An awful lot of love.

I woke to blinding sunshine and ridiculously loud birdsong, as if the local avians were having some kind of arcane competition. I arrived at the field this morning to find two horses and a human fast asleep. It was one of the all-time great sights.

My little great-niece came for a ride. The red mare was, as she always is, utterly enchanting when faced with a small child. It is as if she knows, deep in her bones, that absolute gentleness is required.

We played around with the mare on the ground, and she showed off her paces in delightful fashion. Then the little jockey got up. She was suddenly a tiny bit doubtful, as it was the first time she had been on the mare, but her mother and I delicately encouraged, and she lifted her chin and screwed her courage to the sticking place and got into the plate.

‘Just sit there for a bit and feel the mare under you,’ I said, smiling up at the little face, which had a mixture of joy and uncertainty in it. ‘Feel the peace coming off her. That’s it. Now breathe, big deep breaths in and out.’

She thought this game was very funny, so we did silly breathing for a while. The red mare went to sleep. ‘Now,’ I said. ‘Big smile. And wave your arms in the air.’

The arms went up, into the blue Scottish sky. The mare stood like a statue, still dozing. ‘Now give her a good old rub on the neck to say well done,’ I said.

By this time, as the small hand ran up and down the great chestnut neck, there was no need to instruct the smile. It was beaming out into the day, as bright as the sun.

We walked, very very slowly. The good mare, understanding that she had precious cargo, perhaps sensing that her young passenger was not brimful of cavalier spirit but feeling her way, put each foot on the ground with as much fine delicacy as if she were treading on bone china.

‘Feel her moving under you,’ I said. ‘And just go with her. Don’t forget to breathe.’

And so we did a little walk, and then we did some more standing, and the smile stayed steadily in place, without wavering.

‘And say thank you,’ I said, laughing.

So the little person thanked the big thoroughbred, and everyone was smiling, and the swifts flew low over our heads, and Stanley the Dog larked about by the treeline, looking for pheasants, and everything was merry as a marriage bell.

I was very impressed, and said so. Some children leap up onto that mare as if she were a Shetland pony, with no fear. Some of them want to go off on their own, and I take my hand from the reins, and, even though staying close and keeping a strict weather eye, let them ride by themselves. Some of them are so excited that they would probably kick off into the horizon if I would let them.

This small person had adored the idea, but was daunted by the reality. She loves the mare, and knows her quite well, but when it came to it, that big athletic body did suddenly seem quite a climb. She had to grit her teeth a little, and face her doubts, and she did, in fine style. Her mother and I were quite prepared to say: never mind, another day. But I’m so glad she did get on, because facing your fears is the greatest triumph of all, and that tiny girl could teach a lot of burly grown-ups a good life lesson.

I loved the mare very much for being so tender with her, and felt profoundly touched to know that I can trust this horse with one of the best of the Best Beloveds.

Then I drove the long way round to buy some delicious meadow chaff for my good girl, because it’s the least she deserves, and looked at the blue hills basking in the sunshine, and wrote half a book in my head, mapping out each scene as if I were watching a film, and felt lucky. The Beloved Cousin rang up, and I pulled over and had a long and fond conversation, and then went home and did my work and reflected that it was hard to think of a day filled with more love.

I think sometimes about the people I know who have had great worldly success, and earned money, and got their existential passports rubber-stamped. I admire them vastly and don’t know how they do it. I could no more build a business up from scratch or transform an ailing company or star in a film than fly over the moon. My successes and rewards are tiny, private, and make no headlines. They bring in no great salary or tremendous bonus. But they are worth more than diamonds to me.

A girl on a horse, the smiles of my family, the voice of my dear friend on the telephone, the rolling Scottish hills – these are my glittering prizes. It’s more cheesy than cheese on toast with extra cheese, but there it is: the truest fact I know.

‘Love the small things,’ the Cousin and I shouted at each other, laughter in our voices, mostly at ourselves, at our own follies and idiosyncrasies. But the older I get, the more I think it is the secret of life, if there is a secret. Take joy in the very, very small and the big things will take care of themselves. That’s my damn theory, and I’m sticking to it.

 

Today’s pictures:

Two drowsing horses, one drowsing human:

We were concentrating so hard on the riding that there was no time for pictures, but here is the small great-niece and her mother before the Great Ride. You can see the Paint in the background, contemplating where she should actually get up or not. (The answer was: not.)

The long way round to buy the meadow chaff. Not a bad drive to the shops:

I’m not sure why everything was quite so blue today. The light was doing something fascinating, as if it were throwing a fine azure veil over the sleeping land:

After everyone woke up, the Paint and her human went out for a ride, closely overseen by the red mare. She does not like her charge to go anywhere without a permission slip:

Every day I think I could not love this mare more, and every day I do. It’s as if she breaks all the laws of physics and human emotion and neurobiology and I don’t know what all. She is a sort of miracle:

The love.

I had something good and big for you today. It was a whole human condition thing.

Then the day happened, and life happened, and work happened, and I now have absolutely no idea what it was.

I sometimes teach writing workshops, and one of the things I always tell my students is: carry a notebook with you wherever you go. Have one in the car and by the bed and in your pocket. That brilliant idea, glimmering with promise, will slip away down a back alley if you do not write it down.

Part of the reason I write this blog is because of the voices in my head which yell: write it down, write it down. The older I get, the more I think it is the small things which are important. It is not just the big, gleaming ideas which will get lost; it is the memory of the minuscule things which make a day joyful. I love to record these tiny events, these fleeting, precious moments, so I can look back and sigh and smile and say: yes, yes.

My sweetest of the small things today was, literally, small. The tiniest of the relations appeared, with her smiling mother, to see the red mare. The small relation, the youngest of the great-nieces, was wearing spanking smart gumboots, and rocking a gold sequinned skirt. It was a fabulous look.

‘Are you going somewhere special after this?’ I asked, gazing at the outfit.

‘No,’ said the smiling mother. ‘We just felt like the gold skirt.’

There is something wonderfully kick-up-your-heels about that. Why not damn well wear a gold skirt on an ordinary Monday?

The four of us set off for a walk around the block. The red mare was, as usual, entranced by a creature so tiny, and was at her gentlest and softest. We stopped on the bridge to play Pooh sticks, with the small person trotting joyously back and forth to see her sticks, and the mare delicately sticking her head out over the burn to observe the progress.

When I was young and foolish and certain about everything, I used to be rather jaded about family. Blood was not thicker, I thought. There were friends and interests and an entire globe, teeming with life. I was a citizen of the world. Family seemed rather stuffy and old-hat, and I hated the emphasis on family values with which the government of the day was so obsessed, as if everything else was second-rate and not valuable at all. I would slip the surly bonds and make a new kind of family, out of two sticks and some binder twine.

Now I think that family is a cornerstone. I adore it and appreciate it. Mine is not a neat, meat and potatoes affair. It is diffuse and complex and various. It would not fit nicely on a poster. But oh, oh, the love. And that is all that counts.

 

Today’s pictures:

Horse Talker, World Traveller and the smallest relation, with the red mare doing her dopiest dozy donkey face:

Gathering the sticks:

TRIUMPH!!!:

There they go, off to the sea:

The mare had slightly lost interest by this stage, so I let her have a pick in the long grass:

You do see what I mean about the outfit. The other particularly lovely thing about this small person is that she thinks the world is a perfectly splendid place. That smile has been a fairly permanent fixture, since she was a very small baby:

A day off.

Today I am doing: bugger all.

I got my morning dose of joy as the World Traveller came again to ride the red mare. It’s quite a responsibility, sending two beloveds off into the open fields, especially as they have only just started riding together. I busied myself with making feeds and tidying the shed to take my mind off it. Then I came out to see a glorious sight – the two of them cantering up the far slope, a red flash through the line of trees. Even from a quarter of a mile away I could see the harmony and delight, and ten minutes later, two smiling faces returned to the gate.

Then I got on and did a little cantering myself and the mare was all ease and charm. She was having one of those days where everything in her world is good.

I should be running errands and getting Christmassy, but I’m going to have one more day of sitting very still. I may, if I am exceptionally ambitious, gaze into the middle distance.

 

Today’s pictures:

It has gone dank and gloomy now, with the sky the colour of furious doves, but this morning – ah, this morning – there was light:

Hunting by the burn:

I put a bridle on Red for the first time in about five months. It is what the World Traveller is used to, and it’s good for the mare to be able to ride both bitted and bitless. She can’t just be an old cow pony every day, in her rope halter. She seemed perfectly amenable to the idea:

(Although it’s so long since I’ve had to deal with tack I could hardly remember how. That noseband is a bit high. My mother will not be impressed.)

Watching them go off together really did make my heart sing:

And behind them was the dear old hill:

Oh, and one more, because I can’t resist, and Christmas is a time for joy, and what could be more joyful than these happy faces?:

In which I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. But it was a very, very good day.

Author’s note: I got carried away with this one. It is long, baggy and tangential. The point gets lost somewhere in the sixth paragraph, and is never retrieved. But if you are willing to bash on, and dig with a spoon, there are some moments of loveliness.

 

I was thinking, this morning, about taking the good bits and leaving the rest. I like to pretend I know all about human complexity and the flaws and frailties flesh is heir to. I can get a bit swanky about how I do not put people into boxes. But still, I sometimes get pulled into the quicksand of the single label. This person is good, that one is bad; this one is a dullard, this one is quite coruscating; this one is a melancholic, that one is a sunny optimist.

The fact is that humans can be all these things, on the very same day. We are all on a veering, curving spectrum. (And you know how rarely I use the Universal We. But in this case I think it is called for.)

I was reminded the other day of something a wise person said to me. Or perhaps I mean a wise thing a person said. It was: ‘it is easy to behave well when you are happy.’ Often if someone is mean or unfair or sharp, it has nothing to do with you. I am always in danger of taking things personally, and off goes the three act drama, with me as the operatic star. Usually, in these cases, it is nothing to do with me and everything to do with the other person. They are wrangling with existential angst, or fretting about a beloved, or have suddenly lost their moments of glad grace. They don’t necessarily mean to, but they may take it out on the person nearest to them.

My old dad, whom I miss every day, was a man of labyrinthine complexity. He was adored throughout the racing world. He was the sweetest and funniest and most charming and eccentric gentleman. He could light up a room just by walking into it, even though he did not stride in like a colossus, but shuffled through the door with his shoulders hunched from all the operations he had to stop them falling out of their sockets in a tight finish, and his back slightly bent from the times he broke it. He would twinkle his eyes through his great spectacles and somehow everyone would feel better.

On a horse, he was brave as a lion. But he was also fabulously irresponsible, occasionally unreliable, and very, very naughty. He drank too much and gambled too much and chased far too many women. He loved his children but never particularly felt that he should do anything for us. In way, this was very liberating. There was no burden of expectation. He never told us how to live our lives, or read us lectures. I think I sometimes did wish for a regular, respectable dad, but in the end I realised that what I got was much, much better. He taught me the best lesson I ever learnt, by simple example. That is: to judge people exactly as you find them, not through the prism of class or money or colour or creed or sexuality. If someone could make my dad laugh, he did not give a bugger what car they drove or what school they went to.

Now, as I remember him and carry him with me, I leave the bad parts and contemplate only the good.

I was thinking particularly of him because a rather astounding thing happened a few days ago. A cousin of mine became a colonel. As I do my work with HorseBack, I always think: well, I know horses, but I don’t know the services. That is the new part which I am mapping. I don’t come from a military family, I tell people. Yet, all the time, there was this brave fighting relation, doing tours in Afghan, and now, being promoted to a rank which makes me take my hat off. The first thing I wrote, to the cousin and his sister, when I heard the news, was how much the auld fella would have laughed. It’s true. I am in awe and wonder, incredibly impressed by such dizzy heights. A colonel in the Household Cavalry is a mountain top which I can hardly imagine. But Dad would have roared with laughter. He would have been proud, of course, but he would have found it inexpressibly comical that someone in his family would do such a grown-up job. (He did his own national service in a cavalry regiment, joining the Hussars I am perfectly certain in the expectation that he could pitch up with his horse. I think he got a bit of a shock when he arrived at Salisbury Plain to find only tanks.) The lovely cousin and his proud sister wrote back to say that they were raising a glass to the old man.

So many good parts, I think. Who cares about the less good. Emphasise the positive, I think, and eliminate the negative and latch onto the affirmative and don’t mess with Mr In-Between.

People are always going to behave in ways that one might not choose. They may think thoughts that one would prefer they did not think. They will not always react in the hoped-for manner. They may baffle and confound. But I start to think that if you search for the good parts, the rest won’t matter so much.

The red mare is, in the magical part of my mind, the exception to the rule and perfect in every way. Of course this is not in fact true. She has her grouches and her small moments of stubbornness and her grumpy mornings. There are very few humans I secretly believe close to perfect, but one of them is my friend The World Traveller, who lives up the road and is my relation by marriage. This morning, she came to ride the mare for the first time. She is a tremendous horsewoman, but has been too busy bringing up four small children to think of things equine. I suddenly decided, on a whim: I have this great horse, and the WT is a great rider, and I am going to bring them together.

It was quite frightening, sending Red off into the unknown. What if disaster struck? What if my profound faith in this mighty mare is misplaced?

I need not have worried. Back they both came, after a morning out in the fields, wreathed in smiles. The World Traveller (given her blog name because she once rode across half of Asia on horses and camels) is not, of course, perfect. She has told me of her flaws, although I never quite believe her. But she is one of the sunniest, kindest, most generous-hearted people I know, and being able to put her up on my equally big-hearted mare made me happier than I can say.

This blog did have a serious point when I started it. I think it was about complexity. Now, as I wander towards the end, I realise that I have galloped off on my usual tangents, and I have absolutely no idea what it was that was so important I had to write it down for you.

Perhaps it was a rumination on my daily fight against perfection, against black and white, against false expectations, against cramming people into boxes.

I am galvanised and filled with energy today. After the World Traveller got off the red mare, I got on, and went out riding with a friend who had arrived unexpectedly on his Quarter Horse. Red got rather excited about the arrival of a handsome gelding on the property and flirted with him shamelessly, sticking out her nose and fluttering her eyelashes.

Away in the fields, she suddenly realised she had a fit horse, on its toes, to run against. My dozy old donkey remembered her racing past. I felt the competitive spirit rushing through her. All right, I said, you can go if you want. I gave her her head. And then she recalled that she was a dowager duchess, and settled back to her stately canter as the other fella tore off up the hill, and we rolled along on a loose rein, with me laughing my head off. Red’s loveliness is so intense that a smile is not enough; the joy comes out of me in great whoops of hilarity.

It was another of our greatest rides. There were the hills, open before us; there was the clean Scottish air on our faces. Under me, was a horse who is all kindness and generosity and sweetness. She could have been infected by the high spirits of the new equine who had pitched up in her territory. She could have pulled and pranced and forgotten herself. She could have charged off into the blue horizon. Even the best schooled horse can do this in such a situation. But she chose not to. She had a ball, but her steadiness never left her.

And that is why I am wild with joy and pride, and unable to stop typing, and that is how I ended up with a long, tangled, not-making-much-sense post, because at times like this I want to tell you everything, and I have no editing facility.

But perhaps, if my subject was partly the danger of expecting the perfect, that is just as it should be. I would love to give you tight, finely-honed prose every day. But some days, it is going to be woolly and wandering, and maybe that is the whole point.

 

Just time for two pictures:

The unexpected visitor, with whom we rode:

And one of my best ever sights – the return of the travellers, beaming with delight. I don’t know which of them looks happier:

A bad mood.

I started the day pretty well. Then, out of nowhere, a mood came and got me and snapped me in its crocodile jaws and threw me about the place. I had absolutely no defence against it. I wanted to shout and scratch and punch things in the nose. It was like a furious tight fist clutching at my insides.

I’m no good at moods. I can do emotions. I don’t enjoy being melancholy or sorrowful, but I know those; they are good, clean, proper emotions, with clear, explicable reasons behind them. I understand them. A random mood that comes out of the blue leaves me floundering. Also, there are things you can do with sorrow. A mood is so thick that you cannot cut through it. All my remedies are in vain. The small things can gain no purchase. Love and trees mean nothing. The dog, the mare, these Scottish hills, the great good fortune of living in a free democracy and having opposable thumbs do not work.

I crossly and grimly go to the shop. On the way back, I run into The World Traveller. For those just joining us, The World Traveller is my friend, relation by marriage and near neighbour. Her blog name is because she once rode on a horse from Turkmenistan to China. She is the only person I know who can say, without bluster or fanfare, ‘Oh yes, that’s very typical of the Turkmen horses’. (The horses of Turkmenistan are one of the most famous and idiosyncratic breeds in the world, the Akhal Teke – glossy, lithe, athletic, aristocratic, and amazingly tough.)

Anyway, The World Traveller says, with her beaming smile: ‘How are you?’

The correct British response to this is ‘Fine, thank you.’ If things are not fine, if your dog has just died or you’ve lost all your money in rash speculations, you may say: ‘Not too bad.’ If you are very drunk, you can say ‘bloody awful,’ but only if you are being ironical and then immediately make a joke out of it. Even now, in the era of the misery memoir and the so-called confession culture, the people of these islands are schooled not to make a fuss. I think this is because a fuss makes other people uncomfortable and causes embarrassment, and embarrassment is the great British disease. (Britons get embarrassed in a way that no French or Americans ever do.)

I gaze into the clever, open face of The World Traveller. When I first knew her, I was rather intimidated because she seemed to me like one of the perfect people. She is kind and funny and competent and good at things and unbelievably nice. Now I know her so well, I am reassured by the fact that for all her loveliness, she has human frailties just like I do.

‘I’m in a filthy mood,’ I say.

She bursts into peals of laughter. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says, merrily. ‘I know that. I shout at the children, shout at the dog, shout at everyone.’

(She is the least shouty person I know.)

The balm of shared experience falls on me, from the bright Scottish sky.

We discuss our moods for a while. I drive off, bolstered. I’m still mysteriously grumpy, but I’ll ride it out now, because I’m not alone.

I think how interesting it is that admitting the not pretty stuff is a tremendous bonding experience. I notice it here. If I’m having a lovely, shiny day, and I write about that, I get a couple of kind comments, mostly involving the handsomeness of Stanley the Dog, because there’s not much else to say. If I am sad or suffering, the response becomes quite a different animal. It comes fast and generous. I think it is the relief of Me Too. I think sometimes that all crazy, goofy, quirky humans want is to be understood, for someone to come along and say, oh yes, I know just what that feels like. It’s almost like a gentle giving of permission: you may have your shitty days for no reason, because I have those as well.

The funny thing is I used to be ashamed to admit to idiot moods or moments of cross bafflement. I wanted to say: Look Ma, no hands. I can ride a unicycle and juggle at the same time. Watch me gleam. A mood was a horrid admission of rank failure. Now I am older and more bashed about, I find a small, twisted comfort in being able to confess that every day really is not Doris Day.

 

Today’s pictures:

Very hard to know how I can ever be cross when I have these beautiful, delightful creatures in my life:

Funny how she photographs so differently in different lights. And yet, to my eyes, she is gloriously the same every day: sweet, still, real, kind, present:

Stanley the Dog is altogether a more antic person:

With his new best friend:

Playing their hilarious new game:

One more of the sheer loveliness:

The little HorseBack UK foal:

The dear old hill:

The funny thing is, I’ve suddenly realised that every time I have an inexplicable black mood, I write this exact same blog. I grump it out, and share with the group, sentence by identical sentence. I wheel out my Every day can’t be Doris Day line. I’m obviously very proud of that one. I have a habit of flogging old lines to absolute death.

Just as I was about to press Publish, I saw something about the funeral of Seamus Heaney. I love Heaney, and saw him years ago at a sunny, bucolic literary festival, where he entranced everybody. I was very sad to hear of his death. Another of the good old men gone.

The piece said that the very last thing he did before he died was send his wife a message. It was two words, in Latin. It said: Noli timere.

That means: don’t be afraid.

I find that almost impossibly wonderful, in ways I cannot express.

No time, but a lot of pride.

I have a good drama story for you but I’ve run out of day in which to tell it. The imaginary equivalent of the Countdown Clock has bibbled and bobbled its way to the end of my round, with that cheery yet rather ominous sound, and that’s all she wrote.

I will tell the story tomorrow, because it is actually a proper mystery and perhaps the Dear Readers might be able to solve it. In the meantime, there is just enough time to say -

LOOK AT WHAT THE OLDEST GREAT-NIECE CAN DO:

This small person was not the rider in the family. Before Myfanwy had to be retired from being ridden, The Oldest Great-Niece sat on her a couple of times, but she never felt at home in the saddle. That was perfectly fine. She had other areas of brilliance. No one gets pushed, in this family. Then, one day, without telling me, she went up into the hills and started taking secret lessons, and NOW LOOK.

I am so proud I could burst.

Story, all polished and in forensic detail tomorrow. In the meantime, a couple of pictures for you:

This was the view the World Traveller and I saw as we watched the miraculous riding lesson:

Back home:

Herd:

HorseBack morning:

Oh, the nobility of Mr Stanley the Dog:

My own dear old hill: