Paradoxically Yours...

Brume, Brume

It's not really colder and yet somehow the chill goes deeper.

The aloneness is lonelier.

A strange unease grips my heart and my stomach.

Don't be ridiculous, I tell myself, but despite the aggro - even somewhat bravado words, they still have a wimpy, whimpery tone, even when muttered quietly to myself.

Take a grip, I think, shaking my upper body impatiently. There's nothing new here that you haven't travelled over many times.

Still, the foreshortened view the fog allows is disconcerting - disorientating. Frighteningly soon after entering the paddock gate I was lost. I thought trailing my way through an imaginary diagonal trail straight down through the paddock to its far corner would be the best plan. I thought calling the cows with the accustomed 'C'mon, C'mon, C'mon' would get them started and maybe the fog would lighten, become mistier, and I would be able to trail along behind them, discussing the day with them, as usual.

I'd been so cheerfully confident when I airily told Kanute to take his time getting the dairy ready for the milking, because I might be a tad longer than usual, getting the cows in. Up there on the top of the hill, where the dairy perched, the fog was whispier, the wind eddying it around like a multitude of gossamer scarves. The vision was somewhat restricted. Nothing new; sea fogs were common in our dairying area where one rounded hill followed another, rolling down to the sea.

But here and now - after some time of seeing nothing, despite great eye-widening, blinking, rubbing of eyes and trying with all my might to produce x-ray vision to pierce magically through the vast white-out, the first pangs of doubt strike me. Lost? In a paddock? Somehow the planned laugh comes out sounding more like a sob. I try a complete halt, holding my breath as long as possible - pricking your ears, they say. I hear nothing. No cow moos, no sheep baas in the far distance. Has the world folded itself into a vast white cocoon?

Maybe strike out at an acute angle sideways to my left, in the hope of finding the top fence-line. If I'm going UP, then I must be heading to the top fence... please someone? Still takes forever. Still stumble over tussocks of grass. Just when I'm about to lose my mind because I can't find the top fence either, I swear I see something. I strain my eyes. Was it only imagination; wishful thinking maybe? NO... it's a shape, and for an instant, terror strikes my heart. My eyes all but pop from their sockets, trying to see.

The dark shape looms larger and larger - and suddenly clear as a bell - it's our leader cow - my darling No. 85. And she brushes lightly against me as she passes and disappears into the whiteout again. Dare I hope she's heading to the dairy? SHE IS! THEY ARE! One by one they loom up, pass close by me, and disappear again. I'm not missing the chance for a free guided trip back, so I walk alongside my favourite and pray ALL are coming.

And they ARE!