A small photo essay. Or, sheer joy.

I think, as I get older, that things often turn out for the best. Or at least, better than one hoped when the plan changed. Because I got stuck in traffic, I caught that magical programme on Radio Four I would otherwise not have listened to. Because so-and-so was late, I was in when an old friend on the other side of the world happened to ring up. That sort of thing. Little things.

This has happened in two different ways in the last week, both to do with the camera.

On the third day of Cheltenham, I was contemplating not taking the camera. I love catching my equine heroes and my old four-legged friends forever, so I can go back and look at them with love. But the problem with having a camera is that it does get between me and the actual world. I am so busy looking for angles, that I almost miss the beauty right in front of me, in an odd, paradoxical way. Still, I could not bring myself to leave it behind for all that, and I planned my usual snap snap snap. When I got to the course I found I had left my memory card at home.

Because of that, I have no pictures for posterity of the mighty AP winning his last ever race at Cheltenham. But I have it in my head, in my muscle memory almost. I can still feel my throat grow sore with shouting, the hard percussion of my hands clapping, the flat gallop of my boots on the tarmac as I ran to the winner’s enclosure, the beat beat beat of my delirious heart. I don’t have any visual proofs, but I have that moment with me until I die.

Part of the reason that I drive all those miles is that I love seeing the beautiful athletes up close. I rush to the pre-parade ring before each race, and on this day, without the camera, I did what I always used to do, which is get in right up close, on the rail, so I can smell the beauties. Racing horses smell of leather and air and excitement and honesty. I can drink them in and feel the beauty and the glory and the sheer power, right down to my toes.

I never took a photograph of Frankel, but I can still remember watching him stalk round the tiny little top paddock at York, under the shady trees. I can still hear the excited cries of the small boy who was seeing him for the first time, and the hushed, awed murmur of the crowd.

So that was a lack which turned out for the best.

Today, there was a piece of luck which went the other way. I’d done the mare and was dashing off to HorseBack when I remembered I’d left the camera in the feed shed. Back I tore, to find that the two gracious ladies were taking their ease in the sun. There they lay, as dozy and happy and at one with the world as any horse you will ever see, whilst Stan the Man capered about and the bright Scottish light fell down like honey.

If I had not been so dizzy and forgetful, I would not have seen that enchanting sight.

I did photograph it, and then I put the camera away and sat on the ground with them for a bit, feeling the bliss pour out of their great, resting bodies.

When the red mare first arrived, uncertain and unhappy in a strange environment with an unfamiliar, clueless human, I felt guilty. I had acted on a whim, and over-horsed myself. I had not looked after an equine for thirty years, and now I had a thoroughbred mare, and I could not remember how to do anything except grit my teeth and stick on. That was not enough for the duchess. She became troubled and unsettled and started doing wild Champion the Wonder Horse rearing, fast downhill reversing, and her patented vertical leap in the air at the very sound of a pheasant.

In despair, I googled How to Have a Happy Horse. That is how tragic I was. This brought me to this new kind of horsemanship which now gives me so much delight. That is why I can now ride her on a loose rein in a rope halter, and why she will take her ease in the sun, not even getting up as Stanley sprints and barks and jumps, and some random man in a huge off-road truck guns his way round the field because it appears he is lost, and the fellows up in the building yard make crazy noises with vast power saws.

After everything, I got a happy horse. And because I am a bit goofy and always thinking of forty-seven different things and so forgot my camera, I was in the right place to capture all of that sheer joy.

 

Today’s pictures:

Non-horsey people – look away now. These will sear your eyes with horsiness.

The regular pictures of the early morning. It was bitter cold last night, so the rugs had to go back on:

Then I had to go back, and this was the first thing I saw:

I thought they would surely get up as Stanley raced towards them. He clearly decided this was a splendid new game. They gave him mildly disdainful looks. They were OFF GAMES:

He got bored, and ran off to chase pheasants:

And someone went back to sleep:

They say horses are mirrors of their owners. Looking at this photograph, I really, really hope that is true:

I love the synchronised sleeping:

As you can see, I kept on snapping and snapping, because you can’t have too many lying down pictures. Or at least, I can’t:

Somehow managing to be completely dozy and completely elegant all at the same time:

And then I went off to HorseBack, where the dear ex-sprinter Brook was looking wide awake and extremely handsome:

No blog today.

The party went with a swing and everyone was at their most delightful and I was very, very pleased. The soda bread in particular was much admired. (Admire my soda bread and I am yours for life.)

I came down to earth with a bit of a bump this morning when the poor little Paint filly suddenly developed a severe case of choke. Choke can manifest itself in many different ways, and this one looked at first like impaction colic, which was pretty alarming. The poor body was wracked with terrible spasms, awful noises issued from deep within, and her eyes were black with pain. We walked her round, pretending outer calm, until the vet arrived, but by that time the tough girl had got rid of the worst herself. It’s her American blood, I expect. She has the frontier spirit.

She was checked over and pronounced on the mend and given a painkiller to ease her woes. All this time, the ruthless red mare was making hay in the set-aside, ignoring her poor friend. When the vet pulled up, the duchess trotted towards us with a questing look, then realised that it was nothing to do with her and buggered off again. Then, to add injury to insult, she very, very slowly and luxuriously ate her own breakfast whilst the poor filly was allowed none. There is a flinty streak in that sweet red head.

After all the drama, and exhausted from entertaining, I now have what Nina in Vile Bodies would call ‘such a pain’ (actually a mild stomach ache) so I’m going to have an old lady rest and be quite ruthless myself and not give you a blog. The main thing is that this lovely person is all right:

Goodness, she gave us a fright. It wrung my heart, seeing her in such distress. But she has gumption, and she rallied. Her sire is a great champion, and she has inherited his fighting spirit.

The red mare makes my heart sing.

Author’s note: I really had intended to tell you something which was not about the horse today. But the red mare was so lovely this morning that it had to be recorded. My work is on full beam stress at the moment, with all kinds of pressures. In the midst of the maelstrom, this kind horse gives me a still small voice of calm, and there are not that many people you can say that about. So she gets her moment in the sun.

 

Quite often, I want to be somewhere else. When I am buying boring food in the boring shop, I want to be at home, at my desk, writing my book. When I am running dull errands to the post office, I want to be wrangling with the pacing in Chapter Fifteen, and working out whether that sudden tense shift works or not.

The place where I do not want to be anywhere else or think about anything else or fret about anything else is on the back of my mare.

We went for an adventure this morning. The little Paint had done a majestic escaping act yesterday, due to my arrant incompetence, and had been on a Magical Mystery Tour of her own. It seemed only fair that today they should both go out. It was the prettiest autumn morning and we had the time.

We took them on a new route, a perfect carnival of every single thing that should make a flight animal roll its eyes. Flapping washing, builders’ fencing, shiny tarpaulins, mysterious collections of barrels, men with power hoses, workers in high visibility articles, savagely barking German Shepherds hurling themselves against a boundary fence – not one of these could make the clever girls turn a hair. ‘Ha, HA,’ I shouted, hysterical with pride. ‘See how brilliant they are. All that groundwork really paid off.’

As I was gleaming with delight, showing off my thoroughbred champion through a pristine housing estate, the most prim and proper collection of houses I’ve ever seen, without a speck of dirt on the roads or a rogue leaf on the lawns, I imagined people inside, peering out, thinking ‘I wonder if that mare’s grandsire won the Derby?’ The Paint filly’s father is so famous that people send their mares to him from far and wide, and he has won so much silverware that I imagine his local joiners are in full employment, building new cupboards for the cups. Any silent observers were surely in for a treat.

At this point, the red mare, who likes to bring me back down to earth when I am going loco, lifted her tail and dumped a lovely line of healthy green dung on the immaculate tarmac. ‘Oh, I expect it will blow away,’ said the Horse Talker, quite unfazed. ‘Don’t worry.’

But I have a terrible bourgeois streak in me. I could not leave the mess. I leapt off, told the mare to stand, and left her slightly baffled in the middle of the crescent whilst I hid the droppings under someone’s laurel bush. ‘Compost,’ I shouted. ‘They won’t mind, will they?’ I raced back to the mare, who had not moved a hoof, and leapt on. The street reverted to its previous untouched state.

On the way back, I was in full bragging mode. The Horse Talker is used to this and listens kindly, in quiet amusement. ‘Oh, they are so perfect,’ I bawled. I listed all the frightening things they had walked past without batting an eyelid. I noted that both horses had been on the buckle the whole time, in their rope halters with no bits in their mouths, relaxed and biddable and like the polite ladies they were. ‘You know,’ I shouted, ‘I really think they are miracle girls.’

At which point, a black and white cat shot out from behind a dustbin. The red mare is used to dogs, but the sinuous flash of a feline is novel to her. Neat as a cat herself, she pivoted on her hocks and performed a dashing pirouette, worthy of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. It was a fast turn, quite unexpected, and in the old days it would have had me off. This time, I went with her, not even unbalanced, as if I had asked for the manoeuvre myself. She and I are one person, I thought, happily. She snorted. I could feel her heart beating. She had had a proper fright.

‘It’s all right, old lady,’ I said, rubbing her withers. ‘It was just a cat.’

In the old days, the dial would have gone to ten and stayed there, and I would have had to get a horse packed with adrenaline home, clinging on with more hope than expertise. Now, quickly reassured, comfortable with herself and her world, she understood that the danger had gone and was not really a danger anyway, and reverted to her dear old donkey self and put her head down and stretched out her neck and walked home without my hands on her reins.

‘That’s the difference,’ I hollered, in wild joy. I was so happy, I laughed and laughed and laughed, as if someone had made the best joke in the world. ‘Best spook in the world,’ I cried. ‘Just one little moment of alarm and then back to sweetness and dearness.’

There has been an outbreak of anti-thoroughbred prejudice on the internet in the last few days, and I had got angry about it. I was going to write a whole essay about the might of the thoroughbred: the beauty, the bravery, the power and the glory. I was going to prove, point by point, how remarkable the breed is, how fine, how clever, how bonny and blithe. I would give examples; I would show my working. Those idiot people with their narrow minds would rue the day. Yes, there is a lot of power under the bonnet, even in such a dear old slowcoach as the red mare, who could not be fagged to race when that was her job and merrily sauntered round at the back, not seeing the point at all. There is that blue blood and that high spirit. But all they need is a steady human and good work and they become steady themselves, as docile as the sweetest cob.

I won’t write that essay. Closed minds will stay closed, however much I ransack the thesaurus for different words for wonderful. There is no point my ranting and raving. I can just tell the small story of the perfect ride and hug the memory of my poster girl to my heart and bask in the joy she brings. The pressure of work pushes on my head like a heavy iron plate, but every time I am on her back, the lightness comes and my monkey mind is stilled and my sense of self is restored and my sanity is preserved. Everyone needs their one true thing, to keep them whole. She is my one true thing.

PS. One of the Dear Readers asked about the Paint and whether she is ridden. She has a lovely owner who shares the field with me, and, as you can see, we ride out together when time allows.

PPS. The Horse Talker sent an email to the owner of the laurel bush, explaining about the droppings and apologising. He sent the loveliest message back, saying that he had been longing for dung and could we bring him some more. Clever red mare, I thought, even happier than before. Clearly she took one look at that garden and divined that her offering was just what was needed. She really is Champion the Wonder horse and no mistake.

A very ordinary story.

Somewhere, on a train in Germany, my agent is reading my book.

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.

She has to like it. She may have notes. I shall make changes. Then she has to like the changes. Then she will sell it. Then an editor will edit it. Then the subs will have a bash. Then, just as everyone takes a deep breath and thinks it is all over, I will decide I must do a semi-colon edit. After that, there may be a cliché edit. I once did a cliché edit followed by a platitude edit. You can’t beat belt and braces. (See what I did there?)

All this is something over which I have no control.

Actually, that is not quite true. I can control the clichés, when I get to them. What I cannot control are the subjective judgements. I have to do that awful thing: letting go.

People are talking about Europe sliding back into recession. Perhaps, by the time the editors get to thinking about my book, nobody will be buying books any more.

Books are such fragile things. They require time, and engagement. Someone has to want to buy one, find the time to sit down quietly to read, have the mental space to give themselves to the text. In the crazy modern world, it seems a miracle than anyone still reads at all. Yet books are also sturdy things, still there, in all their papery analogue old-school glory, holding their corner against the flashing electronic Johnny-Come-Latelies of the internet and the Kindle.

I sometimes think that writing them is a very odd job indeed.

To take my mind off all this, I go out for a long ride on the red mare. The little Paint comes with, and the two good companions stretch out their dear necks and point their toes and move in time, along the burn, past the hills, through the trees. They adore riding together and it really is one of those moments when the world grows still and makes sense.

A charity sale is going on at an old cowshed near the house. We decide to go and look in the window and see what is going on. Groups of ladies come out and exclaim over the horses. ‘Oh, you are so beautiful,’ they say, first to one and then the other. A small boy is brought out to see the mighty creatures. Several of the women are clearly rather knowledgeable. ‘You ride in rope halters?’ they say, impressed. Then, to the mares: ‘You good clever things.’ (At which point, I practically fall off with pride.)

One exceptionally elegant lady tells us that her son has just ridden in the famous long-distance Mongolian Derby, a thousand kilometres of unforgiving terrain on strange ponies. That really is proper pride, I tell her. She smiles. ‘He is in the Household Cavalry,’ she says. I think of the complex emotions this must produce in a mother. There must be that pride, on many different levels, and perhaps a sliver of astonishment too – that is my boy – and trepidation and fear too. It’s a hell of an office to go to. All this is in her voice, and our eyes meet and some very human sympathy runs between us, as if we are not strangers at all. Horses, I notice, often facilitate this bashing down of barriers. People often tell me amazingly intimate stories as I sit on the red mare, and she drops her head and dozes, and they stroke her strong neck.

More people arrive to see the equines. The mares, who have not had a crowd like this since their sell-out tour to Peoria, are in their element. They blink their eyes and hold out their velvet muzzles to be stroked and impress everyone by standing like dignity on the monument. The Paint filly gets so excited by her adoring public that she goes looking for new humans who will give her more love. ‘It’s not often,’ said one woman, beaming, ‘that you get to see such beautiful big animals up close.’

I write a lot about the beauty, of the red mare in particular, and of her pretty friend; of the thoroughbred in general, which, for my money, is the most ravishing breed ever invented. Most of the time I think it is my own monomania speaking, a hysterical confirmation bias run mad. But there were other people seeing it too. It lit up their faces and made them smile and stand up a little straighter, in the cool Scottish air.

As the tickertape of world news flickers past, filled with the big and the terrifying, here was the very, very small and the very consoling. It was a moment of keen sweetness. It means nothing, and it means everything.

‘Good girl,’ I say, putting my little heroine back in her field. ‘Clever girl.’ I rub her sweet spot and she ducks her head in acknowledgement, and then I let her go and she wanders off, swinging her hips a little as she goes.

 

Today’s pictures:

Just time for a couple.

This is another of my not-very-good pictures. The light was wrong and the focus a bit off, but I put it here because it shows the dearness of the two friends:

This one is better. Stanley the Manley, with his basilisk stare. He does not really enjoy posing for pictures since it takes up valuable time when he could be hunting for mice or looking for really, really big sticks, so as well as the Scottish sky in those eyes, there is the ruthless gleam of deep reproach:

Life lessons, from humans and equines.

I wake up thinking: bugger, bugger, bugger.

I have decided that I have got into bad habits with my horse and must go back to square one and start from the beginning. I have grown cocky, and lax. I have let things slide.

I am stern with myself. As if to set the thing in stone, I make this confession on a forum which practises this kind of horsemanship. I say that I understand that going back to Square One does not mean I have to wear the red badge of shame. All the same, secretly, I feel a tiny scarlet pin of mortification on my lapel.

I march down to the field this morning, fired with good resolutions. I shall take myself and the mare back to the start, and be strict and proper, and not allow those pesky bad habits to creep in. The horse looks slightly surprised, but goes with it. She is sound again after her horrid abscess and full of spring beans. I have a lovely free-school and do a delightful hooking on. She follows me round the field like a dopy old hound.

The Horse Talker arrives, and I bring Red up to the shed, and start mixing up her breakfast. With enthusiasm, I explain to the HT my new plan. It’s going to be high-end, full steam ahead, no messing, serious work. I shall be ruthless with myself. There will be no more sloppiness.

The Horse Talker, who is practical and wise, looks at me quizzically, and says: ‘Why?’

I explain that I was concerned that Red had spent Sunday with a bit of separation anxiety, as the little Paint was taken away on a great adventure to Glen Tanar. There had been some shouting, some staring, some scanning of the woods, some beady examination of the cows. (The red mare was clearly convinced that her filly had run away to join the cow circus.) Then, when her friend finally returned, Red had bawled her head off and pranced about like a Lipizzaner stallion, with her tail stuck straight in the air.

‘If I’d done the groundwork right,’ I said, ‘she would not have paid any mind.’

‘She was just a bit excited,’ said the Horse Talker, in a forgiving tone. There was a pause. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you’ve got a really good horse.’

She looked at the red mare. The two humans were in the shed, with the big doors wide open. Red was standing at the entrance, where I had left her, watching me mix up her feed. We had been talking for ten minutes, and the mare had not moved a muscle. She was not tethered in any way.

‘Damn it,’ I said. ‘She is a really good horse. Am I trying to live a life, or prove a point?’

I always come back to this. Some of the time, I am ashamed to say, I am trying to prove a point. Look at me, look at me, tell me I done good. Give me strokes and thumbs-ups and rosettes and gold stars. Give me compliments, which I can hoard up against a long, cold winter.

I think of my dad, who did nothing for public consumption. He loved winning races and singing songs and making people laugh, but he did those things for their own sake, I think, rather than for acclamation. He did not know what to do with a compliment if one were given to him. He would put it in his pocket and shuffle his feet and buy you a drink and change the subject.

I think of writing, and all I know about it. Much of it is still a mystery to me. But I do know that you should never sit down to write a book because you want money or love or awards or good reviews or your name in the papers. You must write it for its own true self. You must write because you love language, and you want to tell stories, and you are curious about the human condition.

Authenticity, I think. Along with kindness and stoicism, authenticity is the virtue I admire the most.

Whether I am working a horse or writing a sentence, I do think it is important to pay attention to the small things. I do think it is vital to be rigorous. I do think one must be honest and humble and sometimes go back to the beginning. I think one must try to be better.

But the Horse Talker is right. The good question is why. Pointless lashing for lack of idiot perfection is tiring and useless. Context is queen. It’s not just what you do, but why you do it.

I want to work carefully and correctly with my mare, because this will give her a foundation of security. If she can trust her human, she will be happy. I want a happy horse. I want to write a good sentence because of the sheer, visceral joy of the dancing language on the page.

The rest is just jam.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are from the archive. I forgot to charge the camera battery:

As I finish this, I think of the craving for compliments that sometimes comes upon me. It is not a trait of which I am proud. I suppose it is fairly human, but when it roars in me, I generally think it a sign that something is not quite right. When one is easy in one’s own skin, one does not need outside validation. All the same, what is making me laugh now is that my best compliments are not always the obvious ones. Someone I admire said to me, not long ago, with a smile: ‘you are a slightly dotty lady who gets excited when she trots a horse round a field.’ For all that I occasionally think I want to model myself on AP McCoy or Mary King or William Fox-Pitt or Venetia Williams or the late, great Henry Cecil, those kind of people who have horses in their bones, who are at the absolute top of the tree, actually I’ll take that line and frame it in my heart. It makes me laugh. It is my best kind of compliment, mostly because it is true.

Not a blog.

I’m not really here. I’m supposed to be getting ready for my trip, and so this is not really a blog at all. But I had to tell you of my red duchess. So this one is really for the horse people. The rest of you, just carry on as you were.

Yesterday was one of our worst days. Everything was out of kilter. We were like a scratchy old married couple, sniping and misunderstanding and missing the point. I actually felt properly cross with her, which happens about once every six months, as well as livid with myself. All hopeless and feckless and pointless. Into the garden to eat worms.

I never quite know how these things happen, although they always occur when I am getting cocky. I wonder if the cockiness transmits itself to the mare, and she does not like it. She is a very sensitive person, and although she has grown mightily in confidence, she is not a swaggery, sanguine sort. She feels things keenly. Because of this, she craves steadiness and consistency and calm. I wonder if the cocksure alarms her in some profound way.

My rule is that I leave all the personal stuff at the gate, as if I am carting it about in a great suitcase. My frets and worries are not her business. My job is to make her feel safe. But sometimes one can be carrying a little attaché case that one is not even aware of. I thought I was pretty fine and getting on with it yesterday, but I see now that I had some fairly gnarly tensions and furies twisted up inside. It is perfectly possible that my clever girl felt those, and was responding to them.

Today, the sun shone, and my demons had gone back into their cave. I had stopped lashing myself about yesterday’s debacle and went out with the intention of doing some lovely, slow, basic groundwork. Everything would be the kindest and sweetest and smallest of steps. I would concentrate on softness and feel.

And there she was, my gentle, saintly girl, back again. The crosspatch of the day before had vanished. We did a lovely free-school of such elegance and grace that I tried to make snapshots of it with my mind, so I could remember it always. Her dear ear flicked towards me, waiting to see what I would ask of her next.

That was the plan: do the fundamentals on the ground, and re-establish the harmony between us, and finish. But my friend the Horse Talker was up on her sweet Paint, and I thought, well, perhaps just a little ride. Just a nice extended walk, nothing more. The most important thing after a bad day is not to ask too much.

Round the field the two companions went, their ears pricked in the balmy sunshine.

‘Shall we go round the block?’ said the Horse Talker.

Bugger it, I thought. Stupid to waste a glorious morning.

Off we went, into the wide open spaces. Everyone was happy. The mare was all ease and lightness.

Up at the road, the girls observed the traffic. The road is our traditional stopping point. We are incredibly lucky to have plenty of fields to play about in. There is no call to go out on the public highway, where crazy people in vans might drive up our arse. (I have no idea why I think they might do this. Despite my attempts to eschew irrational thinking, I sometimes have a tendency to catastrophise.)

‘Oh, come on,’ I said, on a wild whim. ‘Let’s go out.’

The ex-racehorse and the novice Paint, who was only backed last year, both in their rope halters, walked out as calmly and politely as if they had been riding the roads of Scotland since birth. Huge lorries did pass by, although the kind drivers slowed with great care and courtesy. No rogue vans appeared. The girls did not bat an eyelid. Into the back lanes of the village we went, past barking dogs, random humans, and excellent building men constructing a whole house. Not so much as a flinch or a twitch.

To get back into the woods, we had to slide through a narrow gap between an old iron gate and a stone wall. It was so narrow that I had to lift my legs out of the stirrups. The mare did not pause, but kept a true line.

At that point I was so delirious that I dropped the reins and steered her gently with my body, waving my arms in the air as I sketched for the Horse Talker the full magnificence of the red mare and the mysteries of the equine mind. Red stretched out her neck and lengthened her stride, her body athletic and rhythmic under me.

As we got back to the field, one final test awaited. A vast oil truck was delivering its load of heating fuel. To get to the gate, we had to pass right next to it, as it was virtually jammed up against a tree. The space was perhaps three feet wide. It was a huge article, humming and grinding and shuddering away as it pumped its oil out.

Again, neither horse looked twice.

You may imagine the festival of pride and congratulation. You may imagine the kisses and hugs and strokes. I thought my heart would burst.

How can it go from dislocation and despair to harmony and communion, in 24 short hours? A long field discussion ensued, as we tested out various theories, covering everything from the jagged human mind to a spring-fit horse to a bad sleep interrupted by screeching owls.

I quite favour the notion that the dressage squirrels came in the night, and that was what made the difference.

I said to someone today: ‘The red mare not only teaches me about horsing, she teaches me about life.’

Today she taught me never to give up, that things are never as bad as they seem, that tomorrow really is another day. She taught me to return always to fundamentals, to have faith, to be kind and patient.

She also offered me a great gift. She did not get my best self, yesterday. Mostly, she brings out my better angels, but yesterday I fear she saw a glimpse of my darker demons. What she did today was so generous and moving that I feel tearfully humble, even thinking of it. She forgave me. She did not hold it against me. She took all her trust, in her dear hooves, and presented it to me, believing that I would keep her safe from the great lorries and the construction men and the barking dogs and the honking oil truck. It was if she was saying: well, you may not be a perfect person, but you are still my person. I still believe in you.

It seems curious that a flight animal, who has no concept of abstract thought or philosophy or psychology, can give a flawed human back a sense of self. But that is what she did.

Well, her, and the dressage squirrels, of course.

 

The glorious pair, relaxing after their morning of triumph:

Light and shade.

There has been a death in the family. It was very sudden, and it is very sad.

There is the usual sense of rupture, of wrongness. The world should not exist without this person in it.

There is the usual daily papering over the cracks. We are, in very British fashion, carrying on. I do not mean that other nationalities do not carry on, or that they fall to the floor, ululating. It just feels like a very British thing to do. It is there, the loss, in batsqueaks. It is there in small pauses, sideways glances, moments of still. It remains, mostly unspoken, humming in us.

The sun shines, with steady, determined, yellow warmth. It shone like this when my father died, which was three years ago next week.

I think: one death is all deaths. All the Dear Departeds line up, close in my heart. One death is all mortality. I think: send not to know for whom the bell tolls.

Then I go down to the field and work the mare. She is light as air, soft as silk. We free-school in a way we have never done before, so relaxed and in tune that I shout out loud into the bright air. She looks at me as if to say: you didn’t think I had that in me, did you?

We go for a ride.

There have been thoughts to think and things to do and arrangements to make. I have not ridden for two days. I wonder, as I get on, if there will be a little spring fever, or just general thoroughbred high spirits. I sit deep in the saddle and give her a loose rein and trust her, and there she goes, with her glorious aristocratic neck stretched out and her ears pricked and not a bother on her.

We have one of the best rides we have ever had, and my heart lifts in gratitude and love.

 

Today’s pictures are a little photo essay, of a moment with the horses, and of going back to the fundamental things, which is what I always do at times like this. Watch an animal, being itself; look at a bud, a flower, something as humble and actual as a patch of moss and grass and stone. Go back to the true and the real, as unreality plucks at one’s shoulder.

After the ride:

Then a nice long cool-down and a little amuse-bouche:

At which point the sweet Paint does one of her step by step stealth moves, to see if she might be allowed some:

If I just stand here, very still, she might not notice:

She notices:

And then decides perhaps she has made her point:

And will graciously allow her small friend to lick the bowl:

Which she does:

Whilst Red has some of the good hay brought by the kind farmer:

Another moment of hope from the filly:

Then she thinks better of it, and takes herself off:

Watched by Red, who is the lead mare, after all, and must keep a close eye on her precious charge:

A nice, cool drink:

And I look around, at the green things, at the growing things, at the living things:

At the simple things: