Friday 15 February 2013

Tiredness and sweetness.

I have officially hit the wall of exhaustion. Boof, bash, whack, bam I go, as I barrel into it. Whoomph, I exclaim, as I fall, rueful, to the floor.

I have got into a bad habit of having slightly less sleep than I need, over a sustained period. As I motor into middle age, I see sleeping as wasted time, even though I know it is essential. I want to be up and thinking. I want to cram vast amounts into too little time. Eventually, the repo men come banging on my door, and I have to pay up on my sleep debt.

I slept through THREE alarms this morning. My mother even had to send a little email to make sure I was not dead in a ditch. (This is her, and my, default assumption.) In the end, I shuffled down to the horses, shamefully late.

I was really not going to talk about my mare today. Not after putting you through yesterday’s endless declaration. But she is clearly on a one-woman mission to bring adorableness to hitherto unperceived levels. When I arrived, she was fast asleep in the snow. She was lying down, eyes shut, her velvet muzzle resting delicately on the whiteness. She had clearly drafted in her two deputies, and they were on watch, either side of her, like sentries. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

I walked over very quietly, and sat down beside her, cross-legged. She opened one drowsy eye, put her head in my lap, and fell back to dozing. We sat there for twenty minutes, breathing gently in time. It was beyond words.

As I mooch around the Facebook, I see a lot of pictures of people doing things with their horses that I think I shall never be able to do. Sometimes this fills me with regret. Then I think: no matter. Red and I are not perfect, but we’ve got a little thing going. It’s touching and true; it won’t win prizes, but it’s enough for me. One of the things I thought would probably never happen was this kind of physical closeness. I see people lying with their horses and think that won’t be me. She is a thoroughbred after all; she is the lead mare; she is active and filled with high blood. But today IT WAS ME. I felt like dancing.

As I sat there, I thought of the people out in the world, who are living important lives. They are making money and getting awards and oh, I don’t know, doing lauded, vital things. This was just one flaky woman and a sleeping horse, in a snowy field. But it felt as vivid and profound and brilliant as if I had Stockholm on the telephone.

 

Today’s pictures:

After days and days of freezing dreich, the sun came out, and the temperature rose, and there was gentleness and spring in the air:

15 Feb 1

15 Feb 2

15 Feb 3

15 Feb 4

15 Feb 5

15 Feb 6

15 Feb 9

I was so excited by the sight of actual green grass, I took a picture of it. Even though this is not the most aesthetically pleasing shot in the world, I had to include it. GREEN GRASS:

15 Feb 10-001

And this is my first sight of the herd. Look at those serious sentries, protecting their Dear Leader:

15 Feb 10

I’m sorry, but really. Did you ever see anything more sweet?:

15 Feb 14

Autumn the Filly was looking very pretty in the sun:

15 Feb 15

Myfanwy the Pony is taking furriness to new heights. Her coat is so soft and fluffy that the Horse Talker and I are quite convinced that grooming elves come and brush her in the night:

15 Feb 16

Autumn, relieved of duty, dozing in the warmth:

15 Feb 16-001

And my lovely Red, having got to her feet, has another forty winks:

15 Feb 16-002

Stanley the Dog, however, is On Patrol:

15 Feb 20

No rest for him. This is his ‘Look, Ma, I’m racing about like a crazy horse’ face:

15 Feb 21

Although after a rather exciting day, he is now flaked out beside me.

Completely forgot to take the hill. It shall return tomorrow.

Too shattered to do a copy edit. Can only hope that there are not too many howlers. I rely on your kind Friday forgiveness.

Oh, and meant to say: there have been a lot of very lovely comments lately. I try to reply, but then run out of time. So I just wanted to send out a big collective thank you to the Dear Readers. You are being very, very dear indeed.

3 comments:

  1. You're such a student regressive...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a sort of version of your sleep deprivation series, but mine stars an inability to sleep in on the days when I actually can. Either a manmade cacophony outside the house, a hovering helicopter, a cellphone I forgot to turn off, or a cat squelching up a hairball on my computer keyboard yanks me out of bed much too early on my days off. That, or my own brain... if I rise to just a certain level of consciousness, my body will vote immediately for a return to slumber, but my brain will immediately start a list of all the things I should really be doing, which won't get done if I'm a lazy lima bean and stay in bed. Brain usually wins, but body feels rebellious all day. I miss the days when I could really really SLEEP.

    ReplyDelete

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