FLASH FICTION:IN 1955, I was 14; Christmas began at 5am by being shaken awake. It was an icy morning. I dressed and scampered downstairs to the warmth of the Aga cooker. Father awaited me in the kitchen with tea.

He started his car, while I poured kettles of hot water on the windscreen. We slithered down Violet Hill and up to Cardiff Bridge Road to collect Henry, our blacksmith. We drove to my family’s dairy. Henry had 50 delivery horses to shoe with 1,400 frost nails. I helped the smith while deliverymen waited impatiently for them. By seven, Henry was finished.

At eight, we breakfasted. At nine, we returned to the dairy, where father visited each worker in turn. He wished them the season’s greetings. Often, they were third-generation employees who worked with my family. Then he delivered Christmas hampers to the company widows and drank their whiskey, and I drove him home. At 11.30, it was time for church. At 12.30, back to the dairy; it was only a matter of tidying up, as most of the staff had gone home, but a milk delivery van was missing.

“The horse will have more intelligence than the man,” Father said. “With no traffic on the road, the horse will think it’s Sunday.” And so we drove by the church. We found the horse and van, but not the driver, and I drove it home.

Uncle Robert and his family came for children’s dinner. We gorged ourselves, exchanged presents and played games. At 5.30, I checked the weather forecast with Dublin airport – severe frost – and we had to drive back for Henry to install more frost nails on the horses. At 8pm, after a bath, it was off for Christmas dinner in my grandparents’ house.

This was my first adult Christmas, with 11 uncles and 10 aunts. The ladies wore long silk dresses of bright colours and designs; the men wore evening dress of red, black and green. Presents were exchanged and punch drunk; each man took a partner, linked arms and walked to the dining room singing the doxology. We ate and drank until 10pm.

I was sent to check the dairy. It was a walk of half a mile, down an avenue of beech trees. I had a full moon, and the company of rooks. It was freezing cold. I checked the stables for cast horses. A soft moonlight fell through the skylights. The horses seemed to be kneeling, as if in prayer, and took no notice of me. In the dairy, the quiet machinery waited for tomorrow’s work. I returned to the party at midnight. I was exhausted, cold, and got to sit in a leather chair in front of the log fire.

I contemplated this place and these people; I fell asleep in the knowledge, of how I cherished it, and was cherished by them in return.

Send your Flash Fiction stories, of no more than 500 words, to flashfiction@irishtimes.com