Thursday Sketch

Day is galloping away from me like a crazy horse. Too many things to do to stop for acres of prose. (Are you breathing a secret sigh of relief?) So here is Thursday in sketch form:

Three frosty degrees and blinding sun.

First sudden autumn colour, as if the October elves were out in the night, fixing up the trees.

In the early morning, very small relation is feeding the chickens. His mother, very gently: ‘Perhaps they might like more than one grain at a time.’ This is taken under advisement.

Mare in her most atom-still, dear, deep content. My heart expands, as always.

Up the road, to the Interesting People. It’s my HorseBack UK day. This involves, as now becomes routine: jokes, teasing, extraordinary stories, raw honesty of a kind you don’t see every day, fine horses, fine horsemanship, a man in a cowboy hat doing sliding stops, a sense of something remarkable being done in the quietest way. No fanfare here, nor should there be, although, as always, when I come back I want to hang out more flags. (Or rather shout from the rooftops and tell every single human I know.)

Nicest undeserved compliment of the day: ‘I’m certain Tania speaks Italian.’ Sadly, I don’t. I love that someone would assume I did. Felt a tiny bit swaggery after, which I had to tamp down fast.

Meet two truly excellent pigs, pigs fine enough to feature in a PG Wodehouse novel.

Contemplate difficult decision, which I still cannot make. Pros and cons circle in my head like antic starlings.

Logistics, logistics, and damn logistics. They are for a good and lovely thing, and I am getting generous help from all sides, but oh I do loathe logistics.

To take my mind off them, I reflect on kindness. The extended family is giving unwarranted buckets of it at the moment. It is a good, true thing, and I feel acutely grateful for it.

Refuse to address the fact that President Obama was not terribly good in the debate last night, by all accounts. I love watching him be marvellous, not halting. Invent a convoluted idea that he had been low-key on purpose, as part of some brilliantly cunning strategic plan. Perhaps voters do not want a shiny show horse who can dazzle with debating dexterity, but a serious fellow who will get them a job.

Try to think of some coruscating sentence with which to bring this post to a galvanic end. Fail. Decide that learning to live with failure is another of my vital life lessons. Wonder at my absurd ability to rationalise.

 

Some very quick pictures:

Red, mooching:

Myfanwy and chicken:

Autumn the Filly:

Most noble Pigeon:

Return of the beech avenue:

Hill: