A small wall, and a small break. And the cricket, of course.

I have hit a little bit of a wall. Not in a catastrophic way, just in an ‘oh, there’s a wall’ way. The body and mind are saying steady, steady, just as I say it to my red mare. So I’m going to slow down for a few days. There will be done only the work that must be done. There will be gentle time spent with my glorious girl; there will be the sweetness of Stanley the Dog, and the making of soups (yellow split pea today, with sage and olive oil), and the mighty treat which is listening to The Ashes on the good old BBC iPlayer.

There are people who loathe and despise the BBC, and write weekly about its manifest ghastlinesses, and wail of how blatantly wrong and unfair it is that Ordinary Decent Britons should be forced to pay the iniquitous licence fee. I think: no commercial broadcaster in the world would put eight hours of cricket, for five days in a row, on an internet device which can be accessed at any time. As I sat up last night to catch the first few overs, I watched my entire Twitter timeline explode with anticipation and joy and giddiness. It is THE ASHES. It is the Gabba. The wonderfully vocal Aussies are booing Broad. Who silences them by taking three wickets, before I finally give up and go to sleep.

The sheer level of exhilaration, jokes, and keen sporting knowledge lifts my heart. There is even a spoof account of towering genius, run by a tweeter called US Cricket Guy who refers to falling wickets as ‘decision timbers’, which makes me shout with laughter every time. And, as always, the thing of beauty which is Test Match Special makes the whole occasion.

People who love test cricket love it like nothing else. It is not just a game. It is an ethos, a symbol, an idiosyncrasy; it has history and culture stitched into it. It is also a thing of implausibility – how can a game which goes on for five days have you on the edge of your seat? Yet it does. And dear old Auntie brings it to us, in all its glory. That alone is worth the licence fee.

All of which is a rather long and winding way of saying that I’m going off the blog for a few days. I hate doing this. I have a bizarre sense of obligation. I must give the Dear Readers, so loyal and generous, something. It is also a wonderfully useful daily writing practice, good for my mind and my fingers. And I miss your lovely comments when I am away. I miss the small thrill I get every time my inbox pings, and there are the familiars, some of whom have been with me from the beginning, saying something kind about the sweetness of the red mare, or the handsomeness of Stanley the Dog, or making a wise observation on the human condition.

But still, a rest is due. Soup and cricket indulgence shall restore me to fighting strength. Next week another massive work push begins, and I must limber up.

 

In the meantime, I leave you with a few quick pictures:

The red mare was astonishing today. She still has moments of being anxious and unsettled. Her world has changed, with the lack of her old friend. But she responds to good, steady, calming work like a champion. (Work is the thing that soothes and quiets her. It is the old horseman’s adage of: change the subject.) This morning, she did free schooling, which I had never taught her before and which I rather extemporised, and which, of course, she got the hang of in about five minutes. Then there was some enchanting walking about together with no rope, our feet moving exactly in time. And then, when I rode her away from Autumn the Filly for the first time since Myfanwy left us, expecting fireworks or resistance or upset, she went as sweetly and kindly as she has ever gone. I was so exhilarated by this that when I saw an inviting green slope I sent her into a racing canter on a loose rein. There I was, standing in the stirrups, leaning up her neck, inviting her to go along as fast as she liked, and she kept to a lovely rolling breeze and dropped back to a gentle walk as soon as I told her to steady.

I know it is absurd to write these things. But they are milestones to me. They are the things that cynics say you damn well can’t do with a thoroughbred mare. You’re supposed to stuff Dutch gags in their mouths and truss them up with tack and bung them full of calmers, not ride them about in a bit of rope. Almost more than anything else, I love the fact that she tips over all the stereotypes with her elegantly duchessy hooves.

And I am so proud of her, that I want it to be marked. I want it to exist in language; I want there to be proof on the page. It is more for me than for you, I freely admit. I want to know that on the bad days, when the dark clouds gather and the prospect seems bleak, I may take down this book, and slowly read. And I can think: anything is possible.

 

PS. My eyes are squinting with tiredness, and I have not proofed this well. I know there shall be howlers. Forgive me.

The Ashes; or, the wonder that is Blowers.

This morning, I started writing a rather long, involved blog. I thought you might like a good, meaty Saturday read. But then I switched on Test Match Special and Henry Blofeld was on such cracking form that I had to stop everything to listen.

Test Match Special is one of the shining lights of British broadcasting. I don’t imagine there is anything else in the world at all like it. It is peopled by eccentrics, jokers, joshers and statistics geeks. ‘What’s the record, Malcolm?’ At which point Malcolm makes a little humorous murmuring noise and digs out some obscure stat from 1911.

TMS is such a glorious programme that I think I would listen to it even if I knew absolutely nothing of cricket, and had no interest in the game. It is a raging joy and delight for anyone who appreciates the English language and the British character. In the Ashes, we get the added enchantment of a couple of wonderful Aussie voices, livening the cultural mix. It’s such a clever thing, because it makes the perfect counter-point to the old, old sporting rivalry.

In the box, with the genteel cake and the polite messages from the devoted test fans, the Australians and the English are sweetly courteous and sporting. They admire the other side’s skill, cheer a great shot by an opposing batsman, are scrupulously fair. There is an astonishing lack of chauvinism, even though you sense of course they desperately want their own team to win. When the youthful revelation that is Ashton Agar amazed the entire cricket world by putting on an eleventh man stand of 98, saving the day for Australia after a catastrophic collapse, every English commentator was devastated that he was out before he reached his hundred.

I adore test cricket. I have no interest in the quick version of the game and don’t follow twenty-twenty. I love the extraordinary tension and drama that builds up over the five days. I love the fact that nations who do not have test sides are baffled by the fact that a single match can last for so long a time. I love the stories and dramas and characters that are given room to breathe over those long, rolling, sunlit days.

I love the idioms. The very fact that there is a position called ‘silly mid-on’ makes me smile. ‘He just tickled that,’ the commentators say, with a straight face.

I love the storied rivalries. The Ashes is the most special of all, because of the snaking history of Australia and England with leather and willow. It started in 1882, when Australia thrashed England on home turf, and a newspaper wrote an obituary: this is the day that English cricket died and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. A group of women in Melbourne then presented a small urn to the English team, containing the burnt remnants of a bail, and so The Ashes was born.

And still, 130 years later, that tiny urn is fought over with fierce, diamond-sharp competition. Little boys from Brisbane to Bolton grow up dreaming of representing their country in The Ashes.

If I had the time, I would cancel everything and sit all day and listen to every minute of the eight hours of coverage. It’s hard to believe that you can be on the edge of your seat in a game that takes such a long time, and breaks for old-fashioned tea. But you are. As it is, I tune in and out whenever I can, and if I miss a particularly thrilling spell, I go back to the iPlayer in the evening and catch up with the day’s play, listening in a trance of hazy pleasure.

Dear old cricket. Dear old Blowers, who encapsulates for me everything that is splendid about this form of the game. He exclaims in delight every time he sees a flappy pigeon, gets improbably excited when he spots a shiny bus driving past (he has a thing about buses), calls every single person, no matter what their age or position, ‘my dear old thing’, gives the players straight-faced nicknames. ‘And here comes Starkers,’ he says, as the Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc runs up to the crease. (For the Dear Readers from abroad: starkers means naked, in British slang.) He is the most treasury of national treasures, someone who will never be replaced.

As I come back from working my mare, and settle into a lazy Saturday, and think vaguely what will win the July Cup at Newmarket, I turn on Blowers’ wonderful voice and I genuinely feel all is well with the world.

I woke this morning in rather a bad mood. I felt tired and twitchy and filled with self-criticism and angst. Not working fast enough, too many things to do, too many tricky decisions to take. I don’t like myself much when I am in this mood, because I have so much luck and so much to be grateful for, and I have no right to feel so scratchy. But Blowers banishes all that. He has the miraculous talent of spreading sunshine wherever he goes. I smile and my shoulders come down and the clouds roll away. All possible things will be well. How lovely it is that one good man can perform such a miracle, through the radiophonic device.

 

Today’s pictures:

A few shots from the week:

The beloved beauty:

The little HorseBack foal:

Stanley the Dog dauntlessly catching flies:

The hill:

Ha

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Regarding today's post:

As so often, I write something about writing, and go back to find that it contains schoolgirl errors. TWO typos today; as always, you all very politely looked the other way. I suppose it must be fitting that it should happen in a post about embracing imperfection. The good old universe nudging me in the ribs, as usual.

They are corrected now, so all manner of things shall be well. And you get a bonus picture, of something which is pretty close to perfect, at least at the moment.

The magnificent ALASTAIR COOK, whose astonishing batting helped England to a most uncharacteristic and glorious defeat of the Australian cricket team on home ground:

 

(Picture by Getty Images.)

Actually, Cook is rather ideal for today's theme. He might be scoring double hundreds this month and be the hero of the hour, but not that long ago he quite lost his form, and could not hit a barn door. All the critics sharpened their knifes, with a nasty, gleeful strafing sound. Not good enough, they said; lacking technique; not fit to play for England. The very same people who are now falling over themselves to praise him were sneering at him only weeks ago. I do not understand enough about the intricacies of the game to quite explain it, but it was something to do with the way he used his legs, or did not bend his knee, or something. Look at that picture. Can you see anything amiss with that bendy knee? (Also bear in mind he was doing that for over ten hours in blazing sun.) It reminds me of that part in Charade when Audrey Hepburn gazes up at Cary Grant and says Do you know what is wrong with you? and he smiles down at her and says No, and she grins blissfully and says: Absolutely nothing.

Anyway, it just goes to show that you can have absolutely crappy streaks and then come back and win things for your country.

Really am stopping now.

The mystery of where the groove comes from, and other life lessons

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Another mammoth working day; 1137 words of book. I have been out of the groove lately, doing far too much research, which is of course part of the job, but can become a shield to hide behind when the writing is not going well. I got into a terrible trough of typing three hundred words, realising they were perfectly awful, deleting them, writing three hundred more, and trashing those too. Non-writers may wonder how it can take two years to write one little book; this is why.

I get into cycles of marvellousness. The ideas rain down like hailstones, and I only have to catch them. My fingers race along the keyboard, as if someone has inserted a superhuman typing chip in my brain. It will always be like this, I start to think. I begin to know how Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks. Then, just as my hubris fires me up into the stratosphere, I smash back down to earth. I refuse ever to admit that I get block; that is a word I will not countenance. But the feeling is like driving very fast into an immovable brick wall. Everything stops. I am beset by demons; the fear genie flies out of the woods and settles on my shoulder, cackling into my ear.

I start setting myself impossible targets, which only makes everything worse. Tomorrow, I tell myself, I shall bash through the log-jam by writing three thousand words; that will make up for the fallow time. The next day I get up, and find my mind blank. I cudgel and pummel it, but all it will produce is paltry nothingness. This is when the spiral of shame hits. I am supposed to be a professional; I may not admit any of this. I actually teach writing, after all. I have read all the primers; I have been doing this for more years than I dare count; by now I must be a finely tuned machine. If I admit that the days of uselessness are piling up into weeks, then people will shriek and point, and I shall be unmasked as a fraud. I will never work in this town again.

I have a stupid terror of admitting to weakness. This is entirely idiotic and counter-intuitive, since I sincerely believe that it is our human flaws that make us lovable. Shiny impervious perfection just makes people bounce off you; it is a force field that repels rather than invites. No one wants to spend any time with someone who is invincible; it's the dullest thing in the world. In theory, I celebrate flakiness and goofiness and absurdity. It is what I like in other people; it is what makes them interesting. But when it comes to myself, I sometimes forget all this, and instead wield a stupid stick of self-recrimination, hitting myself over the head in an orgy of remonstration.

Yesterday, for no apparent reason, I got my groove back. Today, I wrote and wrote, and some of the words were even half-decent ones. That is why I can tell you all about my days of shame. It is why I can welcome myself back to the human race, where people are imperfect, and cannot produce glorious, shining sentences every damn day.

 

In other news, my mother calls. It turns out she is as thrilled by England's glorious victory in the second Ashes test as I am. She is impressed by the players' athletic skills, but much more delighted by their good manners.

'They are all so polite, those boys,' she says.

It is true. In interviews, even after smashing records, and producing double hundreds, and taking three wickets in a row, they are all courteous, self-deprecating, quick to give credit to anyone but themselves, and prone to making little jokes, mostly about their own foibles. Interestingly, they all mention the word 'work' a lot. We worked hard, they say; there's a lot of work still to do; the lads really worked on that. They must have all started off with a great deal of natural talent; one of his old teachers said of Alistair Cook said that even when very young he could see the ball quicker than anyone else. With this emphasis on work, it is as if they are saying: it's all very well being born with a bit of flair, but if you do not labour and practice and concentrate, you will just fritter it away. I think: yes, yes, that is a lesson for life, right there, from a slightly unexpected source.

'They must all have marvellous mothers,' says my mum, who thinks about the mothers a lot. 'They are so well brought up.'

'Here's to the mothers,' I say, 'and all who sail in them.'

And here is to my mother, who insists on believing that I am wonderful and brilliant, even on the days when I am convinced that I cannot write my way out of a paper bag. This partial notion is of course empirically incorrect, but I love that she doggedly goes on thinking it.

Talking of things that go on doggedly loving one, no matter what:

And your now traditional snow pictures -

The burn:

The beloved trees:

The view from my garden, looking south through the Scots pines:

East, to the wellingtonias:

And south again:

The silver birches look almost like something from the deep south, with their Tennessee Williams hanging branches:

This is a young horse chestnut, bravely defying the weather:

I love the faint flashes of colour from the old leaves, still hanging on, and the merest glimpse of the blue hill behind:

I find the pattern that the black branches make against the snow oddly fascinating; this makes me think of an abstract painting:

I am unable to resist two more shots of the ladyships, in all their unvarying beauty:

It is minus ten here today. Heavenly stepfather says his thermometer reads a balmy minus nine; mine insists on minus ten. 'Must be a frost pocket,' he says. But we do not complain, as we contemplate the horror of the poor people who were stuck on the M80 yesterday for TWELVE HOURS. I get to stay inside, with four jumpers on, and a good heater, listening to a talented gentleman singing Every valley must be exalted, which is what I am doing now, and I do not take that for granted. I hope you are warm, wherever you are.

A brief divagation on the national character

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

When I am not thinking about who invented the expression 'quantative easing' or what exactly is wrong with the brain of Senator John McCain, I sometimes contemplate the national character. I am not quite sure if such a thing exists. I like to think it does, because I do so adore making sweeping statements about plucky Britons or can-do Americans or the intellectually superior French. The problem is the exceptions which may prove or disprove the rule. (My favourite German friend is not at all efficient and very funny and rather louche, as if he wakes up each morning determined to undermine stereotype.)

Also, while nations are stitched together by institutions and history and culture, they are also made up of millions of diverse individuals who peskily refuse to go quietly into good boxes. Is a farmer in Devon going to have the exact same set of assumptions as an accountant in Burnley? I can't be sure. A trannie in Soho might have a slightly different outlook than a gentleman who owns half of Wales. (That was not a figure of speech. My friend the Man of Letters was at dinner last week with someone who actually does own half of Wales. Or it might have been Northamptonshire. It is a good thing I do not write for The New York Times; the fact checkers would have steam coming out of their poor ears by now.)

But last night, I did feel very British indeed. After England performed a miracle of bowling in getting Australia out for 245, I allowed myself a little stirring of hope. Then, just before I went to bed, the news came that Andrew Strauss, the England captain, was clean bowled for one. ('Straussy, Straussy, Straussy,' cried the cricket fans on Twitter, in noisy dismay.) And here was my immediate thought: well, that's it then. That's it, then. I put away childish things, like dreams of victory, and stumped off stoically to bed. There was almost some relief in it; we were back to business as usual, which consists of tiny flickers of vain hope before the hard crash of reality. I had to be extra stoical, because the boiler chose that moment to conk out, so I went to bed in all my clothes, with five blankets, two eiderdowns, dogs arranged over my legs for extra insulation, and a final blanket over them so they did not freeze. It did not occur to me to complain or rage against the dying of the light. As I lay in the perishing cold, I felt the click click click of reset expectations.

It is quite odd, the 'that's it then' response. I am actually very optimistic by nature. I believe things will get better, that most people are good and kind, that if I work hard enough then one day I will write the perfect sentence. But when it comes to cold and sport, my Britishness kicks in as if someone has thrown a switch.

Somewhere in the night, the optimism elves went to work. I woke up and gave the boiler one more desultory try, and it roared into life. I hardly dared go to the Test Match Special website to see the score, but as I squinted at the screen through my fingers I saw the miraculously improbable news that Alistair Cook had put on 136. ALASTAIR COOK now goes into capitals along with JIMMY ANDERSON. The interesting thing about both those boys (and they are still boys really, incredibly young to be doing such extraordinary things on the world stage) is that they display a bit of national character of their own. Endlessly asked by excitable journalists about their brilliant numbers, they go straight for polite understatement. They do not bask or brag. They always give the most credit to their team-mates. 'The lads were great,' they say.

Cook has smashed a bunch of records in the last week. His name will be carved on plaques and written into Wisden in letters of fire. You could forgive him a moment of cockiness. Instead, he said, diffidently: 'We have to keep our feet on the ground as one good day does not win you a test.' There it is, the national character, if it does exist: phlegmatic, understated, and most of all, not getting carried away.

Of course, you could look at The X Factor or any city centre on a Saturday night and draw a very different conclusion about Britishness. For today though, I go with the Anderson and Cook version. They are properly lovely young men, and I hope their mothers are proud.

And now for your snow pictures.

The trees, the trees:

Dog running through the trees, with her ears in the air, which always makes me laugh:

I love this view of the bridge; it looks almost like a painting:

Garden chairs covered in snow, making me think of three cross old ladies, for some reason:

SNOW DOGS:

Duchess having a little sit, and wondering if that is a rabbit she can hear rustling about in the woods:

Oh, oh, the raving beauty:

Final snow trees:

And now I must go and do some work. I naughtily took yesterday afternoon off to listen to the cricket on the iPlayer, and so must make good the deficit, or my agent will parachute in and demand an explanation.

Freezing Friday, and unexpected joy

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I have two things to say to you, and they are so important that I am going to say them in capital letters.

They are:

MINUS SEVENTEEN

and

JIMMY ANDERSON.

Minus seventeen is what it was this morning. Even by the time the ladyships and I got out of the house, which was rather shamingly late, it was still so cold that we could only walk for fifteen minutes before our ears started developing icicles.

I called the older niece.

'MINUS SEVENTEEN,' we shouted at each other.

'I'm going to get my ears WARM,' I yelled.

'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Warm those ears.'

(Sometimes when I write these things I wonder. Mostly I wonder: if Martin Amis had a blog, is this the kind of thing he would write? My answer is usually: No.)

The Jimmy Anderson thing will take a bit of explaining for those of you who do not follow the cricket. I can imagine the befuddlement especially on the faces of my American readers right now, as they attempt to understand a game that goes on for five days. I hardly understand it myself.

I am not a cricket expert. There are elements of the game that are still a mystery to me. I'm not sure that I could quite explain to you what a silly mid-on is, although I am passionately glad that such a position exists. Silly mid-on is exactly what the language of Shakespeare and Milton was invented for. It is so crazily, elementally British that it makes me smile all over my face.

But cricket is woven into my DNA; it is stitched into my heart, in some inexplicable way. The thwack of leather on willow makes me think that all is well in the world. (You can see some very strange magical thinking going on here.) I have two older brothers, so it is an intrinsic part of my childhood. The oldest brother had a friend who loved the game so much that he invented a special cricket dance; at parties, he would clear the floor by running up and down and bowling imaginary leg spinners, to the sound of KC and the Sunshine Band singing That's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh. When I was very small, my parents had an annual cricket match, and their dashing London friends would roar down the M4 to play in it. I can still hear the voices of my brothers, as they stood at the crease: 'middle and leg, middle and leg'.

So when the Ashes come round, I get very excited. Usually what happens is that the Australians walk all over us, and there are lots of pathetic pom jokes, and then I get very sad. Even though England won last year, and people who know say that the current side is strong, there is always a humming sense of trepidation. First of all, it's England, and we are used to England losing things. Second of all, it's Australia. Australians do not do gallant underdog, or honourable defeat; I very much doubt that they say to each other, as the British do, it's not the winning, it's the taking part. They have no shyness about victory; triumph is taught to them along with the alphabet. When it comes to cricket, they are mighty.

It sounds bizarre to describe anything that goes on for five days as nail-bitingly tense, but sometimes the terror of batting collapse is so great that I cannot bear to listen to Test Match Special. So imagine my joy when I woke this morning to discover that the sparkling, unstoppable Jimmy Anderson had taken four wickets for a mere 51 runs, including the Australian captain for a duck. Ricky Ponting is one of the great cricketers in the world; you do not just get him out for nothing every day.

I was a bit gloomy last night, not sure why. Occasionally, melancholy falls on me for no particular reason. (I think it is called: being human.) I'm not gloomy now. The snow is sparkling with ice, the light shooting off it in a million diamond points. And JIMMY ANDERSON ripped through the Australian top order. When I hear news like that, I think anything is possible.

 

Now for the photographs. I do hope that you are not getting bored by the endless snow pictures. At the moment, they are all I have to offer, and, if the weather people are to be believed, there may be nothing but snow pictures for some time. Although if lovely JIMMY ANDERSON keeps going, I might just put up lots of pictures of him to break the monotony.

This morning's rowan berries, in all their snowy beauty:

My lovely impressionist trees, as is becoming traditional:

RUN, snow dogs, RUN:

A snow sculpture tree:

The view to the south:

More southern view, with the same curious twilight effect as yesterday. This was actually taken in the late morning, but it almost looks like dusk:

The air was so still that I could hear the church bells tolling the hour:

I love how this is starting to look like a snow arcade:

Observe the exceptionally delicate foot action:

Some sheer, raw beauty for you:

I know that these dogs are absurdly photogenic, but there is something about the vivid winter light that brings out every last atom of their glory:

(In my head, the cartoon voice is shouting: LOOK AT THAT FACE.)

More snow trees, because it seems I cannot get enough snow trees:

Then, in the utter stillness and pure quiet, there was a creak, a shift, a shudder of wind, and this happened:

And this:

All the snow crashed off the trees, and the dogs emerged like Captain Scott:

It was really most dramatic. Then the stillness returned, and all was calm and clear again:

I took one last look at the blue remembered hills, and went inside:

Have a glorious Friday.