Of crazy projects and gold medals

Slight state of collapse. Stayed up all night working on secret project. It has suddenly grabbed me and will not let go. I found myself wide awake at five in the morning, having written four thousand words.

I sent it to The Playwright. This is all his fault. It was his idea in the first place. I asked him to tell me at once if the whole thing was a load of buggery bollocks, because I had drunk so much coffee I could not tell. I did not want to send it to my agent if it was too shaming.

The reply came back before breakfast. ‘Send it,’ he wrote.

(I should explain what an act of friendship that is. It’s very difficult reading pages for someone to whom you are close; there are elephant traps everywhere. Also, The Playwright, as his name suggests, has things of his own to be writing. To read and respond so quickly is something not that many people would do. It is an act of true generosity and elegance.)

Anyway, I sent it.

The reply was also swift. Automated reply: agent out of the office until 13^th August. I had no idea how I was going to deal with the tension until then. Luckily, the Younger Niece has just received a diploma in bartending, so if the worst comes to the worst, I can get her to feed me white ladies.

Then, just before lunch, the agent emailed. She was on holiday in Italy, but she had read my twenty pages. ‘Write it,’ she wrote. ‘Already thinking of editors.’

I CANNOT TELL YOU WHAT THIS MEANS.

Sorry about the capitals. I got into hysterical cap mode whilst watching the dressage and it seems that this is a day for intemperance and hyperbole. The thing is, the last book was such a struggle. We never struck off on the right leg, and have been slightly out of kilter ever since. It will still need a battling third draft. But this secret project is pouring out of me like starlight. I never pull all-nighters except on the day before deadline. I had only sat down to noodle about for my own pleasure.

When a book grabs you by the neck, you can only submit. What you cannot tell is whether anyone else will be as entranced by it as you are yourself. That is why the agent’s email felt so sweet. I jumped and shouted and punched the air. The Pigeon looked most quizzical and slightly shocked.

So now I have a lovely new project which is real, not secret, and it feels as if something wonderful has shifted and I do not need to sit at my desk with my shoulders about my ears, desperately doing pitches which never quite hit the right note.

As a treat, I let myself watch the finals of the dressage in the afternoon. That was when the mad capital letter tweeting started. A resolute band of horse-lovers on my timeline was as nervy and excited as I. The levels of skill and beauty were off the scale. I may describe it on another day, when I can focus my eyes. But the glorious thing was that despite massive scores posted by the Dutch and Germans, Charlotte Dujardin, the British rider, won gold, with her lovely horse Valegro.

They performed a test of beauty and humour and a little sprinkling of patriotism even; it held a flash of eccentricity, a whiff of irony. It was, in other words, a very British test, except for the part where it was perfect, which is not a virtue these islands are known for. They were immaculate, and when they won, there was not a dry eye in the house. Certainly not in this house. It was really, really lovely.

Up to my own mare now. I may explain to her the mysteries of the reverse pirouette. Or, I may not. (Ha, ha, ha, she will say to Myfanwy the Pony, after I have gone; do you know what the old girl was banging on about tonight?)

 

Pictures of evening walk with The Younger Brother:

Pigeon, doing extended trot in honour of the dressage:

Red the Mare, showing off her flying change:

Hill:

Of horses, gold medals and secret projects

It turns out I have a secret project. I love a secret project. Most of these go nowhere, but merely occupy my midnight hours. This one, however, may have legs. It was suggested to me by The Playwright, and since he is the wisest man I know, I usually do exactly what he says. (I always know he is serious when he starts a telephone call with a firm, yet faintly quizzical, ‘Now...’)

Anyway, this morning I just sat down and wrote 1695 words of the secret project, on top of my other work. So I feel rather surprised and industrious.

I watched the dressage in the afternoon as a treat. Everyone rode beautifully and the horses did the impossible things that dressage horses do, and madly, Britain won. Blighty has never won a dressage medal in its life. Roumania and Mexico have more dressage medals than we do, and one does not necessarily think of them as the home of the English style of riding. But suddenly everything shone with perfection and not a hoof was in the wrong place and everyone practically fainted with astonishment and pleasure.

Every time I turn on the wireless now, I hear an excited reporter saying: ‘Britain’s won another gold medal.’ I literally heard that exact sentence on the way up to the mares to do evening stables, and on the way home again. What is rather sweet is that it is not said in any triumphalist way. Britain is used to being a bit crap, her glory days behind her. She watches, like a tired and indulgent old aunt, as the boisterous teenagers, America and China, take over the world. They expect, I suspect, to be world-beaters. It always astonishes me when I hear American politicians or commentators state with certainty that theirs is the greatest nation on earth. I am slightly envious of such self-belief. If asked, most Britons might mutter that their country is ‘all right, I suppose’. It’s the same mindset that replies ‘Not too bad,’ when asked how one is.

So the sports reporters sound not like mighty titans, certain of British glory, but like little boys, absolutely giddy and astounded that these things are happening to battered old us. Even the BBC newsreaders who are on strict instructions from the grave of Lord Reith never to get excited about anything (impartiality at all times) cannot keep an antic delight out of their voices.

I love it. I love that people are getting excited about sports they never heard of until two weeks ago. My mother follows everything, and now is quite knowledgeable about archery and judo. Who knew that Britons were brilliant at the dressage and the pommel horse? Someone on Twitter got very cross when I dared to suggest that the national mood was light, pointing out, quite correctly that there isn’t really any such thing as national mood. But there perhaps are moments of national spirit, when the imagination of the public is caught, and something in the dusty zeitgeist shifts, and I think this might be one of those times.

The mare, catching a whiff of Olympic fever in the air, decided to perform her very own dressage test out in her field. It was sort of polo dressage: tight turns, sudden flat gallop, floating extended trot, stop on a sixpence. She loves doing this when the mood is in her, and it makes me double up with laughter. What always astonishes me is that when the bronco is out of her, she immediately reverts to her dozy donkey state. She turns to me, lowers her head in a little bow, and offers her forehead for scratching. The lower lip wibbles and the eyelashes flutter, and the wild thing becomes a dope, who only wishes for love. It’s very touching. At moments like that, my heart bursts in my chest, and I run out of words for love.

 

Today’s pictures:

Here goes Red the mare, with all her high ancestry thrilling in her:

And then, when she has calmed down and had a nice brush, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth:

Myfanwy the Pony, who did excellent work this morning:

This is the face the Pigeon makes when I make her pose for photographs instead of throwing her ball:

Isn’t it pitiful? I think she may be developing into a bit of a drama queen in her old age:

Hill:

All horses and joy; or anatomy of a Tuesday

 

The sun shone. A brilliant man from Perthshire came and manipulated the mare’s back. He gave me a lesson in equine anatomy as Red shuddered and leaned and made most unladylike groaning noises. She’s tight and knotty in all the places you would expect someone who has done the work she has done to be. The brilliant man was not whimsical and new age, although some people think massaging horses is a load of nonsense. He was one of those proper, bone-deep horseman, the kind you can meet once and immediately start talking the same equine language. He is practical and earthy and not prone to flights of fancy, I should not imagine. All the same, he wants me to massage my mare every day. And so I shall. We shall bend and stretch until our ears squeak. She shall be the most limber horse in Scotland.

I then rushed back to watch the show-jumping phase of the three day event. It was absolutely thrilling. For a moment, I hoped the doughty Britons might overhaul the coruscating Germans, but no one was getting past them. Still, Olympic silver is an extraordinary thing. The team rode so well and tried so hard and took equine excellence to a high plain. I salute them all.

I felt quite teary, watching the ceremony. The riders all looked so happy and proud, and the horses so gleaming and bonny. The great New Zealand team won bronze, and everyone cheered their heads off for Mark Todd, who at fifty-six is really stretching the Olympic spirit to its farthest ends. He is so good it would not surprise me if he were in Rio in four years’ time.

So that was happy and good, and even though the lovely Michelangelo got beat in the big race at Goodwood, carrying my money with him, I was rewarded with an unexpected treat, because friend of the blog Shirley Teasdale had a big winner at Ayr. She had a difficult ride last week when her horse ran off his true line and she was hauled in front of the stewards. I always think that must be a terrifying carpet to be up on for a young apprentice. But there, she bounced back in glory.

My own tiny champion, the younger great-niece, rode Myfanwy the pony, with the usual blissed out expression on her face. I’m not sure I ever saw a four year old person quite so happy. For a lot of small people, getting on the back of even the dopiest pony can feel alien and alarming. It’s so foreign, and so far off the ground. Not for this one. She goes into a trance of bliss. ‘Can I steer myself? Let me steer myself!’ she cried, with her Lester Piggott face on. I thought: I must record this now, so that when she is winning Olympic gold or riding in the Grand National, her first steps shall have been marked. (It may turn out that she is a poet or a breeder of rare sheep, but I like to have my equine dreams.)

Her joy was so infectious that the other children clamoured to have a go. So we got all the tiny relations on the small white pony, and it made me think of my own childhood, and it was very, very sweet indeed.

I must concentrate now on serious things. I must get back to my work and take in world events (no idea what is happening beyond my gate just now) and put my serious hat on. But today, as the dancing Scottish sun beamed down on us, all was horsey joy.

 

Pictures of the day:

Red, looking particularly magnificent after her manipulation:

I don’t know what that fella did to her, but she was bucking round her field like a two-year-old:

Myfanwy the Pony had a bath today. Does she not look clean:

The ponies have new neighbours. The farmer brought them up yesterday. They are just weaned, very curious, and ravishingly beautiful:

Red’s view:

PIGEON:

Sometimes she has to go into capital letters because lower case is just not enough.

The hill:

The strangely invisible team

Today, a British team is performing at the Olympics. At the half-way point of their discipline, they are in bronze medal position. One member of the team is the world number one. We don’t have that many world champions, but we have one here.

We have only won two medals so far, a silver and a bronze. This team has the potential for collective and individual gold, if they get a little luck and things fall their way. You might think that this would be a cause for excitement and rejoicing and sporting fervour.

On the BBC Olympic website, this team is not mentioned. On the page titled ‘Day Three’s must-see moments’ there is diving, swimming, gymnastics and rowing. On the section ‘GB Teams in action’ there is basketball, handball, hockey, volleyball and water polo. There is absolutely no mention of this particular team, despite the fact they have performed out of their skins so far, in one of the most gruelling Olympic sports of all, and they have the potential to win something for dear old Blighty. In the sports round-up on this morning’s Today programme, their names were not spoken.

I refer, of course, to the British three-day-event team, who start the cross-country section today.

I’m afraid I got very, very grumpy about this. I started developing all kinds of furious conspiracy theories. It must be because it is to do with horses, and horses are seen as posh, and everyone hates posh people. The world champion is even called William Fox-Pitt, carrying the terrible no-no of a double-barrelled name. He really does not sound as if he scrabbled his way up from a council estate. (Perhaps he should have changed his name to William Pitt, but then everyone would have thought he was an 18th century prime minister and made Pitt the Younger jokes and asked if he were going to declare war on Napoleon.) It’s inverted snobbery at its crest and peak, I decided, which is intellectually lazy and generally very silly.

Then I wondered if it were an identity thing. Commentators talk a lot about being able to identify with public figures; they must be accessible and not too far removed from the common experience. Lofty fellows with grand names high up on shining horses are too far from the daily life of the woman on the Clapham omnibus. If that were the reason, then I thought that was pretty absurd, too. Rebecca Adlington and Tom Daley may come from backgrounds very much like the majority of usual Britons, but their talent and their dedication set them apart. Spending six hours a day in the pool is not something with which anyone but the most dedicated may identify.

Then, because I must have a damn explanation, I wondered if it were a town and country thing. Most people live in towns and cities now; the country is often viewed with some suspicion. The three-day-event is country to its fingertips, fatally connected with tweeds and gumboots and mud. It is not metropolitan and modern.

I went up for my Olympic breakfast with The Mother and the lovely Stepfather, filled with indignant theories. The Stepfather gave me my bacon, got out his glittering Occam’s Razor, and sliced cleanly through all my ranting. ‘People just aren’t very interested in it,’ he said.

The awful thing is that I think he might be right. It’s probably not any sociological prejudice or casual stereotyping; it’s just that it is a minority sport.

I think that is a bit sad. Badminton used to be a great national event; when I was a child, it was all over the BBC, and the mighty Lucinda Prior-Palmer was a household name and an object of heroine worship with me and my fellow schoolgirls. Now, despite William Fox-Pitt being the champion of the world, his name is virtually unknown.

I think it is a pity because one could argue that the three-day-event is the ultimate Olympic test. It involves that great mystery, the horse. You can train a horse and school a horse and use all the new technology available to you and get the greatest experts and ride eight hours a day (which is what these athletes do, rain or shine) and still, there is the glorious unpredictability of the equine mind. A horse may spook at the crowd in the middle of a dressage test, take exception to a strange water feature out on the cross-country course, become distracted by a bright umbrella in the show-jumping ring, and that is four year’s work up in smoke. The rider not only has to be talented and fit and nimble, but alive to the constant possibility of the unexpected.

It involves no fewer than three testing phases, all of which ask different things of horse and rider. In the dressage, there is control, suppleness, responsiveness. Then, out on the cross country course, there is the hard gallop over stretching, immovable fences, where one minute misjudgement can lead to crashing falls, broken limbs, utter disaster. I know of no other Olympic event where such physical jeopardy is taken quite for granted. Finally, there is the accuracy and speed required for the show-jumping phase. Having been faced with enormous, solid obstacles the day before, the horses are presented with poles that may come crashing down at the flick of a hoof.

It is also very beautiful. The sight of a fine, strong horse, rippling with muscle, coat gleaming with health, eye shining with intelligence and alertness, at one with a skilled rider, in the most demanding contest, is a very lovely one, even to the untrained eye. It is aesthetically pleasing, even if you do not know what the hell is going on.

It also requires buckets of courage, strength, stamina and dogged determination, over an extended period. I used to do a little bit of junior cross-country when I was young, and I knew I could never go on to the grown-up stuff, because it was too damn terrifying. It asks both equine and human to go the very limits of their physical capabilities.

You would think that this might be interesting, but apparently not. The good thing is that only I am cross about this. The riders will be far too busy walking the course and contemplating their great challenge to care what media websites have, or have not, to say. The horses, very luckily, do not read English, and care only about doing their job and getting a nice bran mash at the end of the day. Perhaps it is even a relief for the competitors not to have to suffer the glare of the public spotlight. Horse people are pretty straightforward and down to earth; preening for the cameras is not something that comes naturally to them.

Still, I would like them to get a bit of credit. The skill and guts that shall be on show today will be something to which a hat should be doffed. I shall be rooting for Mary King and William Fox-Pitt and Nicola Wilson and Tina Cook and Zara Phillips, in my Team GB way, but cross country is so demanding that it goes beyond national labels, so I’ll be cheering for every good rider and brave horse to get round, and give of their best. And the best will be very, very good indeed.

 

It’s a gloomy old day today, so I did not take the camera out. Here are some nice pictures of our great horses and riders instead, to get you in the Olympic mood:

 

Mary King and Imperial Cavalier; photograph by Getty Images.

Nicola Wilson and Opposition Buzz, by Henry Bucklow for Lazy Photography.

 

Zara Phillips and High Kingdom performing dressage yesterday; photograph by John MacDougall for AFP.

William Fox-Pitt and Lionheart; photograph by Horse and Hound.

Tina Cook and Miners Frolic; photograph by Henry Bucklow for Lazy Photography.

And I’m so very sorry, but I can’t resist including my own little Olympic champion. She wouldn’t know a flying change from a hole in the ground, but she gets my own personal gold medal, for sheer loveliness:

And this one of course is just the official Queen of the World:

The event has just started, as I finish typing this. To be fair to the dear old Beeb, they have just done a lovely package with Clare Balding interviewing the British team, and the cross country coverage has got off to an excellent start. The first American rider is motoring over a very trappy and undulating course, and the crowds are whooping and cheering their heads off. So perhaps my own personal heroes and heroines, horse and human both, are getting their moment in the sun after all.

Oh, and talking of Olympic champions, we may have one in the making here. The middle of the great-nieces, who is a very, very small person indeed, got onto Myfanwy the pony today for their first serious ride together, and it turns out that not only does she have a natural seat, but she can do a perfect sitting trot. She loves it so much that her entire face is wreathed in beaming smiles, smiles so big that they really need more face to express their full delight. The World Traveller and I count on our fingers. ‘What do you think?’ we say to each other. ‘Olympics 2024?’ We nod seriously. The pony nods her old grey head. The great-niece laughs out loud, from sheer pleasure.

PS. Forgive if there are typos and howlers; I have not time to do a serious proof-read, as I must now WATCH THE HORSES. Go, go, go Team GB.

In which I examine my patriotic pride for bugs, and cheer on the great British riders

The Dear Readers take a stand against patriotism, and in a way they are quite right. It is, after all, the last refuge of the scoundrel. It is such a random thing, which country you are born in; really, we are all citizens of the world.

In some ways, though, I think patriotism gets a bad name. It need not be a narrow, competitive thing. One can feel fondness for one’s country without thinking it is the best. There is a great difference between narrow chauvinism and generous national pride.

I feel about my country the same way I feel about my family. One may feel pride in one’s mother’s or father’s achievements, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with one, and the people to whom one is born is just as random as is one’s home city.

I feel insanely proud that I had a dad who rode in the Grand National, even though he did it before I ever existed. When I think of him and miss him, I look at a picture of him booting some dear old steeplechaser over a fence, his teeth gritted, a look of manic determination and wild joy in his eyes, and I feel happy again. I do not think my family or my country is the finest that ever existed; quite the opposite. I love them because of their flaws, not in spite of them. (Someone, I think it may have been Balzac, said that is the truest kind of love.)

My fondness for Britons stems not from the hope that they might be world-beaters, but because of the family connection: the shared references, the in-jokes, the cultural shorthands. It is familiarity, as much as anything. It is understanding about Marmite and Monty Python and Mrs Slocombe’s pussy and Pride and Prejudice and Dad’s Army and Dr Who and we few, we happy few. (Even these shorthands may fracture; many of my cultural markers will be strange to those of my compatriots under forty.)

In these games, it shall be lovely to see fine competitors of whatever nationality fulfil their potential, be rewarded for all that work and striving. But if Rebecca Adlington or Mary King or Ben Ainslie or William Fox-Pitt win something, there shall be an extra frisson of delight, because we are related by all the national icons, stitched together by the NHS, and the weather, and self-deprecation, and Shakespeare, and all those other things of which Britain's identity is made.

It is a bit nuts to love one country more than another, but human emotions are not always neatly explicable. Danny Boyle’s great and glorious opening ceremony reminded a lot of Britons what it is that makes us fond and proud: the eccentric, the historic, the exuberant, the very slightly odd. I doubt that any other country on earth would have put dancing nurses into a sporting extravaganza. Or suffragettes and shire horses and Chelsea Pensioners and sheep, for that matter. It had nothing to do with me, yet I did feel proud. I even quite liked the very British fact that, beside all the delight and amazement and applause, there was the statutory curmudgeonly grumbling. We do curmudgeonly better than anyone.

I think you can wave your own flag without wanting to lower anyone else’s. Poor old Blighty is a bit battered and bashed at the moment, what with the crappy economy and industrial decline and the embarrassment of the football. It would cheer one up to win something.

But if we don’t, the crowds will still cheer for those of other nations who do. They will cheer effort as much as victory. This generous spirit was on display on the water this morning, when a capacity crowd saved its biggest roar of the day for a rower from Niger, who was so far behind the rest that he was practically in another county. Hamadou Djibo Issaka has, I very much doubt, a drop of British blood, but he showed the glorious underdog spirit which Britons love the most, and was taken instantly to the spectators’ hearts. I don’t think anyone on the water got more sincere applause.

My Team GB cockles were warmed today by the lovely performances from Zara Phillips and William Fox-Pitt in the dressage stage of the three-day-event. Most of all, I was thrilled by the extraordinary composure of Tina Cook, who had to ride the most delicate of equestrian disciplines in a torrential rain storm. She and her lovely horse, Miners Frolic, rose mightily to the occasion, and, despite thunder and lightning, made a brilliant score of 42.00. Cook’s father, Josh Gifford was a racing compadre of my father’s. He most famously trained Aldaniti to win the Grand National, and, even more memorably, refused to jock off the cancer-stricken Bob Champion when some of his owners complained. So he was a great gentleman, and he died in February, and I thought of that as I watched Cook. I wondered if she were remembering her dad and wishing he were there to see her. He would have been fiercely proud.

Taking my Blighty hat off, I was incredibly happy to see the majestic horseman Mark Todd of New Zealand, still at the top of the world at the age of 56, ride a perfect, balletic test on his delightful Campino. The knowledgeable crowd also took their own nationalist hats off to give the tremendous Kiwi a rousing cheer, recognising true excellence when they saw it. The commentators were beside themselves. ‘Toddy,’ they said, with joy and admiration, ‘very, very good.’

Tomorrow, I shall be shouting for the British riders as they face the daunting cross country fences. Team GB lies in third place, just behind Germany and Australia. In a way, none of this matters. It is just a sporting competition; national glory is only a human construct, and a fairly peculiar one. But for all that, I do feel proud, and I do feel hopeful, and I shall be waving my metaphorical flag. They are all such great competitors, and the horses are so brave and fine. Let them go for gold.

 

I did not have a moment to take out the camera today. What with working with the horses and watching the dressage and I don’t know what else, the day got away from me. Just time for my girls, in elegant black and white:

 

Olympic Fever

Too overcome by Olympic fever to write a word. There shall be words, but just not now. Last night was so unexpected and deliriously wonderful that I ran out of adjectives. I shall think some up, and get back to you tomorrow.

In the meantime, forgive me, as I sink into an Olympic haze, muttering under my breath, faintly, falteringly: Go, Team GB.....

Lovely photograph of Sir Chris Hoy waving the flag for dear old Blighty, surrounded by our athletes, at the astonishing opening ceremony, where Danny Boyle instantly won the hearts of an entire nation.

Oh, but I do have the energy to take my hat off to two of our great equestriennes, who started the day with a bang by riding lovely dressage tests in the first phase of the three-day event. Nicola Wilson on Opposition Buzz is currently in 16th place overall, and Mary King, who rode an almost flawless test on Imperial Cavalier, is in third. 

Mary King, smiling after her test; photograph by AFP/Getty Images.




Nicola Wilson, who rode beautifully on Opposition Buzz, and was, I thought, rather harshly marked by the judges. (Dressage judges are an inscrutable lot.) But don't they look fine? 

Photograph by the PA.

Finally, here is my sweet Equestrian Team GB fact of the day. Despite their posh competition names, in the stables Imperial Cavalier and Opposition Buzz are known as Archie and Dodi. I hope they get a lot of love and carrots tonight. They really, really deserve it.