Back next week.

I’m away from home, which is why I have been absent from the blog. I always think I can go out into the world and drive about and do life and still write something every day, and I always find I can’t. There are too many things to see, too many old friends to meet, too many conversations to be had. I am staying with my cousin, and we famously start talking the moment I get out of the car, continue talking each day from dawn till dusk, and are still talking as I get into the motor to drive away home. There is always so much to catch up with, so much to thrash out, so much to define and decipher.

Those friendships are worth more than diamonds to me.

I have also recklessly acquired a new puppy and a new pony, both from the Beloved Cousin. The puppy, who is twelve days old and has just opened his eyes, will come home near to Christmas, and the pony, a little thoroughbred mare who was once a sprinter and then a polo pony, will be collected next Tuesday and get to Scotland on Thursday afternoon.

I’m beside myself.

So, you can see that there is quite a lot of life going on, and since I am training myself to be a realist, I must confess that I shan’t be back in full blogging harness for a week. (I laugh as I write this. Who could possibly mind? What can it matter? Yet I feel that somewhere out there in the dark The Dear Readers expect.)

 

In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures for you:

Darwin the puppy. He was named by my smallest cousin. When I heard the name, I blurted out, without thinking: ‘But that’s splendid, because I love evolution.’ I’m not sure one can love evolution, or even if one should. Evolution just is. But I do think about it a lot and it does interest me vastly and so the whole thing seems written in the stars. If I believed in things being written in the stars, which I don’t:

Part of the herd I see each morning:

My lovely new girl. She was very brilliant at polo, but her playing days are over. She’s going to have a gentle life with me and the red mare, and I’m hoping that the family will ride her and she will be a real communal horse. She loves people and adores children and days filled with company will suit her well:

The clever mamma of the new puppy. She is very like one of my dear old ladies and I’ve always hoped that if she did have puppies, I could take one home. And so it came about:

The herd like looking across the orchard. The mare on the right is one of the best playing ponies who has ever lived in these meadows. She is called Legend and she is well named. When she is out on the field of play, hardened old pros catch their breath and nod their heads in awe and wonder:

The Beloved Cousin’s husband does polo, in about three different ways, for his job. He is a gifted horseman, one of the finest I ever saw, and his eye for a horse is unmatched. That’s why I love spending time with his herd, because they are all such raving beauties and all such very nice people. The red mare came from here, and now my sweet new girl, and, if I ever go completely bonkers and decide I need a third, it is here that I shall come. Looking at this glorious face, you can see why: