The cows stopped talking to me when I gave up drink. Or so they now tell me

The cows have started talking to me again. This isn't a good sign. When I first moved here there was a big herd that hung out in the field on the other side of my old garden wall. I remember not being that surprised when one of them started chatting one afternoon.

The cows have started talking to me again. This isn't a good sign. When I first moved here there was a big herd that hung out in the field on the other side of my old garden wall. I remember not being that surprised when one of them started chatting one afternoon.

I think that, at the time, I was finding the whole moving to the country thing so weird that this was just one more interesting local quirk. Not that they talk to just anyone, mind. I remember bringing the subject up in the local pub and getting some very curious looks. I covered my tracks by getting hammered on the local moonshine and climbing the church steeple to howl at the moon for a couple of hours. The locals soon forgot about my cow comment now they had other things to discuss. Clever eh? So yesterday I was just setting a rather elaborate video trap for the intruder who has started defecating in my garden again when I noticed one of the old herd leaning over the wall staring at me. They'd stopped talking to me around the same time as I stopped drinking and I hadn't heard a moo out of them since then. Anyway this big cow suddenly bellowed:

"Oi tosser, what are you doing?" I've always felt comfortable talking to the cows but I thought this a little impertinent. I kept cool and told her about the phantom defecator and how I was determined to catch him.

"I see you're drinking again?" said the cow, ignoring my explanation. "Mavis saw you rolling back from the pub last night and told us that you'd fallen off the wagon. Welcome back," she continued.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied.

"Been busy?" asked the cow without seeming to be too interested.

"Oh yes, everything's going really well at the moment; new show out, really busy and all that," I answered, slightly too enthusiastically.

"Oh really?", said the cow raising a rather sarcastic cowbrow. "That's not the impression the herd's got. One of them saw you weeping in the rose garden last week, bawling your eyes out she said." The cow looked a little smug.

"Oh that," I replied, trying to look nonchalant. "I stubbed my toe on the step so I was in some pain, no big deal though, all better now." I started fiddling with my video camera tripod.

"She said that you were shouting how you hated everything and that you wanted to end it all and that no one appreciated your talent and that one day they'd understand, one day a real rain would come, wash the scum off the streets." The cow was chuckling now.

"I was only rehearsing for a role in a film I've got. A very important role actually, I was just acting, you know, getting into the role," I mumbled.

"Doing a remake of Taxi Driver are we? What are you playing, the under-age hooker?" She was laughing again.

"How do you know about films and stuff?" I asked despite myself.

"The farmer on Poacher's Hill has his telly by the window so we always pop along on Fridays and watch a film through his window. We saw Pretty Woman last night, that Richard Gere, I'd give him one." The cow's eyes widened into big dreamy saucers.

"I've got to go now," I said.

"Off to the pub are we?" said the cow.

"No, I've just got... stuff to do," I replied, retreating towards the house.

"Have one on me," shouted the cow as I closed the front door behind me.

She's out there now. I can see her. She's laughing at me. We move into our new London flat today. Maybe I have been spending a bit too much time down here. I need to spend more time in the city with old friends. Maybe I can ring one up and organise a drink or two? Yes that would do it, a couple of drinks with some old friends and all this cow talk will be in the past.

Might just pop up to the pub for a second, speak next week.