A radical thought.

This morning, in the bath, I had a radical thought. What if I was happy, for my mother’s sake?

Here is the ludicrous thing about death. A person you love dies. You cry a lot. You feel wretched. Your throat aches with unexpressed words, trapped memories, tangled regrets. You wash your hair twice because you have no idea whether you did it the first time. You have a bit of trouble behaving in a rational manner in the Co-op. You have no idea what you are supposed to do next. You go to bed at seven because you are so tired you don’t know what your name is. You keep getting wild flashes of the person, some happy, some sad, all lacerating. You have to tell people, which can go either way. You are out of step with the rest of the world, even though, paradoxically, death is the one certainty which knits all human hearts together. You make stupid amounts of soup, so that your kitchen becomes like some kind of industrial production line. You are a little lost, entirely bashed, and very, very sad.

No person you have ever loved would want you to feel any of those feelings.

I don’t have a heaven or an afterlife, although I am occasionally tempted by reincarnation and I do make jokes about the ghostly sound of my father’s laughter from the Great Betting Shop in the Sky. But if there existed a cloud on which my mother was now sitting, she would not be looking down and shouting, ‘Oh, bloody hell, go on, more weeping.’ I really don’t think that is what she would be saying.

I talk a lot about grief marking the space left behind, honouring the dead, but now I’m not sure. I know it has to be done, and you have to get the damn thing out or it will twist itself up and trap you into fatal tendencies like not eating or not sleeping or shouting at random people.

But what is it for?

Not the dead person, who wants only your well-being. I adore my nieces. If I said one word which caused them dismay, let alone pain, I would castigate myself for days. If, when I died, they felt horrid grief and if I had any consciousness left to see that horrid grief, I would be furious with myself. (Perhaps no cloud must be a good thing then, so the poor Dear Departeds, many of whom were rather jolly themselves and loved a party, don’t have to look down and see the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

None of it makes any sense. Humans – poets and novelists and playwrights and philosophers and shrinks – try to make sense of it because it so universally is. Even the most devout, who really do believe in choirs of angels and a Better Place, cry like anything when the beloveds go.

If I were the dead, I should be so cross. Have a lovely time, I should be bawling, from my wobbly cloud; have some gin, ride a horse, have a huge punt on the 3.30 at Fakenham; go dancing with your best friend; walk in the rain; read some Scott Fitzgerald; eat a peach. Make more soup if you must, I would be yelling, but perhaps some without tears in it.

So, here is my radical thought. Today, I’m going to be happy for my mum.

It won’t work all day, because I’m not buggery Superwoman, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’m going to dig out the little happy moments like a truffle hound. Instead of looking at Stanley and thinking, miserably, Oh, you loved her so much, I shall think of how happy his eager face is and how he is living entirely in the moment. It is a very good moment, because some of the rats have come back to the feed shed, so he is once more in his Steve McQueen Great Escape incarnation, and nothing makes him happier than tunnelling under the feed shed.

He did lay by her side every morning for the last few weeks, as if he knew she was failing, but that does not have to be a sad thing but a happy thing, a really wonderful thing which should make me smile with delight at his fine, devoted, doggy heart.

I’m going to ride my horse for her, because she was proud of what I did with that mare. I’m not going to look at the new mare as I did last night and say Oh, how I wish she had met you. I’m going to laugh like a drain at the thought that although my mother adored thoroughbreds, she did not in fact want me to get another one. (‘What is this Scout?’ Said in a Lady Bracknell voice.) She really longed for me to buy a little Welsh pony for the great-nephews and great-nieces. ‘A little Section A. Just imagine.’

I’m going to write the most absurd gratitude list in the world. (In this spirit, I felt grateful this morning as I came down from my bedroom, because there were actual stairs, to get me from one floor to the other. There are people who don’t have stairs.) For one day, I’m going to peer through the literal and metaphorical dreich and see the damn beauty. I’m going to do it for Mum.

 

Today’s pictures:

Just one. This is the one I’m carrying in my head. My mother liked small, elegant, polite dogs. She had unbelievably chic whippets when I was a child, as dapper and dashing as old school Russian aristocrats. Stanley is the most muttish of lurchers – to go with his greyhound half there is anything from Staffie to Lab to Boxer to Australian Cattle Dog. He is antic, unpredictable and very busy. He likes leaping about. He can open every single door on the compound. (He once opened my car door when it was locked, and also amuses himself by turning on the hazard lights and switching on Radio Four when he is bored.) You would think my mother would be horrified. But they fell in love with each other on sight, and nothing after that could come between them.

That is a happy thought. This is a happy dog.

A lovely day out. A welcome home.

Just got back from Blair Castle Horse Trials. This year, it was home to the European Championships, so some of the best horses and riders in the world were there. I enjoyed myself vastly and Stanley the Dog made friends wherever he went. (Except with two angry terriers and a disaffected dachshund, to whose snarls and yaps and barings of teeth he reacted with sweet charity and slight bemusement. Luckily, a ravishing lady Labrador soon cheered him up.)

I think perhaps a year ago I would have felt some chagrin. My mare would never look like those horses, or be able to do the things they do. I would never look like those riders or be able to do the things they do.

This year, I felt filled with love and joy. I admired and felt inspired. I adore watching people who are really, really good at what they do. These people were really, really good. There were some charming horses, with character and grace, courage and talent.

But I would not have swapped one of those world-class athletes for my own sweet girl. On the way home, through the mighty slopes of Glenshee, I had to watch my speed, I was so impatient to get home to her.

Back at the ranch, even though it was six o’clock and time for her tea, I leapt into the saddle and took her out into the amber evening light. The sun poured down like honey and she pricked her ears in polite surprise, not being accustomed to an evening ride. Round we went, in our old cow pony lope. She did actually do her dressage diva trot, as if to say: those world-beaters are not the only ones who know self-carriage. And then, just to show them that there was one event in which she would beat them all to flinders, she practised for the Standing Still Olympics.

I wrote yesterday that when I am in the saddle on that horse, I feel as if I have come home. Today, it was a literal thing. I was tired after the long day and the long drive, but I felt my shoulders come down and my heart lift.

There are thousands of horses out there who are better than she, who are even more beautiful than she, who have skills to which she, and I, shall never aspire. But there is not one single horse who suits me so well and makes me so happy.

Don’t compare, I think to myself. The way to hell is paved with comparisons. It’s a terrible human imperative. If only I had that, if only I were this, if only I could do what that person could do. Love what you have, I tell myself; love the one you’re with. This evening, in the glancing Scottish light, in my peaceful green field, on my glowing red mare, all that was fine and true.

 

Today’s pictures:

The road to Blair:

The Great Event:

The sweet face that greeted me when I got home. Slightly quizzical look, as if to say – Where have you BEEN all day?:

After the lovely ride, spotting Stanley the Manly capering about in the set-aside:

My little man was so good today:

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:

A trot, a drive and a thought.

I found my trot.

There it was, all the time, down the back of the sofa. The red mare, moving lightly within herself on a loose rein, as composed and collected as a 19^th century marchioness doing the gavotte, twitched her ears in the Scottish air as if to say: yes, yes, I think this was the item you were looking for.

Then I went for a drive and looked at the blue land in the sunshine and felt lucky.

I did some other things as well, but it’s Friday, and I don’t want to bore the arse off you.

(Wrote book; made soda bread; ran errands; had long and soothing conversation about the human condition. Same old, same old.)

Felt particularly pleased that I captured an image of Stanley the Dog with the Scottish sky in his eyes. All the time he was posing he was itching to be off to the undergrowth, where he heard the rustle of tempting critters. But he goodly stayed, and I got my shot.

There have been some interesting pieces of wisdom floating around on the internet lately. I find these reassuring, as the news gets madder and badder. (Greece; Putin; Libya; chaos and sorrow and insoluble problems.) The small wisdoms restore some sense to the stretched mind. One of them was from a lovely man called Ira Glass, and it had at its heart: don’t give up. Keep trying, keep pushing through, and you may achieve the beautiful thing you wish to make.

When I get frustrated with my bumbling horsemanship, I have to remind myself that I was off a horse for almost thirty years. I sat on a pony before I could construct a sentence, but that long gap meant that old, good instincts and muscle memory had atrophied and even disappeared altogether. The people I admire and wish to emulate have been doing it, every day, for those thirty years. They can do things without thought on which I have to concentrate very, very hard.

I can write a sentence which pleases me because I have been practising with words for those thirty years I was off a horse and at my desk. I knew a lot of the theory when I was in my twenties, because I read all the books and I had an avid mind. I went to all the great ones for example and advice. But I could not quite yet get my ducks in a row, because the knowing is one thing, and the doing is another. The fine doing comes only from the years and years of practice. Do your scales; play your arpeggios. Don’t give up. Embrace your mistakes, because without them you learn nothing.

I can write a sentence because I worked at it. I’d still like to write a better sentence, so I’ll go on working whilst I have a brain that functions and fingers that type. I’ll go on striving to be the horsewoman that my mare deserves until they have to hoist me into the saddle with ropes. It’s never finished.

Don’t give up. Keep trying. Stretch your sinews to the sky.

That, slightly to my surprise, is my thought for the day.

 

Today’s pictures:

Every day, in every way, I love that face a little bit more. I should not have thought such a thing were possible. I did not know one small human heart had so much love in it. It’s sort of crazy that it’s a horse who has unlocked this bounty, but I do not look gift mares in the mouth. (Except of course when her teeth need doing.) Love is love, wherever it might be found.