Do you all know the story of Mathilde? Why she was important to me? I shall tell it again, since I like it so much. And since it is connected to yesterday’s history lesson.

When I first started going to the playground Mathilde was very shy. Really shy. She was scared of people. If you tried to touch her she would just run away. Luckily I had time. And bread. So I would hold out the bread and while she was eating from it I could touch her. And gradually she got used to me. And started to tolerate being touched, even without food. Like this picture. I still remember what a big victory it was to be able to get close to her like that.

And then the proudest day, when Per told me that she didn’t trust anyone else like she trusted me. That was before I knew Per. He didn’t say it because we were friends. He was just stating a fact. Mathilde trusted me more than anyone else. How amazing is that? It was important to me. I was helping Mathilde get more confident. And she was helping me get confident. I had no self confidence at that point. But here was something I was good at. Here I had some worth. Mathilde helped me see that. I got very confident around the goats. And that translated over to the humans. And got me started on the path to where I am now. With friends at the playground, working there. Being someone. And by the end, before she was sold, Mathilde was perfectly “normal” too. She was almost as confident as Mads! And that’s a lot, hehe. She would walk right up to people to see if they had food. She would stand her ground.

And she would let me hug her. Hug her tight. If I had tried that in 2004 she would have panicked and ran away. She changed a lot. And she changed me. And that is why she was a very special lady.

They sort of all had their little special meaning to me, the goats. Mads was.. well Mads. Unstoppable and lovable. So much fun. And Mathilde was special for the shyness bond. And Magnethe was the first goat kid I ever saw. She was so utterly adorable and cute. And the first animal I really saw grow up like that. I loved them all for their own reasons. And still love them, of course. Even though Mathilde is gone.

What is Vanilje’s special reason? Maybe that she is Mathilde’s kid. She is the little one. When Mads and Magnethe bully her around then I feel like I have to watch out for her a bit. Because Mathilde would have wanted that.

So there you go. A little extra history from the playground. Actually, come to think of it there is more. Long before 2004. When I was a kid. The playground has always been there. Always in my lifetime anyway. As I said, I had no relationship to animals when I was a kid. But sometimes a group of boys from the neighbourhood would go up there. To ride on the “moon cars”. I have a vague memory of being a little afraid of the place. Because you could encounter sheep or other animals walking around freely. I really wish my parents would have introduced animals into my life. I was even scared of going to the park on the other side of the road from the playground. Because people would walk their dogs there. Unleashed. It terrified me. It wasn’t until I met Skye’s dog, Sascha, that things started changing for me. Do you all know Skye? I have been writing for so long that it’s hard to keep track of who has been reading and for how long and how much everyone knows. Maybe I should make a sequel to the Introductions & Story So Far entry. Or write an autobiography. You would all come to the booksigning, right?

Oh, another thing I remembered. The dream from yesterday. The BOB dream. I have been watching my Seinfeld season 7 DVDs. And the night before that dream I watched The Rye episode. Which features several ex-Twin Peaks cast members. I find it fascinating. It can’t be coincidence that Bob appears in my dream after I saw that episode. How your subconscience picks up things like that and it affects your dreams. Neato.

Let’s finish off with some pictures from today’s playgrounding.

The unstoppable Mads-bomb. He was two years old when I started going to the playground. So he must be nearing five years now. Wow. I really gotta remember to ask when his birthday is. If they know it.

And Magnethe. She will be two years old in a couple of months.

When it’s not so cold that the goats stay inside then I usually sit there on the bench or I put some hay down in the corner and sit up against the fence. So imagine me sitting there in the corner, under Sille…

And suddenly there is a giant horsehead looking down on me. Heh. She wanted to take a bite out of my bag there. Instead I scratched her for a while. Her chin is so soft! Or maybe it’s actually her lip? Either a giant lip or a normal chin. But it was so soft. Cute.

That’s all. Any other history lessons needed?

PS. Aah, just browsing old pictures… Look at Mads. He’s too great.

PPS. Hey, look at this picture. That’s Kurt and Alice. And the guy with his back turned to me? That’s Crazy Chicken Guy. The guy who comes and talks to the chickens. He’s a nice guy. Bok bok!

PPS. Aww Magnethe climbing my arm

Damn, I have had so many good times there.

So, the Debster, as I like to call her, asked how long I have been going to the playground…

What an excellent excuse to go look at old pictures. The first ones from the playground are from 2004. There’s a couple of pictures of the horses, taken from outside the playground as I walked by. And there’s a picture of a sheep. And then it seems that June 16th was the first big playground day for me. Lots of pictures of sheeps and goats from that day. For example this one. Aw lookit Mathilde and Mads, so tiny back then. Hehe. And there is this one. The first time I ever touched Mads. It was such a great feat that I had to have my camera out and document it for posterity.

At that time I didn’t have any special relationship to animals. Never had a pet. Never been around animals much. And the reason I went to the playground in the first place was just to get to take some pictures with my camera. But of course I was soon hooked. I didn’t go there every day, but sometimes if I left “work” (at the Reva/job center) early I’d get off the bus early too and walk by the playground on my way home. Sometimes I’d stop in Favorit and buy some bread. And then feed it to then animals. Like in this picture. Usually a long piece of bread so I could hold it out and let them eat from it. I didn’t dare to let them eat straight from my hand yet.

And I was starting to get really smitten with Mads. I would thrill at his escapades. Like this one. He’d jump up on fences all the time. He probably couldn’t even do that today, too wide and heavy now hehe.

I was still just a casual visitor back then. Maybe saying hi to people once in a while, but not really talking, not really knowing anyone. Didn’t even know the names of the animals. I was too shy to ask. I called them Blackie and Kees instead of Mads and Mathilde.

It slowly progressed from there. Spending more and more time. Getting to know people. Maybe the defining moment came a few days after my birthday in 2005. When I went up to the playground and saw a little, brown thing standing in the doorway to the goat place. This little brown thing. I still wasn’t really talking to people at that point. So I didn’t know that Mathilde was pregnant. In fact I didn’t even know Mathilde was a girl (yes, by now I know how to tell girl and boy goats apart, but I was clueless back then!). But there she was, little Magnethe. And my heart was captured. And Magnethe became an excellent catalyst, an excuse to talk to people. To get to know the playground and the staff better.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Now I go there almost every day. I work there every other Saturday. I am the big “goat guy” on campus. I know the people who work there, a lot of the kids who come there, the animals. And I love it all.

Here endeth the lesson.

Last night I woke up with a scream. In the middle of the night. What had scared me? BOB had. He was in my dream. I have mentioned it before. Bob from Twin Peaks still scares the living daylights out of me. He didn’t even do anything in my dream. It was just his face. Looking at me. And I woke up and screamed out of sheer fear. And then I lay in my bed for a while and smiled because it’s so silly that he still scares me like that. I am not easily scared by TV or movies. And I love nightmares. But BOB… he still does me in.

I fell back asleep and had weird, scary, surreal dreams. Wonderful. The goats have also been appearing in my dreams the last few nights. They are always very welcome, in dreams and reality alike.