Well, it’s official. My head has now exploded into a festival of snot. It’s not my most glamorous hour.
I forget about colds, and how odd they are. One moment, you have a clear head and an easy chest, and the next every airway is blocked with catarrh and you’re hacking a cough to do a sixty Capstan a day woman proud. Where does it come from? Some odd snot factory inside the body gets to work and produces gunk where there was nothing. I find it peculiarly mysterious.
I’ve been reading this week’s Horse and Hound about astonishing people doing astonishing things with their horses. They’ve come back from brain injury, horrific falls, cancer, broken backs, and there they are, with their beloved equines, kicking on. A tiny cold should not stop me in the face of all this. I am a pitiful excuse of a girl.
Despite my belief in stoicism and buggering on, I totter about, barely functioning. I manage to make soup, write two thank you letters, and watch the 1.55 at Ascot. I stumble down to give the red mare her tea (she is flinty, and has absolutely no sympathy with a poxy cold) and throw a stick for Stanley the Dog, and that is it. I’m done. Finished. I eat the chicken soup and take the vitamin C and do not understand how such an absurd virus can conquer the human body so comprehensively. I just about do my HorseBack work, although I have no idea whether my swimmy sentences make any sense. I do not feel Christmassy in the least although I did manage to arrange my traditional armfuls of eucalyptus and they do look quite pretty.
Ah well, better tomorrow. At least the thank you letters were done. That’s the most important thing. My mother will be pleased.
Just one picture today, of the beat of my heart. I love it, even though the focus is slightly off, because it shows all her sweet peace. I think it is that spreading peacefulness, which streams out of her when all is well in her world, that I love the most:
PS. Thank you to those of the Dear Readers who shared my HorseBack album. It really means a lot to me.
Well I do hope the sniffy nose disappears and the Christmas spirit creeps upon you during a winters night and you wake up feeling jovial and joyous.
ReplyDeleteBy the way do you have any idea of the size of the Chestnut which you have laid aside? It will help me plan an extraordinary piece of turning for you.
P S this is our secret...lol
What are you writing thank-you letters for? Or did I just miss something completely? (Over here in NY, the main multiple thank-you letter inducing event is a wedding... and I certainly think you would have mentioned that!)
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