12.12.12. Which, in the end, was an ordinary day

I must, at last, at last, do the news. What happened on this tremendous date? The editor of the Times resigned; the Finucane enquiry released its report; North Korea launched a missile. A chemical tanker caught fire on the M6; unemployment fell by 82,000; a petty officer was sent to prison for trying to sell nuclear secrets to what he thought were Russians. In fact, they were M15 agents. (Good work, secret services.) In America, they still appear to be hurtling towards the fiscal cliff. There is fighting in Syria and entrenched battles over gay marriage on both sides of the Atlantic.

In my own tiny world, I have:

written book, walked dog, thrown ball for dog, fed watered worked and loved horses, seen family, had conversations, sent emails to old friends, made special green soup, cooked beef, eaten a ham and cheese sandwich, thought about failure, read an old newspaper, only had one bet (lost), contemplated Kauto Star doing dressage, listened to Radio Four, felt quite tired, avoided several domestic tasks, felt a vague sense of achievement, felt a bit useless, worried about imminence of Christmas, looked at pictures of lovely equines on Facebook, paid for the new feed shed, lifted my eyes to the hills, admired the sheep, taken photographs, drunk too much coffee, been slightly behind all day, taken receipt of new winter rugs, typed fast, appreciated the things I have, watched a lovely young man take on a Supreme Court judge, entirely missed almost all the news, had bad hair, and wondered if my mobile telephone will ever work again. (I’m talking to YOU, Vodafone.)

I have smiled and laughed quite a lot.

I have no idea why I did this 12.12 blogging, but I did.

Now I’m tired, and I must make my plan for tomorrow. I must write more book, do horses dogs family all over again, hope for fine weather, go to HorseBack, and try, against all the known odds, to get a little bit more organised.

It’s not a Grand Plan, but it is a Plan.

12.12.12. We won’t see it again.

 

Picture of the day:

The ones who were not here, but live in my heart:

12.12.12. 6.52pm. In which I make green soup, meditate on failure, and still have no idea about the news

By this stage, I have absolutely no idea why I am doing this. I have almost lost interest in the date. I worry for the sanity of the Dear Readers. But I am so cussed and stubborn, and I had promised myself to record the whole day, so the thing must be done.

WHY? WHY? shouts the sane, adult voice in my head. (I am sad to tell you this voice almost always loses.)

There doesn’t have to be a reason, yells the insane, throw the toys out of pram voice. It clearly thinks this is rather a clever answer.

So, on the fingers tap.

I finish work, as always, uncertain about what I have achieved. Early in the day, I get excited about a good word count. Then I wonder whether any of the words are worth a damn, and usually, by bed-time, I have convinced myself that almost all of them are rotten and shall have to be re-written. This is so normal that I would usually not notice it. It is just today everything is being recorded, so I have to face my oddities in print. No wonder I tend towards the melancholy as the evenings draw on.

For strength, I make watercress soup. This is the real hardcore soup, with only garlic and a little lettuce to soften the dark green cress. I add chilli and olive oil for fire and health and drink it like medicine. It is rather lovely, the greenest green thing you can put in a bowl.

I listen to Radio Four while I make it, but still manage to miss the news. I just catch the end of the six o’clock bulletin, which tells me that Rebekah Brooks has been paid something like ten million pounds in compensation for being sacked. I do not understand this on any level. I know, in my bones, that it is wrong, on every level. I am not sure I could explain to you why, without falling into class war cliché, or chicken soup homily. I just know that it is.

Then Mark Steel comes on and is funny about Handsworth. He is making jokes about Rastafari and Birmingham accents and old ladies. He says the word ‘coon’ which you don’t hear much on Radio Four these days. I remember the seventies, when people really did say it, and mean it. I think: the people who shout about political correctness gone bonkers should remember those dark days. I’m really, really glad that people don’t use words like that any more.

As I eat, I read a copy of The Independent from five days ago. I am becoming like one of the crazed old women of my imagination, who keep old newspapers and believe the end of the world is nigh. I am glad I did keep this one, because there is an interesting article by Terence Blacker, about children and fear and risk. Apparently, today’s smalls are being brought up to be terrified of risk, and particularly alarmed by the idea of failure.

Ah failure, I think, my old, old friend.

Failure runs beside me like a faithful dog. Only two days ago I explained to The Horse Talker that the book I am currently working on so hard has absolutely no guarantee of ever being published. She seemed astonished by this. I told her of the four novels and two screenplays and two plays which moulder in the bottom drawer, having never seen the light of day. I never fail to regret those lost words, but I am used to them. They are part of my professional life. If I feared failure, I would never get out of bed in the morning.

I thought of the latest blow, which was out of my control, but a big fat failure nonetheless. I have not spoken of it because I was sad and faintly ashamed. Even though it was not my fault, it felt like my fault, in the way these things do.

There must have been something you could have done, say the midnight voices, which slide into the ear when defences are at their lowest.

I am still in the process of picking myself up, dusting myself off, and starting all over again. It is a process with which I am familiar, but it requires an awful lot of concentration, and effort, and stoicism, and special green soup. Thank goodness for the special green soup.

Thank goodness for this:

And this:

And this:

And the enduring blue beauty of this:

12.12.12. 4.45pm. News, what news? (With added horse pictures.)

Ham and cheese sandwich for my very late lunch, and a good swig of iron tonic, as I feel very weak and tottery after all that coffee and work. I reflect ruefully on my absolute lack of stamina.

I go down to do the horses in wild winter sunshine. By the time I get back, have a quick game of ball with Stanley the Dog, and settle back to my desk, it is pitch dark. I had forgotten to turn my iTunes off, so Mozart is still playing (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik this time), but there is no more rose pink outside my window, only indigo blue sky with the very last black shadows of the trees, and a light shining on the granite wall to the left.

We had a slight field drama. The poor little pony has a cut by her eye. It’s only a tiny thing, and we have been amazingly lucky with our lack of field incidents, but still, it must be seen to. I get water and a special white sort of lint from the first aid kit, and approach the wounded warrior very, very gently. She is a little head-shy at the best of times, and does not like having her ears touched, so this was going to be a fair challenge.

I caught her at once, ran my hands all over her to make sure there were no other wounds, and spent about five minutes just loving and soothing her. Then, I had to get the scary white lint and, if at all possible, the water bottle, near to her eye, so I could bathe it.

In the end, it turned into an excellent desensitising exercise. Here is this nice bottle. NO NO NOT THE SCARY BOTTLE. If you stand still, I’ll take it away. STILL BLOODY SCARY. If you give it a sniff, you will find it is not going to eat you. I’M ON THE VERGE OF TAKING YOUR WORD FOR IT.

And so on.

This is what I like about natural horsemanship. In the old days, I would have thought, oh, bloody-minded naughty little pony; let’s just get this over with. I would have been firm and fast, and probably scared her a bit. As it is, I think: she is a flight animal, and this strange white stuff and weird plastic thing are making her want to run for the hills. So how do I get her over that feeling? It’s by slowness. Patience, baby steps, showing it to her, taking it away, praising every small sniff, congratulating every brave moment of standing still instead of pulling away.

And in the end, the thing is done, and the pony feels pleased with herself instead of alarmed and exhausted.

Of course the irony is, that by the time I get to bathe the minute scratch, it has pretty much dried up and started to heal. But still, care must be taken.

I think: small life lesson, right there. This new technique took probably twenty minutes longer than the old approach. But in those twenty extra minutes was all kinds of goodness. We both learnt something; we were both happy. Just because of taking time.

I have another hour and a half or so of work to do, and then, at last, I can look at the news. Because, apart from it being the twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth, and Kauto Star going for dressage, I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

 

Pictures:

I never have any pictures of me with the horses, and because it was an historical day, I decided this was the time, despite the fact that my hair was a mess and and I was not at all ready for my close-up. Horses are very, very good for teaching one to eschew vanity, although I do still slightly wish that I had spent ten minutes putting in some nice product for you, so that I did not look as if I had just run through a hedge. Ah, well.

Me with my dear, dozy mare:

Finding Myfanwy’s sweet spot:

Donkey ears, as she polishes off her evening haynet:

The Beauty, even with hay on her ear:

Last of the light:

Afternoon sky:

Fallen leaves:

Lichen, because a day is not a day without lichen:

Or moss, for that matter:

Beech leaves:

The last of the hill:

The light had really gone by the time we got to the ball, so these are very bad. But Stanley the Lurcher must be recorded, even if he is a bit blurry:

Sorry about the tenses. All over the place. By this time of day, my writing brain has fled for the hills.

12.12.12. 2pm

I do work. I am quite wired from caffeine, and my brain appears to be functioning at capacity, which is not always the case. Even though I am a little fuzzy on the next part of the plot, I let my fingers go. They run wildly over the keyboard, racing to keep up with the words in my head.

Writing sometimes is like this. I sit down, not much idea where I am going, or what happens next, and the fingers seem to know better than my conscious mind. As this is first draft, I trust them, and let them loose.

And, quite quickly, there are 1082 words. There are 1082 words where there were not any before. There are new, invented sentences, coming out of my mind. I am used to that, because it is what I have been doing most days for twenty years, but it is still rather a curious thing, now I sit and think about it.

The oddness about this job is that there are days when I have everything mapped out, and know exactly what the next chapter must contain, and have a proper plot point to develop. Those are the days when I feel professional and organised. And yet, it is often on those smart days that the fingers stall and stutter and it feels as if my brain is filled with treacle. Sometimes the not knowing, the slight uncertainty, the amateur goofiness, can be liberating; it is then that the words fall out easily, without strain. It’s a very lovely thing when that happens and I never take it for granted.

I listen to music as I work. When my darling old dog was in her final days, I made a playlist for her, in a determined twist of the entirely irrational. I have no idea if dogs can recognise or even appreciate music, but she was fading, and I wanted her to have Mozart and Chopin and Bach and Rachmaninov. After she had gone, I would listen to it and it would make me cry. Now, I use it for work.

Mozart is very good for work. Just at the moment I write this, I am listening to Symphony number 33, in B Flat. I like the fact that I am converting the associations of that playlist from grief to production. It is turning into a hopeful, useful thing rather than a melancholy one.

Outside, the light has turned deep amber, and is stretching into my room, glancing over my desk. The trees beyond my window are made rose pink, and the Scottish granite of the walls is the colour of honey.

I am hungry because I was writing so hard I forgot my lunch.

Stanley the Lurcher is asleep on the sofa. Apart from the Mozart, everything is perfectly quiet and still.

I think: I must record the news. I must see what is going on in the world, on this interesting date. I must not just write the details of my tiny life. But there must be food first, and then time to do the horses, and then a general gathering of wits. (The wits are always scattered after a big writing session, as if I have wrung out every inch of my brain, so that there is no working part left.)

Then, after that, there shall be News.

 

Pictures:

The afternoon light:

This is a terrible picture, but it has Stanley the Lurcher peeking out over a pot of white heather, which I’m afraid must be recorded for posterity:

Where the work gets done:

And what I can see from the top right window there:

The hill:

Light on the Portuguese laurel, practically the only thing in my garden which still looks splendid:

Panorama from my front door, looking south:

12.12.12.

This is a Red Letter Day. It is a day among days. Apparently, this repetitive date is the last one ever. I can’t quite work it out in my mind. Surely it will come again, on the 12^th of December 3012? I suppose what people mean is that we shall all be dead by then.

Either way, it feels tremendously thrilling to me, for a reason I cannot work out at all. I am inspired to blog the whole day. I actually signed up to a thing called One Day on Earth, where they are making a brilliant project, getting millions of people to record the day on video, and then posting it all on their website. This is a lovely idea of human community and I was all for it, until I realised that I only have a pathetic video facility on my ordinary camera and have never been able to work that properly. Instead, I am going to do my own little one day, right here in this small corner of the earth.

It will be like the Mass Observation: an ordinary day, in the ordinary life of an ordinary woman, on an extraordinary date.

I did not start the great day on a glorious note. I slept through three alarms and ran down to the horses with my hair sticking up in shock and lateness. They were unmoved, feeding happily at their new, custom-built, hand-carved hay manger.

I worked first with my small Welsh Mountain pony. We did some gentle ground work, yielding at the quarters and shoulder, backing up, coming to. We did a little join-up, and I had the keen pleasure of walking the field with her at my side. It’s an easy technique, but it gives me the most intense joy, and every time I do it I bless the cleverness of Monty Roberts, and wonder that it never fails. I think the delight of it is that an essentially wild animal is giving you their consent. This feels quite profound to me.

Afterwards, I stand with the pony for a while, scratching her all over her sweet spots, gentling her muzzle, telling her she is easily the cleverest pony in Scotland. She leans her head against me and I feel my heart expand with love.

Myfanwy is, on paper, good for nothing. She is old, and her back is crocked, so she cannot be ridden. All the rescue charities find it almost impossible to home what they call companion horses. Yet, to me, she is good for everything. She has grown into the most beloved, entirely irreplaceable member of the herd. I cannot imagine life without her. Red the Mare would be lost without her small, furry friend. When I appear at the gate, the pony raises her head and pricks her ears and makes a low, humming whicker, and that is worth more than diamonds.

Red gets no work today, just love. We stand together for a while, looking out into the light. She rests her noble head on my shoulder, and I stroke her dear face, and chat to her for a bit. I think of the thing the Buddhists talk about, of staying still in the moment.

‘This very minute,’ I say to Red, who listens politely, ‘is more important than anything. For this moment, I am quite happy. I must not think of the lost ones, of The Pigeon or The Duchess or my father, because then I shall miss this perfect moment with you.’

Red blows gently through her nostrils, as if she knows all this already.

I say: ‘Of course it’s easier to say than to do.’

But for a moment, I do manage to quiet my antic mind, and concentrate on the pure, undilute pleasure of being at one with a horse in a field, on a clear day, where, just for a second, it feels as if I can see forever.

I race down for breakfast with my mother and stepfather. We discuss the continuing row over Kauto Star going for dressage, and the now very public spat between Clive Smith and Paul Nicholls, and how the whole of Twitter is alight with it. I eat bacon and drink coffee black as pitch. The Stepfather, who is not interested in racing, fills out a form from The Dogs’ Trust to sponsor a lost dog.

I take Stanley the Lurcher into their garden for a race around. It is entirely fenced in, so I can let him off the lead and allow him to show his paces. When he runs, he is like a greyhound, his belly low to the ground, his head down, his long legs raking over the grass like Frankel in his pomp. It is a very thrilling sight.

‘Watch that dog go,’ I yell to The Stepfather, who watches in admiration.

I go home to my desk, and write this.

The sun comes out. The bare trees are gilded with pink and gold; the remnants of the ice and snow glitter and gleam. I drink more coffee. I think: 12.12.12. is a very splendid day indeed.

 

Pictures of the morning:

The horses’ field, looking north:

Myfanwy the Pony:

Red the Mare and Autumn the Filly:

When Autumn first arrived, Red did a huge amount of boss mare prancing and leaping, to show who was in charge. She has never been a lead mare before, and she rather overdid it, as if uncertain quite how to play the part. Now, they are sweet friends. Red occasionally gives Autumn a bit of a biff or a bossy pinned ear face, but most of the time they mooch about in perfect harmony.

The sweet dopey face of my lovely girl:

The field with its magnificent tree, facing west:

The herd, with the timber for their new shelter in the background:

Trees:

Ice:

My favourite small tree:

Sheep, looking east from my mother’s house:

The Stepfather’s excellent shed:

Another view east:

My favourite old iron fence:

The limes:

Stanley the Lurcher, with his good boy face on:

And his sweet flying ear:

Observing the sheep:

More limes:

My plan is to return later in the day, so that every moment of this date may be kept forever. Absurd, I know, but I have a habit of indulging my whims, every so often. It was whim that brought me Red and Myfanwy and Stanley, so it can’t be all bad.