and I felt a wave of compassion for him.

“Just a regular hooligan.” I rubbed his ear. “If we were in a crowded football stadium you'd be the first to run over a granny, isn't that so?”

Patronage dipped his head to my fingers as if conceding that yes, he might not bother about a granny in a crowd frenzy.

“Shall we just get it over with, you and me? It's not so bad you know.”

I have a good voice with animals. It's meant to lull them into comfort and calm, but sometimes it does the same thing to me. As I crooned, we both relaxed into an entirely false sense of security. I was already imagining telling Rita about my masterful horse whispering as I lined up the injection and murmured, “It's okay.”

But as the needle pricked Patronage's skin, nothing was okay.

The voices of doubt were loud this week but yesterday I got some good news which I will be sharing soon!

Today I’m posting a short extract about spaying, and how it felt for me the first time. I love surgery, but there is always an element of tension - the sleeping animal feels so profoundly vulnerable and it’s a responsibility I hope I never become casual about.

Hope it doesn’t make you squeamish. Thanks for tagging along.

xx

The first spay is a milestone. That's partly because even though it's a common, routine surgery, a single slice of veterinary bread and butter, it's not actually an easy operation. Unless you specialise in surgery or have more than two hands, a spay requires a certain amount of concentration and dexterity even when you've done a thousand. My father, a vascular surgeon right at the top of his field, was horrified that vets perform spays without a surgical assistant. It's probably worth mentioning that some vets don't even have someone monitoring the anaesthetic. It's a one man circus.

At Onderstepoort there are nurses on anaesthetic duty and professors walking between the tables, casting their experienced eyes over shaky gloved hands and fresh scalpels. Even so, making that first incision came as a shock, like drawing back a curtain on something intimate and somehow unexpected.

My first spay was Meisie van der Merwe, a lap dog of no apparent pedigree but an abundance of fluff. The really soft kind of fluff where it crosses a critical threshold into floof. She was made of the same stuff as alpacas and baby clouds. Melted marshmallows and feathery snow. Meisie was a floofie.

As the anaesthetic snaked through the IV line and into Meisie’s leg she'd tilted her face upwards to lick my chin before laying her head on her paws and falling asleep. Only minutes later she was reduced to a square of shaved abdomen between crisp, green drapes. The square moved just a little, lifting slightly with each long breath.

As you cut through skin the edges spring apart. The tissue beneath is white and filmy, with spider legs of blood vessels running through it. For most abdominal surgeries you approach through the midline. The linea alba, or white line, is a thin fibrous structure that runs below the skin like a seam from the sternum to the pelvis. You want to cut straight through it to reach the abdominal cavity. It's only a few millimeters wide depending on the size of the animal. If you veer off it you'll hit muscle, which is a no-no. Cutting into muscle causes pain and unnecessary bleeding. Besides not being great for the patient, bleeding lubricates an already slippery situation, obscures your view and, if there's enough, makes you wonder exactly when you should start panicking.

Once through the linea alba into the abdominal cavity, the first thing you'll notice is the fluid. It's kind of like opening a door onto a bunch of organs lying in the dark together in a bath, and you're an unexpected guest gatecrashing jacuzzi hour. A wedge of spleen waits right by the door like a bouncer. A bunch of intestines lie over everything like drunk plus ones pushing their way into every conversation to tell the same boring story. You need to find the ovaries. They're past all the riff raff, lurking deep inside in the VIP section, as far from the door as they can get. You're in the party now, scanning the room. It's right around this moment when you'll remember little Meisie van der Merwe licking your face and think to yourself do not fuck this up.