My mission, should I choose to accept it.

Well, the Be Happy For Mum plan didn’t go all that badly, in the end. I thought that it might be the most shaming disaster. I thought that everyone might shout through the ether Oh for goodness’ sake, just be bloody sad and get it over with. (I suspect that was a bit of Freudian projection, and in fact was the voice of my critical self, who is a terrible old vampish harridan and has always had too much gin.) In actual fact, on the Facebook, on the blog, kind people, some known well to me, some complete strangers, all rose up in glory and said generous and funny and wise things, which touched and amazed my bashed heart.

Here is what I learnt, because I must always learn something. All these years on, and I am still a girly swot at heart.

There is one place that the sadness really and truly does go completely away and that is on the back of my thoroughbred mare. I always knew that she did have super-powers. I just did not quite know how powerful they were. Being with her is cheering and soothing, but it’s on her back, when I feel her power under me and the peace that she carries in her flowing from her mighty body into my puny one, that everything falls into a stunning equilibrium. All the bad and sad things just fall away and I am free. I don’t know how this happens, but it does. She is a miracle horse and that’s the end of it.

The joys are there, if you look for them. They don’t banish the sorrow, but they go in tandem with them, like a pair of slightly grumpy and ill-matched carriage horses, the kind that the Queen would not use for state occasions. I’m going to go on driving my wonky carriage, and one day, those two ponies will learn to trot along together.

My stabs at normality are quite funny. I’m a little off kilter. Everything I say is a crotchet off-beat. My laughter is a bit too loud. My walk is a bit ragged. My clothes are frankly peculiar. My hair is a bit bonkers. My attempts to make sense don’t quite make sense.

Laughter still exists though, and it is as healing as tears. I have a new theory that grief is like a trapped energy and has to be let go, in great gusts. It needs to be released from the actual body. Shouty tears can do this, but so can shouty laughter. The Beloved Stepfather made me laugh at breakfast so much that I couldn’t speak for four minutes. It was one of those comical stories so recondite and absurd and almost tragic that only he and I (and my mother had she been here) could get it. That made it even more intense. Once he had told me the absurd thing, and I started laughing helplessly, he started laughing too, the first proper laugh he has done since it happened. It was naughty schoolboy laughter, because it was the kind of thing that was really quite sad in some ways, but we couldn’t help it, it tickled us to death. That laughter opened the door and let some of that captured energy out.

I have to keep reminding myself to let my shoulders go. I have another theory, you will be amazed to hear, that people trap their emotions in different parts of their bodies. Some people get headaches, or stomach cramps. I get the shoulders up around my ears. Every half an hour, I have to say: get those damn shoulders down.

Talking out loud is oddly helpful. I’ve always been prone to this, and it’s getting worse as I get older. Lately, I find myself in the Co-op saying, at shamingly high volume: ‘Now, what have I forgotten?’ Since Saturday, I have been walking round the house saying ‘Oh,’ and ‘Ah,’ and ‘Oof,’ and ‘What next?’ I say: ‘Oh, Mum,’ with a dying fall. I expect soon I shall move on to: ‘Steady the buffs.’

I like having a mission, and I’m going to keep on my mission of hunting for beauty, squinting for the good, searching for the consolations. My old friend The Horseman, who is a man of great matter-of-factness, not a sentimental bone in his body, but a man of oak, the sort of man on whom you can really rely when the chips are down, wrote me a brilliant, pithy message. It said: ‘Live hard in respect for those who can’t.’ That is my mission.

But, and here I think is the important thing, I’m not going to scold myself when I can’t do that. There will be days when it’s not possible. It’s a good goal, and a fine thought. I keep it in the front of my mind, like a shining amulet. The good old Horseman. He was there when my dad died, and when my dog died (he found me in streaming tears on his drive and staunchly faced them without fear) and now he has sent me a line to live by.

Rather to my astonishment, I have achieved quite a lot this week. I have written words, and done good work for HorseBack, and made soup, and worked my new mare, and ridden my old mare in glorious cowgirl canters on a loose rein, and even arranged some flowers. There are roses on my desk. There are never roses on my desk. They were on special offer and I thought, bugger it, I must have roses. They feel sweetly symbolic and I look at them now as I write and think: yes, yes, the small things. I live now in the world of the small things, so that the big thing does not overwhelm me, so that I do not drown.

 

Today’s pictures:

The roses:

I found this wonderful picture of my mother this morning. I remember that fur hat so well. I was very small when she had it, and I used to whip it off her head and hold it and stroke it as if it were a small bear. I can feel it now:

And this picture was in the same book. It is my sister, on her side-saddle champion. This says a lot about my mother. It was she who taught us to ride these ponies, who schooled them and groomed them and taught us sternly to look after them. If we were to have the great fortune to have such glorious animals, we had to be responsible for them. We were never allowed to come in at the end of the day until our ponies were happy and settled with their bran mashes. She would get up at three in the morning to drive us to distant shows – to the Three Counties, and Builth Wells, and Windsor, and Peterborough – and she would make us the best bacon sandwiches in the world to sustain us for the road:

Showing up.

The Sister says: ‘Did you ever write that book about what to do when your dad and your dog die?’

My beautiful black dog died four years ago, on the night of my father’s funeral. I really, really wanted to read that book but it did not exist, so I said I would have to write it myself.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘yes, I did. It’s not called that any more. But I did write that book. It’s with the agent now.’

‘And what do you do?’ says the Sister. ‘And when your mum dies?’

‘I learnt what to do from the red mare,’ I say, not even bothering to explain this slightly odd conclusion. ‘She taught me about the ordinary virtues. For the ordinary griefs you need the ordinary virtues. Not brilliance or charm or charisma or talent, but reliability, consistency, kindness, firmness, fairness, steadiness. That’s how you train a horse, that’s why you can get on the red mare and canter about on a loose rein.’

She had just done that, in the open field. She had only ever sat on the mare once before. Red was so happy and relaxed that I had no qualms. I cantered her round the wide spaces of the set-aside first, to check that everything was all right. It was so all right that I threw my arms in the air and whooped into the low cloud and, under me, that mighty horse just kept on rolling, as collected and contained as the ambassadress to Paris. Then The Sister did it.

‘Look at you,’ I shouted. ‘Just look at the two of you.’

The Sister used to be a top show rider and side-saddle diva and some of that never quite goes away. Now she was riding the red mare cowgirl style. For half an hour, in that green field, everything was all right. There was no grief, only this horse, these humans, this landscape, this joy.

‘She learnt to do that,’ I say. ‘She did not just eat magic beans. I taught her to be relaxed and mentally balanced and to carry herself. And I did that by showing up, every day. That’s what you have to do. You have to show up. And maybe that’s what you have to do after there is death. Every day, you show up. And then it gets easier.’

This is my theory and I’m sticking to it. It’s not very clever, or sophisticated, or philosophical. Nobody will put it on a bumper sticker. It has no poetry in it. But it’s mine and I like it and it works, most of the time.

The Younger Brother says, sounding very sane and peaceful, which is not what he is famous for: ‘She is out of pain now. That’s what matters. Nothing can hurt her any more.’

‘And we,’ I say, knowing he will finish the sentence for me.

‘Keep buggering on,’ he cries.

On, on, on we bugger.

I think of the things in which I believe: the human heart, the kindness of strangers, love and trees, the small things. I think of my own private slogans: say the thing; KBO; stare at your demons in the whites of their eyes; be kind. I think of the things I adore: a funny dog, my sweet thoroughbred mares, the brave racing horses I watch every day, my family, this Scotland, these hills, my dear, dear friends. I think of the tender words which have been flying in from around the wilds of the internet and feel grateful for every one. Oh, yes – be grateful – that’s another of my rules to live by.

But perhaps most important of all: you have to show up. Not just sometimes, but every day, in the wind and the weather, through the fair and the foul, the thin and the very, very thick.

I think Mum would approve of that. As long as I said please and thank you.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are of the family, the last time we were all gathered together, this summer. We knew it would be the last time, and so it was:

And this clever, clever person, who can pull joy from sorrow with her bare hooves. I owe her so much, but never more than today:

A moment.

The older I get, the more I think that life is made of moments. Of course there are great life arcs and plans and goals and sweeps. Humans may lift their eyes to the peaks, and not just stare doggedly at the foothills. But perhaps the paradox is that it is in the foothills where one may find the peaks.

Today, there was a moment.

It sleeted in the early morning, and I woke to a sky the colour of doleful rhinos. It will be a practical day, I thought: get the mare fed and check the rugs and carry the hay. Too horrid for anything else.

Then, little by little the sky began to clear.

Perhaps I’ll just take her round the block, in hand, I thought. I’ve been riding a lot lately, and she adores going for a mooch on the end of her rope, and it is one of the things that we do together that I love the most.

Then the sky cleared a little more.

Perhaps I can even take off the rug, I thought.

I wondered if I should ride, after all. The weather was turning fast. But I had this gentle idea of a walk in my head, and I honoured it.

As we walked away from the field, my sister appeared. The sun, as if from nowhere, shone down on us with vivid conviction.

I knew the sister was busy. I looked at her. ‘Just round the block?’ I said.

So we walked and talked. We talked about everything: life, death, family, love, fear, regret. I had the lovely sister on one side and the lovely mare on the other, and the Scottish hills and the blue sky beyond.

My sister has just lost a friend. She was a friend of all of ours. I remember her from my childhood. She was Italian and she was the most cosmopolitan, glamorous creature I had ever seen. She was always laughing and saying outrageous things. She became my sister’s bosom companion and they spoke of everything. We watched her bring up three impossibly tall, gentle, clever boys. And then she died. The funeral was last week.

That is why we spoke of life and death.

I said: ‘I think that when you get to our age, one death is all deaths. I think it makes us grieve Dad all over again.’

We contemplated this.

I said: ‘We will get through the sadness together.’

I meant all the sadness. The middle of life is when you know that sadnesses will come, not in single spies but in battalions. The only thing you can do is work out some kind of way of dealing with them, so that you are not drowning but waving. At the moment, my main plan is: love, and sticking together. My sister and I shall stick together. The whole family will stick together. I love my family very much today.

The moment came at the end of this long walk and this long conversation.

The three of us were standing, in the sunshine, getting ready to part. The sister and I were finishing our talking. She is leaving tomorrow, so we did a farewell hug. The mare, her sweet head low and relaxed, her eyes soft, her big body gentle and at home in the world, turned to the sister. She gave her velvet muzzle, and the sister stroked it. The mare was very, very still. She was offering something.

I have a secret theory that the kind ones, with the big hearts, can sense human sorrow. A simple moment of sympathy ran between the human and the horse. I watched it, and I felt more touched and proud of my thoroughbred girl than if we had done twenty flying changes. There was something so authentic and generous in that moment that it brought tears to my eyes.

As I walked Red back to the field and gave her her breakfast, as I watched her go politely to her place and stand, waiting for me to put the bowl down in the yellow grass, whinnying a little in anticipation, I thought for the hundredth time what a miracle mare she is. A flinging pied wagtail, the first of the spring, suddenly flew in over our heads and settled on the ground, preening itself in the sun. There was another moment.

Write it down, write it down, shouted the voice in my head. The moments must be recorded. The small moments – of love, of joy, of reality, of honesty, of being alive – are what make me human and actual and true. If I can stack up enough of them, then perhaps there will always be a light, on the darkest day.

I think: I never really know what this blog is for. I think: perhaps it is for this. It is the place where the moments can be stored. It is the crock of gold. It is, as I so often say, because Yeats lives in my head like a singing thing, so that I can take down that book, and slowly read.

 

Today’s pictures:

There was no camera with us on our walk this morning, but this is what we look like – deep in conversation and thought, with the sympathetic wonder-mare by our side:

And from today:

And speaking of generosity and authenticity – oh, oh, the Dear Readers. What enchanting things you said yesterday. I smiled and smiled and smiled. Kindness of strangers; little arrows of sweetness from one unknown heart to another. That is what the internet is for. It never ceases to amaze me. Thank you.

In which the equines have visitors.

A very white, still day. More snow fell quietly in the night, and we now have about six inches. It is all very pristine, and has that squeaking, crunching, blanket aspect.

My sister is baby-sitting. She has three small visitors. I am not quite certain of the sizes. I would say nine, seven and two.

They come to see the horses. The three discrete reactions fascinate me. The nine-year-old boy wants to ask many, many serious questions. First of all, he ascertains all their ages. Then, once he knows that Myfanwy is the oldest, at nineteen, he wants to know why it is she is the smallest. This clearly seems topsy-turvy to him.

‘Well,’ I say seriously. ‘It’s because they are different breeds, you see. Myfanwy is a Welsh mountain pony, and they never get very big. Autumn is an American Paint, and Red is a thoroughbred.’

He listens carefully, not interrupting.

‘She’s quite little for a thoroughbred,’ I say. ‘They can get up to over seventeen hands.’

I show him how high this is. His eyes widen.

‘That is very big,’ he says, in awe.

‘They are mostly used for racing, and polo,’ I say. ‘And sometimes for three-day-eventing.’

‘Does Red race?’ he asks.

‘Well,’ I say. ‘She did. But I’m afraid to say...’ At this point I cover her ears and drop my voice to a whisper. ‘...she was very, very slow.’

‘Oh,’ he says, stoically, taking this on the chin.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ I say, ‘because her grandfather won the Derby.’

My new friend is clearly a fellow of dogged resolution.

‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘You could get her all strong and then she could run fast.’

He turns his small, freckled face up to mine. It is lit with hope and interest and excitement.

‘Funnily enough,’ I said. ‘I do have a little dream of getting her fit in the spring and seeing how quick she could go.’

I do not tell him of my other nutty dream, which is to find her a well-bred husband and get her in foal, so all those mighty bloodlines do not go to waste. I don’t think I shall ever actually do this, because I like riding her, and we’re not really set up for breeding. But sometimes, in the dark of the night, when I look up her astounding pedigree, I dream of the Byerley Turk, from whom she is descended on both sides, and of her passing that great ancestral torch on to the next generation.

The small girl wants to help. She has questions too, but she is a woman of action. She bustles off with the Horse Talker to fill the morning haynets and sweep the shed. I watch them march away across the snowy paddock, deep in conversation.

The smallest person of all, a round little chap all rugged up in serious winter kit, can not yet talk in coherent sentences, although he makes a constant stream of chat of his own devising. He wants to stroke the horses and give them handfuls of hay.

‘More hay, more HAY,’ he says, in the imperial way that very small children have. (I always think that, when they are about two, little people are like tiny emperors, kings and queens of all they survey.)

The girls politely and delicately take his offerings. Red, I have discovered, is an absolute goof for babies. She met one the other day, only about five months old, and she went all blissed out, blinking her eyes and fluttering her eyelashes.

This morning, she does the effect all over again, with the minute hay-giver. She stretches out her head to him, and very, very gently lays her muzzle against him, and tickles him with her whiskers. It was one of the most touching things I’ve ever seen. Then she stands very still as he strokes her with his tiny hand. She is not very big for a thoroughbred, but she is absolutely enormous compared to a two-year-old human. Yet she is so soft and gentle that he feels no fear. He seems to know at once that this great, half-ton animal comes in peace.

My very dear Brother-in-Law, who is over-seeing all this, smiles at me, as I stomp along with two full haynets over my shoulder.

‘You do look like a real countrywoman,’ he says.

This is easily the best compliment I have had all year. It keeps me smiling for the rest of the morning. I think, afterwards, how odd that is. When I was in my twenties, I was a very urban creation. I wanted to be Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley and Scott Fitzgerald and Sara Murphy and Martha Gellhorn.

It’s so odd, the images we have of ourselves. My old image was all Algonquin Round Table. My new image is mud and straw and weather and earth. (And love and trees, of course.) There is no obvious glamour in this. When I was young and foolish, I craved glamour. But now, my conception of the glamorous has shifted, and it is all about getting my hands dirty, literally and metaphorically. I like this idea very much. It’s how I grew up, I suppose, and I have come full circle.

As we leave the field, the dear Brother-in-Law looks at Red, whom he admires. He says to me, in a low, conspiratorial voice:

‘You know, she doesn’t really know her grandfather won the Derby.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘But I like to tell her anyway.’

 

Today’s pictures:

My little herd with their morning haynets:

Autumn the filly, cosy in her serious rug:

The furry sweetness of Myfanwy the Pony:

The gentle face of Red the Mare:

Stanley the Dog, working on some excellent recall:

And of course, sit and stay:

Snow on the nose absolutely kills me.

The hill, in full panorama today:

Two sweet things; or, a horse story and a dog story

Warning for length, horsiness, and dogginess.

 

The snow came again quite seriously, falling with intent all morning. I defy weather, and I had work to do, so out into the white I went, with my faithful fellow by my side.

The work was not with the mare, who has reached such a pitch of perfection that all I have to do is ten minutes of easy drill to keep her on an even keel. I had some thoughts of riding her over the winter, but the weather is too much; either thick snow like now, or hard frost, or bottomless mud. I love the groundwork so much that I don’t mind. I’m going to let her down, and get all the polo out of her system, and encourage all those hard muscles to relax, and then bring her back in the spring.

She thinks this is a tremendous plan, and is as happy and calm as I have ever seen her.

No, the work was not with my highly-bred duchess, but with the little Welsh mountain person. Myfanwy had apparently developed a princess complex whilst I was away, and was refusing to be caught. The Barefoot Trimmer came and could not even do her hooves, because she was romping round the field with her head in the air and that was that.

One of the things I am very firm on with my horses is manners, and biddability. I am gentle with them, but there are lines they may not cross. This makes them feel safe and secure, since, just like small children, they know where the boundaries lie; it also means they are a pleasure to work with. When the hoof goes over those lines, back to basics we go.

So, this morning, I decided to take the pony back to join-up. It’s quite hard doing this in a big field; generally it’s done in a small, round pen. When I first did it with the mare it took almost an hour, and I blessed every cussed bone in my body, the ones that do not allow me to give up. The little pony had got quite fat over the summer, and we had to put her on a regime, which is just now bearing fruit. Still, she is not exactly a greyhound. But as I sent her away, she raced over the snowy ground like a racehorse, belly to the ground, her little legs going like the clappers, her jaw set in a determined line.

This is really not going to work, said the defeatist voice in my head. Keep buggering on, said the stubborn voice, which will not be denied.

Off she went, off I stomped, keeping her moving, as if this was all my idea. After about twenty minutes, she was still full of running, and my dander was starting to droop. But then she did the thing of flicking her ear towards me, and she slowed down, and started looking at me, and I went very calm and still until she came to my side. And suddenly, there we were, together, and she was walking at my shoulder, turning in figures of eight, stopping when I stopped, connected, miraculously, by that invisible thread of communion. I had got her back.

I am not ashamed to say that I raised my arms in triumph like a boxer after an impossible bout. The pony, who loves it when she does a job well, looked inordinately pleased with herself. I covered her in congratulations. Red the Mare, watching, did a stately slow-motion buck, as if to say: hey, Spanish Riding School of Vienna over here, just in case you’re interested.

Small animal triumphs are keenly sweet to me. I felt as happy and fulfilled as if I had written a prize-winning book.

Still flushed with delight, I suddenly heard a wild shout. The kind Sister had taken Stanley the Lurcher for a short walk whilst I was working with the horses. We thought it a good idea for him to get to know the family. She was putting him back in the car, taking his lead off, when he suddenly leapt out and ran away. We are at least a quarter of a mile from a road, but even so. The strict lead on at all times rule is in force, because he is a rescue, and still does not know this place, and I’m not taking any chances. I do not know yet how good his recall is, or if he might get disoriented and not find his way back to me.

I ran, horrid imaginings chasing themselves through my head. All that trust the good rescue people had put in me, and look what had happened. I shouted and shouted his name, more in desperation than hope. And then, suddenly, there was a flash of red brindle against the snow, and there he was, galloping towards me at full pelt, his face filled with delight. He came back.

I cannot tell you how proud of him I was. He is number one top miracle dog and I cannot believe his goodness and cleverness.

Once we got over the shock, we worked out that he had been perhaps having a little separation anxiety, and was heading back to the house to try and find me. When he heard my voice, he dashed back the other way. There was a discernible look of flooding relief on his face when he saw me.

‘That is going to be a one-woman dog,’ said The Sister, in admiration.

Well, we learnt that lesson, and all contingencies are now in place. But oh, oh, my good, brilliant creatures. I could not be more impressed and proud.

Filled with joy, I went home and settled Stanley the Genius on his bed and wrote 967 words of book. So it really was a good day.

As I sat down to write this, a rather rarefied and elegant invitation dropped into my inbox. I don’t get that many invitations these days, but this one was a dilly. Metropolitan, and chic, and quite unexpected. I had to write with regret that I should not be getting out my best frock and putting on my party shoes, because I should be in the snowy north, stomping about a muddy field in my gumboots, with literal and metaphorical straw in my hair.

Instead of making cocktail conversation with The Interesting People I shall be going into transports over the antics of a small, woolly mountain pony, and a lost mutt of a dog. It’s funny how much my life has changed since those old urban days when the party shoes were on practically every night.

I would not swap one inch of it.

 

Today’s pictures:

Stanley the Lurcher, in action:

There is still a slightly questing, uncertain look in those lovely eyes. It will go, the surer he becomes of his new place and his new human:

With The Sister, in her very smart red boots:

The happy little herd, all rugged up against the snow:

The hill, lost in the snow:

We haven’t had the Pigeon for a couple of days. I always remember loving it when I took pictures of her in a low light, and her black fur turned dark blue. I miss that face very much still: