A final farewell.

In every family, there is the one who is not much talked about. Not because they are wicked or shameful, but because they are so good. They do not run off with drummers or take to the bottle; they just get on with it. They do not create drama. They just, delightfully, are.

Myfanwy the Pony is like that in my family. I don’t write about her much here. It’s all about the great journey with Red the Mare, my mighty thoroughbred, with her famous grandsire and her beauty and her great spirit.

Myfanwy came quietly and unexpectedly into our lives because Red needed a friend. And there was this little grey person, with her pretty face and her pricked ears, who almost dropped out of the sky. The lady who transported Red to her first home up on the hill had a pony her children had grown out of, and Red needed a companion, and the lady very generously offered us the loan, and it was as simple as that.

When the small person arrived, my big mare, who had been on her own for a doleful week, whickered and whinnied as if her long-lost sister had suddenly pitched up at the gate.

A few weeks after that, the American Paint filly joined us, and last November we moved the herd down to their new home in the shadow of the green woods, and they have been there ever since, a little trio of calm and joy.

The stories that got told here were all of Red. Quietly, in the background, Myfanwy, in her grand old age, her riding days over, enjoyed her retirement. She settled most mornings under her favourite tree, watching sagely as the younger ones got worked and schooled and educated. We did inculcate her into our school of horsemanship, and she learnt to hook on and back up off a soft cue and yield her hindquarters, and always looked rather pleased with herself when she had done this new work. We sometimes took her out for a good walk in hand, and the little Pony Whisperer would come and give her a grand groom, and only last week I did a join-up with her in the field, and she remembered all the steps as if we had done it yesterday.

But really, she was just a continued presence, with her bright face and her sweet ears carved like commas and her surprisingly low, throaty, Lauren Bacall whicker. She made no drama; she created no three-act opera. She left that to the other two. When the gales came last week, she amazed us by kicking up her heels and doing a perfect bronco display in the wild weather, and the Horse Talker and I looked at each other and said: ‘Well, there is life in the old lady yet.’

Not that much life, as it turned out.

This morning, there she was, standing under her tree, like a little unicorn in the autumn light, waiting for us to come back from our ride, as she always did. We were just about to leave the field, when we saw her stumble and stagger.

I, always convinced that she would live until she was thirty, almost ignored it. Not Myfanwy; she was a tough mountain pony; she could deal with anything. But then I looked again, and I could see something was very wrong.

We thought she had colic, at first. The vet was off on a call, so the Horse Talker and I walked her and walked her, for an hour and a half, round the field. Then the Remarkable Trainer arrived, closely followed by the vet. By this stage, violent streams of mucus were coming out of the poor old lady’s nose and mouth and she was shuddering all over, her small furry body shaken by violent spasms, low groans coming from the very depths of her.

The vet, one of the kindest, most sensitive women I’ve ever met, tried a single injection, and said to see what would happen in a couple of hours. Heart failure, though, she thought; possibly multi-system failure. She held out little hope.

The injection had no effect. The three humans sat in the shelter, which is built up against an old granite wall, filled with soft straw, a place of quiet and safety. The old girl shuddered and went down and got up again, and then stood, suddenly very still, almost in a fugue state.

I made the decision. ‘She is telling us she has to go,’ someone said; everyone said; everyone knew.

The light was failing in her black eyes.

She lay down again and I sat on the packed earth floor with her and gentled her on her forehead, in that exact place that mares nuzzle their foals. ‘It’s all right, old lady,’ I said. ‘You can let go now.’

I said that to the Pigeon too.

It was very quick and very good, in the end. The vet warned us there could be struggles, jumps, spasms, gasps or groans. But there was none of that. She let out one last cry, lifting her head in a final effort and neighing. Her two friends, put safely in the far paddock, called back to her, their voices carrying bright and vivid on the chill air.

Then the needle went in, and she fell straight to earth, with no battle, as if she was so ready that the very ground was pulling her to it.

And she was gone.

She went in elegance and grace. She made it very simple for us. It was her time, and she knew it.

The vet, who is not a sentimental or anthropomorphic person, said: ‘I’m glad she said goodbye.’

We were all slightly surprised. But that last call, and its responding cry, did feel like a final farewell. Horses do not do sentimentalism. They understand and accept life and death much better than humans do. They have a lovely, honest flintiness which I adore.

For all that, I think it was a goodbye, a bookend to that first hello, when the big red mare and the small Welsh pony first set eyes on each other and called out in greeting, as if they were old familiars, as if they were each the one the other had been waiting for.






The last picture I took of her, two days ago, in the lovely November light.

And Red the Mare, who loved her well, and who, when I went down to check on her just now, by the light of the sailing moon, would not be consoled:

Shared experience. Or, a still small moment of calm.

This morning, I woke to a low sky and a light, misty rain. It’s that kind of rain where there is just a sense of water in the air; less falling than swirling, almost like a flying dew.

The Horse Talker and I arrived at the paddock at the exact same moment. At the exact same moment, we saw the exact same thing. All three of the girls were lying down in the paddock, in a delightful collective doze. We made Did You See That faces at each other, and walked in cat-like silence through the gate so as not to disturb the glorious picture.

The little pony decided to get up, and performed some astonishing yoga stretches with her hind legs, which made us double up with laughter. Then we each went to our own horses and sat with them and stroked their dear faces and entered into the circle of calm which they had created.

It’s quite rare that we see them lying down. Autumn the Filly was flat on her side, completely flaked out. Red was resting on her belly, her long legs curled up under her, her chin resting dreamily on the grass. It’s also quite rare that a horse will stay down when a human approaches. Often they get up and shake themselves. Their flight instincts mean that they have to trust you a lot to stay in the vulnerable prone position. That is why it is always very touching when you see pictures of people lying with their equines.

They were both so still it was as if every atom in their bodies was at rest. They were in a low, humming dream state, every part of them existing in peace. The field was very quiet, apart from the lone cry of a circling buzzard. The misty rain had driven away all the flies and brought a sort of suspended animation with it, as if the world was on hold. Nothing existed but these beautiful creatures and these two grateful humans.

We laughed and smiled at each other and invented fanciful scenarios as to why they were so dozy. Rather madly, there is to be a techno concert on Saturday in the cut hayfield, and we decided that the girls had clearly been up all night practising their rave moves. No wonder they were so sleepy.

Eventually, Red got to her feet. Autumn was still dozing. The Horse Talker and I went up to the shed to make breakfast. I let Red out into the set-aside so she could do some free grazing. This bit of the field is where the good grass is, and there is no fence. She could, I suppose, gallop off to Tarland if she really wanted, but she doesn’t. She will usually come when I whistle, or if she is too busy eating, stand quietly when I come to collect her.

As we were mixing up the feeds, the Horse Talker and I suddenly heard a swish of grass and a dash of hooves, and Red arrived at a busy trot and poked her white face into the doorway, urgent enquiry in her eyes, as if to say ‘You are making breakfast and you did not tell me?’ She looked so comical that it made us laugh and laugh.

The whole thing was one of the most enchanted hours I’ve ever spent in my life. But what was particularly lovely about it is that it was shared. The Horse Talker and I are now custodians of that collective memory, and we shall be able to say to each other, when the hard snows come and we are trudging through the winter mud, or when we are having a bad day, or when we wake to a grumpy morning – ‘Do you remember that day?’

I am solitary by nature. I do a lot of things alone. I need quiet and peace; I like the space of my silent room. But sometimes, in life, it’s important to have a witness. I thought this as I came back to my desk to start work. I thought suddenly, that is what this blog is all about. I started it, ruthlessly, blatantly, because I thought I could go viral and everyone would buy my book and I should be rich and retire and buy a boat.

The internet gods laughed at that puny plan, but I continued doing it because I discovered I liked it for its own sake. I love the small, tight band of Dear Readers. I love that you remember the Duchess and the Pigeon, and that you have taken Mr Stanley to your hearts. I love the little messages which wing their way from as far as New Zealand and Sri Lanka and California.

People tend to be quite sneery about blogs and social networks. It’s all ghastly self-indulgence, absurd show-boating, awful narcissism. The tired old joke about Twitter is: who cares what you had for breakfast? (Although absolutely nobody I know tweets about bacon and eggs.)

In fact, although these grouchy criticisms have a tiny acorn of truth in them, I think there is something quite profound going on. I think it is to do with having a witness. I think, at its best, this new medium offers something wonderfully collective. Here are our small lives; they are seen.

Of course lives are seen by the real people in the real world; the family and friends and best beloveds. But there is nothing wrong with virtual seeing in the virtual world. It’s not all trick cyclists and Look Ma, no hands. It can be a simple, good-hearted offering of some of the lovely moments.

When the news is dark and the world seems crazed and the big things are so big and bad that the battered brain can hardly take them in, the small, ordinary pleasures in small, ordinary lives can be an anchor to sanity. As much as there is flimsy and nonsense and pointless shouting and idiot arguments in the virtual world, there is also a lot of kindness of strangers. There are shards of wisdom and moments of glad grace. You get a glimpse into lives of which you would otherwise know nothing. I think there is something rather marvellous in that.

 

Today’s pictures:

One from the morning field:

The day was too gloomy for pictures, so here are some of the Beloveds from the last few sunnier days:

The focus is hysterically wrong in this picture, but I love it, because it gives a sense of the happiness of the dear little band:

Free grazing. Two things make me smile: Stanley the Dog channelling his inner horse, and the most excellent colour coordination:

Perfectly synchronised eating:

Is it time for breakfast face:

And a few more of my Hebridean pictures:

I love this one because it could have been taken in 1953:

Happy holiday faces:

HorseBack and horses and no words left.

Been working all day on stuff for HorseBack. It’s always the hardest kind of writing I ever have to do, because it’s for such a serious purpose. This is not just for me, for my own vanity or success or amour-propre. It’s for an organisation which really does transform people’s lives. It’s a keen responsibility.

They are all so no-nonsense and funny and matter-of-fact down there it’s sometimes easy to forget what an extraordinary thing it is that they have undertaken. Since I’ve been working with them, I’ve watched a man with no legs trot off into the wild Deeside hills, talked to a gentleman whose body is filled with bullet holes, observed a laughing fellow guide a horse round an arena using his last remaining digit. People come there for whom the simple act of sleeping is a rare luxury. So these words damn well matter.

My brain is now so stretched that it is about to crawl out of my ears and hide behind the sofa, so there is nothing left for the blog. You are good people; you understand about priorities. I know that I do not have to apologise for this.

 

There are, however, some pictures. Almost a little photo essay, you might say. Because today was the Red Letter Day when Autumn the Filly got her first saddle on her back.

We were expecting a bit of a buck or a jump or at the very least a tossed head. But her trainer has worked so well with her on the ground that she mostly just went to sleep as the big foreign object was placed on her. Yeah, yeah, whatever, one could almost hear her saying, her ears in firm donkey position.

Hmm, and you want me to react to this how?:

I suppose it is faintly interesting:

But NOT as scary as you thought:

Really nothing to see here. Move along:

I’ll just do a bit of collected circling:

At this point, the Horse Talker arrived, who is the owner of Autumn, and the filly pricked up her ears as if to say MUM:

Look what I DID:

It was actually quite hard work, I suppose:

Meanwhile, Red was off in a doze, eating her hay:

When the thrilling decision to do some free schooling was taken:

And it was - Come on everyone, LET’S GO:

They have been very still lately, with all the weather. They had so much fun cantering about that, afterwards, Myfanwy clearly thought she was Queen of the World:

Which she almost certainly is:

And then they just hung out for a bit, very pleased with themselves:

But of course the main thing was that Stanley the Dog HAD HIS BALL:

Oh, yes:

No hill today. I would love to say it is lost in music, but in fact it’s lost in the cloud.

Love and trees. Or, hoof by hoof.

I speak, in turn, at length, to the Beloved Cousin and the Younger Brother. I have not spoken to either since last year, and we roar into an orgy of catching up and jokes and ontological questions.

This is the interesting thing to me of middle age. No matter how they start off, the conversations always circle back to: what’s it all about, Alfie?

‘Love and trees,’ I yell, in delirium. ‘That’s all that matters.’

‘And laughter,’ says the Beloved Cousin. ‘You’ve got to be able to laugh.’

We then laugh for about five minutes straight. We do not do polite lady-like merriment; we rock and roll and shout and shriek with laughter. I have a terrible habit of barking with laughter, like a wild dog. It’s not very pretty, but it gets the endorphin level off the scale.

The Brother and I also discuss the danger of labels, and the pernicious trap of assumptions, two of my favourite subjects.

It’s such a funny thing, life; funny peculiar as well as funny ha ha. Sometimes I feel like I have to work it out from scratch each day. But as I get older, despite the overwhelming sense that the only thing I know is that I know nothing, there are some things of which I am increasingly certain.

These do mostly come under the umbrella of love and trees. But it’s not just the obvious operatic loves. It’s not hearts and flowers love that counts the most; it’s not Paris and a good string section. Romantic love is lovely, and to be desired, but the loves I really cherish are the little, mundane, workaday loves. These are the ones about which no one would ever write a book. It is the love of the small things that I think is the engine which keeps us all chugging along. It is the love of what may be considered unremarkable.

Connected with this is learning to find a sense of achievement in the very small. Worldly success is a marvellous thing, and devoutly to be wished, but shooting at the moon always involves the possibility of going smash. Just as I think that the love does not need to be the high, romantic version, I believe that achievement does not need to be the name in the papers kind.

I was thinking about this today as I worked my little pony. The equines teach me horse lessons each day, and quite often life lessons too. This was one such lesson.

I was asking her to go through what she considers perfectly monstrous yellow barrels. No, no, no, she said, planting her feet, and throwing her head in the air, rolling her eyes at me as if I were mad. I considered for a moment, working out how to deal with the impasse. (You cannot make even a very small pony do what it does not want to do.)

Right, I thought. Let’s forget the big goal, which is to walk through the barrels. Let’s just do one step at a time. So, very gently, and with slow patience, I literally asked her to move one hoof at a time. Every step forward was rewarded.

Hoof by hoof, we worked. With each one, her head went down, her trust went up, my delight soared. And suddenly, hardly even knowing it, we were through the frightening obstacles, and after ten minutes were doing little figures of eight around the yellow horrors as if we were in a demonstration. It was all jubilee with us.

I know that I tell you versions of this kind of story quite a lot, at the moment. It is not really because you need to know it, but because I need to remind myself. I need to put down markers. My heart is still bruised from the loss of my dear old dog; I am still haunted by my Great Setback; the memory of my father may still make me weep in the still watches of the night. I am going to be forty-six quite soon, and I am prey to all those intimations of mortality of which this age is made. Yet, if I can do it hoof by hoof, I think I shall be all right.

Love and trees, my darlings. Love and trees.

 

Today’s pictures are from the week, since I was too busy to take the camera out today.

The delightful herd:

This is what Myfanwy looks like when she is uncertain whether she wants to do the thing I am asking her to do:

NO NO NO NOT SCARY BARRELS.

And this is what she looks like afterwards, when she has been gently persuaded that here be no dragons:

Well, maybe not such scary barrels after all.

And this is a long view of the field, looking north, so you can see the full height of the hill behind:

Stanley the Dog was very, very good on his walk today. His recall is improving wonderfully. For this, he gets love and biscuits:

THE EARS:

And two views of the hill:

I hope you are all having a lovely Friday. I have been working the last few weekends, on account of deadline, but tomorrow I am taking the whole two days off and am going to watch the racing and mooch about with the equines and do absolutely bugger all. So I have a very keen Friday feeling indeed.