A most surprising day.

It was a cold, dirty, wet, windy day. The slip and squelch of mud could be heard three fields away. The sky was the colour of doleful pigeons. Yet two astonishing and rather unexpected things happened, which brought out the internal sunshine in a mighty blaze.

I was offered a new and thrilling opportunity which I had not foreseen at all, and which will transform my daily life.

And I learnt a new way of riding the red mare.

I haven’t been doing riding lessons for a while. The mare and I have just been mooching about, having fun, being a pair of old cowgirls, growing in harmony and confidence and joy together. But a horsewoman I know had been learning a new way of teaching and needed a guinea pig. I offered myself at once.

It was fascinating. It is a sort of melange of old classical and new theory. It’s very English, but it’s got a dash of Western in it. It is technical and delicate and very accurate, but it is also wide and philosophical. It is physical and cerebral. It made me think so much my head almost fell off.

It was good, serious teaching. I found it hard, and I adored it. I was concentrating so much that I forgot the weather, the time, the place, everything but my own body and this generous horse.

I feared the red mare might object. I feared she might roll her eyes and say: What are all these new questions you are asking me? It is very intense and requires a lot from the horse’s mind.

Instead of baulking, she pricked her ears and said: ah, yes, I see. This is new. Like this? And this? And this? I could almost feel her thinking: well, that is interesting. She was very happy afterwards, and gently pleased with herself.

I love her cleverness. But perhaps I love her willingness more. Offered a radically different way of doing things, she walked forward into the open spaces of novelty, without taking a beat. I was so proud of her that I whooped into the dirty air.

So, as the Christmas season comes to its close and real life obtains again, instead of scrabbling about to get organised, instead of sighing at my hopeless time management, instead of panicking at all the things which must be done, I was smiling in the face of two lovely things. An opportunity, which, in the way it was offered, is in itself an act of faith. And a reminder of how amazingly, gloriously, dazzlingly great my horse is. I don’t know how I ended up with such a mighty mare, but on that ordinary spring day when I first saw her face, the equine gods were smiling indeed.

 

No pictures today. Too gloomy. But this was the sight which greeted me yesterday morning, when the frost was glittering and the light was singing, and the girls were happy as clams:

As the new year kicks back into gear, and I have now more work than ever, there will be changes to the blog. I adore doing it, as you know, and I love most the responses from the Dear Readers. I cannot do without those, they cheer me so. But my nose shall be to the grindstone, with new projects and new demands. My plan is that the prose shall stay, but there will be fewer pictures. I can write at 75 words a minute, but choosing and editing the photographs is a long, slow process. I’m afraid also that it shall probably become more personal than ever, since I won’t have time to address the big things happening in the world. It will reduce to snapshots of an ordinary life. It has already been moving in this direction. I know well that I risk dancing with the wilder fringes of self-indulgence in this, but I hope very much that you will stick with me, and forgive.

Good news. But a slight failure in processing.

I got GOOD NEWS today.

I’ve been working on a secret project, something quite new and faintly unexpected. It was all because of my friend The Playwright, who rang up one morning and said: ‘I know what you should do.’

As all members of my family know, I do not take kindly to being told what to do. I’m not normally touchy, but, for some mysterious reason, in this area I’m like an Oscar diva being told that her manicure is all wrong. I can bridle and kick out at even the mildest suggestion. Even though I know most of them are meant kindly, and gently, the cussed bronco in me sees them as insidious judgement. What I want to scream, but mostly don’t is: are you telling me I don’t know how to run my own life? Or: do you think I am a snivelling IDIOT????

So it is some reflection of the love and awe with which I view The Playwright that he is pretty much the only person who can say this kind of thing to me and live.

Anyway, I followed his suggestion. The secret project was born. It went through a few twists and turns, stops and starts, jerks and swerves. It got reviewed and reincarnated, and then, hesitantly, I mentioned it to The Agent.

She asked for a lot of material. I wrote it, madly, rushing up to a hard deadline. Then: silence de glace. She was busy, she was in New York, she was being an International Woman of Mystery.

After a while, I convinced myself that it was so bad she genuinely did not know what to say. She had run out of pages in the thesaurus. I suspected that she was hoping if she went very quiet I might just forget about the whole thing and move to Canada.

Finally, this morning, the email arrived. Luckily, I was too busy to avoid reading it. If I have too much time to think with these things, I will procrastinate like gangbusters.

She likes it. She really, really likes it. She said kind things. There is a lot of work to do and a long road to travel, but the glimmer of gold stars was there.

The funny thing is that this has not sunk in yet. I am delighted, of course. But the week is so packed and fraught, my logistics are so demanding just now, that the brain appears unable to process Good News. Yes, yes, it says, immediately firing back an email about how the work can be done and the required changes can be made; yes, of course, it says, already mapping out the twisting way forward.

There is a little tinny trumpet in the background, echoing plaintively, offering a little tattoo of triumph. But I could not hear it very well.

It is good. I am happy. I’ll process it later, when my shoulders are not up around my ears. I’m going down to Red now, to tell her. She doesn’t really give a bugger about agents, but she is very excellent about pretending she cares.

This morning, when we were doing schooling circles, she suddenly stuck her tail straight up in the air and began doing a prancing, snorting canter. We were really only doing quiet work, but some devilry caught her. She was not being naughty or evasive; she was doing exactly what I asked of her. But the wild grigs were in her, the voices of her ancient past calling, her fine blood was up, and I looked at her and felt overwhelmed with delight.

So, it’s not as if I’m not feeling anything. I suppose the feelings she generates are incredibly simple ones. Mostly love, but also amusement, awe, admiration, and some visceral connection to the animal world. She does something wonderful, I am happy. She does something absurd, I kill myself with laughter. Yesterday, with her delicate mouth, she picked up the little hopper that we use for clearing the dung, and handed it over to the Horse Talker, as if to say: this field needs a bit of work. It cracked me up.

So it’s not as if my emotions are shut down. This is the kind of news that normally would have me doing cartwheels, yet I am not, quite. I feel a little battered and disbelieving. I suppose work is always complicated. Perhaps I had tensed myself for failure for so long that it will take a moment or two to realise that there is now the glimmer of success.

 

Today’s pictures:

It was a beautiful day today. But I have not had time to go through the pictures. So this is a small archive selection:

Sleeping in the snow:

And just sleeping:

And doing her Minnie the Moocher:

M the P:

Autumn the Filly:

THE EARS:

This is actually today’s hill, in the astonishing Scottish light:

A small good news story about The Young People

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Tired today. Insomnia last night, which always leaves me feeling like an idiot. So this post may not make much sense.

To take my mind off the sordid details of the Barclays scandal, I had a quick peek at the afternoon’s racing. I had a little bet on a very nice sort called The Ducking Stool, and she duly romped home in the sunshine at Yarmouth. (It was the merest coincidence that she happened to be a bonny chestnut mare, not a million miles away from my very own Red.)

She was ridden by a young apprentice I had not taken in before called Shirley Teasdale. She sent the mare off in front, which was obviously where she liked to be; she was bowling along with his ears pricked. The thing about front-running is that you have to time it exactly right, and know the horse, and what it is capable of, otherwise you run out of petrol and get caught close home.

Teasdale not only timed her run to perfection, but when The Ducking Stool was tiring a little towards the end, and another horse was coming at them, she did not panic. Many young riders would. Teasdale did not start flapping about or scrubbing away; she stayed beautifully collected and kept the horse balanced. This is incredibly important, because otherwise they can break stride and lose momentum.

Dear Ducking Stool turned out to be a game and genuine mare, and, with her excellent rider keeping her straight and up to her work, she flashed past the post half a length in front.

It was a very happy thing to watch. It’s lovely to see a young apprentice doing something so well, and especially a female one. Racing is still very much a man’s business. I was so impressed, I sent her a little tweet, congratulating her on her cracking ride.

Just now, I got a reply. It was thanks to the very gutsy horse, she said. I went and looked at her timeline. A few people had also sent congratulations. Teasdale had not only replied politely to them all, but she gave credit to everyone but herself - the trainer, the team, the horse.

I tell this little story not so much because it is about horses, but because it is a good news story about The Young People. One of the things that makes me cross is the bashing of The Young People. They are often portrayed in the media as a bunch of internet-addicted, illiterate, workshy disappointments, not like the excellent young people of an imaginary golden age which exists only in the heads of the sentimental and nostalgic, the kind of people who start sentences with ‘in my day’.

Here is a young person who not only works very hard in a difficult job which pays very little and is exceptionally hard to break into if you are a female, but is very skilled at it, and tremendously polite to boot. I hope that Mrs Teasdale could watch her daughter’s triumph today. She must have been very proud.

 

I found the most enchanting picture of the dear Ducking Stool on the blog of her trainer, Julia Feilden. I hope she does not mind me using it. Since this blog is the spiritual home of the chestnut mare, it feels appropriate:

And here is Shirley Teasdale, who is going straight onto my one to follow list, along with William Buick and Richard Hughes:

See how neat and balanced she is. Really impressive.

 

Just time for my own little champions:

The hill:

In which, amazingly, I talk of something other than horses; or, Martha Payne makes my day

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Two rather lovely things happened today.

I went up to the mare quite late, and stayed with her until almost lunchtime. I am giving myself some days off after finishing the book, and it tends to be mare in the morning, and racing in the afternoon. The delightful thing about not always being in a rush is that I can just hang out, in the field, with my horse. She is excellent company.

Red seems to be on some kind of quantum sweetness drive at the moment. She can be grumpy, and sometimes stubborn, and on occasion extremely haughty. (Of course, I adore all these traits, because they remind me of her stellar breeding.) But just lately, she has been going for sheer adorableness. She whickers at me when I arrive, and has invented a new habit of resting her head in the crook of my arm, and going to sleep there. I cannot express in words the feelings of joy and pride and love this induces in me.

When I think that she was a racing thoroughbred, who arrived in this very strange place only two months ago, spooky and alarmed, quite highly strung, and now she walks at my shoulder without a headcollar and moves to left and right at the mere flick of my index finger, I can’t quite believe it. I love her so much it goes beyond words and into the realms of the inexpressible.

Anyway, to the lovely things.

The first lovely thing came about from a farrier panic. My dear farrier has gone AWOL, and Red has a loose shoe and a crack in her hoof. In desperation, after trying the numbers of twenty-five Scottish farriers, with twenty-three no answers and two unable to helps, I turned to the Horse and Hound forum. Joining a new forum is always rather alarming. It’s like going to a new school. There will be gangs, and etiquette, and ways of doing things. But the lovely horse people there rallied around the new girl, and I got many helpful suggestions, including one brilliant link to a woman who actually lives in my village. She is an expert in barefoot horses, and I think this is what I am going to do. Goodbye to shoes; hello to the all-natural horse.

So there was the internet, at work, at its best: kind, helpful, filled with utility.

Then, as if to show that this new technology really was a force for good instead of evil, the internet stretched itself, scratched its head, and made the life of one nine-year-old girl, and many, many hungry children halfway across the world a little better.

When I got back from the mare, I had a look at Twitter. Argyll and Bute was trending. I generally ignore trending topics, as they are often about things I do not know or understand, like Justin Bieber. But Argyll and Bute sounded interesting, so I clicked on it.

It turned out that there was a charming girl called Martha Payne, who had come up with the very clever idea of writing a blog about her school dinners. She took pictures of them, and graded them, and wrote extremely well of them, and other children in other countries sent her pictures of their school lunches, and it was all merry as a marriage bell. Considering school food is such a hot potato, it was very topical of her too, and public-spirited, since it is in the interest of everyone that the children eat well.

Argyll and Bute council did not like it. They forbade the taking of photographs in the school canteen, effectively ending Martha’s blogging experiment. They put out an almost illiterate statement on the subject, which eschewed commas, indulged in horrid bureaucratic language, and muddled up refutes with rejects. (Huge black mark from me. These people are responsible for schools, and they do not know what refute means.)

This then started getting passed about Twitter like a rugby ball. The mighty Twitterati pulled themselves up to their full height, like a gaggle of tremendous maiden aunts, and went into battle. Everyone was outraged. As usual, the criticism mostly took the form of ironical jokes, so that Argyll and Bute council ended up looking like an egg-faced loon. Martha Payne was trending, Never Seconds, the name of her blog, was trending. Jamie Oliver got in on the action, sending out a tweet saying something like Go, Martha, go.

It turned out that nine-year-old Martha was not only bright as a drawer full of buttons, but she was a really nice person. She was using her blog to raise money for Mary’s Meals, a charity which makes sure children in poor countries do not have to go to school hungry. Her target was a very ambitious £7,000. (Just imagine that, for a moment; a girl of nine aiming such a huge sum.)

As the Twitter storm blew its benevolent way through the ether, donations to Martha’s cause topped £31,000. Far away, in some tiny town of which we know nothing, a little girl or a small boy who has never heard of Twitter will be getting something to eat thanks to Martha and the Twitterers.

As if in perfect synchronicity, I backed three winners at the races this afternoon. It seems only right that I send my forty quid winnings to Mary’s Meals. In an even more labyrinthine snake of connectedness, Ryan Moore, the jockey who doggedly persuaded the mulish Valiant to go from last to first in the 2.30 at York, providing me with my big win of the day, will have added something to the gaiety of nations. His skilful and determined efforts put the money in my pocket which shall go to a school meal for that little girl or that small boy. I love this kind of thing. I love the fact that Moore is getting ready for the 4.45 and knows nothing of this. I love the fact that the schoolchildren helped by Mary’s Meals will never have heard his name. I love the fact that they are now connected by the merest shimmer of chance.

Argyll and Bute had at least the sense to know when they were beaten. After only two hours of Twitter fury, they gave in, reversed their foolish decision, and Martha Payne’s blog lives to fight another day.

Isn’t that properly lovely?

I have a tendency to believe that most people are mostly good. Sometimes, when the news goes very dark, I find this belief hard to sustain. Today, it got a real shot in the arm, and I smile as I write.

 

Raining today, so here are some pictures from yesterday evening, when there was a glimmer of sun:

Today my girls are in stately black and white:

The hill:

 

If you should be interested, there is a link to Martha Payne’s Just Giving page here:

http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds

All about the smalls

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It is very, very difficult to stay grumpy when things like this happen:

I was sitting at breakfast, drinking my black-as-pitch coffee, the kind that is so strong you can stand the spoon up in it, eating my bacon, and half-thinking about my work for the day. The two older children had just left for school. The Four-Year-Old was noodling about with the dogs.

Suddenly, she presented herself at my side, quivering with excitement.

‘I am going to get dressed,’ she announced. One sort of felt she really needed a soundtrack to go with this pronouncement, something heavy on the string section, with a bit of brass going on.

‘That is very thrilling,’ I said. ‘Are you going to choose your own special outfit?’

‘YES,’ she shouted, in delirious delight. (Imagine if one still got that same thrill from the mere fact of getting dressed. The endorphin level would be off the scale.)

She then raced down the corridor in her furry boots, singing that truly terrible Celine Dion number about Near, far, wherever you are, at the top of her voice, chased closely by three equally excited black dogs.

It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

I do not know when she started singing Celine Dion songs and I am not going to ask.

One of the Dear Readers suggested music as a remedy for the grumps yesterday, and I wonder now if that is not right. When I am at home, I suddenly realise, I sing a lot. I do wild shouty singing in the kitchen, when I am making my supper. I sing practically every morning, as I walk round the block with The Pigeon.

Because of being so far in the north of Scotland, away from houses and people, a big part of my walk is in the places where one cannot be overheard. So I can belt out Turning Japanese, or St Dominic’s Preview, or Simple Twist of Fate, or, a more contemporary favourite from the little mop-tops that are Goldheart Assembly, King of Rome, without fear of being overheard.

I can’t do that here, because I am in a house full of people, and because it is the south, and there are not quite the same empty spaces where people cannot hear. (Although there is one little hidden wood I have my eye on that might be fine for belting.) Anyway, since I always like a new, half-baked theory, my new, half-baked theory is that perhaps my body is missing the singing.

The Four-Year-Old returns.

She has made the Pigeon a card. It consists of indecipherable calligraphy, quite long.

‘I’ll read it to you,’ the small person says.

She reads.

‘Dear Pigeon, Thank you for coming on this day, I love you very much, and I know you like Noddy books’.

‘That’s a brilliant card,’ I say. (I feel slightly tearful. How does such a very young human remember the whole thing about the Pigeon and the Noddy books? It was almost a week ago. I am forty-five, and I can't remember what happened yesterday.)

The Four-Year-Old beams.

‘I’ve got one for you too,’ she says. She looks at me with a dark, knowing look. ‘It’s not pink,’ she says.

We have this continuing conversation, because her favourite colour is pink, and mine is not. In fact, I do not really like pink at all, except for the occasional flash of very dark cerise. Occasionally, the Four-Year-Old likes to check.

‘Do you still not really like pink?’ she will say, her head on one side.

‘No,’ I say, because one must never lie to children. ‘I like green.’

She clearly thinks this is quite peculiar, but she lets it go. I can see her thinking: just humour the old girl.

My card, which is not pink, says, according to its reader: ‘Thank you for coming. We have had an enormous day.’

‘An enormous what?’ I ask, as she reads this out. I want to check.

‘An enormous day,’ she says, with more smiles.

I love the idea that our day has already been vast. It is only eight-thirty in the morning. The Today Programme is not even over. Yet, there have been huge doings in this house.

The Four-Year-Old looks at me gravely. ‘I have to go back to my office,’ she says.

‘Good plan,’ I say.

I turn to typing, at the dear old kitchen table. The small person sits herself down with her notebook and her pen and her fold of stickers, and settles to serious work. She is quite absorbed now, silent, concentrating, focussed. She knows exactly what it is she is doing. I am, and shall remain, deeply impressed.

 

That all happened about eleven hours ago. In the meantime, I have done work, ridden the mare, made fruitless attempts to organise my time and map out logistics, and picked up my telephone to find a text message. I do not get very many text messages. I am not one of those people whose telephone hops and hums and squeaks and bleeps all the time. I quite often leave it off for days and do not even notice.

This text message was a dilly. It made me shout: OH YES. (You see the whole capital letters thing is really dying hard.) Oh, oh, oh, I said aloud. That is the best thing in the whole world, I said.

The third of my great-nieces was born this morning. The text told me that she arrived in rude health, weighing a tremendous eight pounds, and that everyone is doing well.

I've been worrying a bit, in the back of my mind, because I always do when a baby is on the way.

The news that all is well comes as both vast delight, real profound happiness, and great relief.

When I drive north this time, when I throw the car round the final mountain bends to my house, I shall have a whole new human to meet. It seems like an absolute miracle to me. When I left, there was not a person. Now there is.

Even as I write that sentence, even through the fog of tiredness that comes at the end of a long day, I smile.

 

Again, what with everything, I'm afraid there was no time for photographs. I do wish I were better at the organisation of time, but I suppose it is as well to know one's limitations. Hours run away from me like water. Here are a few random pictures from the last few days:

Here is the lovely little mare, again, who went very sweetly for me today. She really is a tremendously nice person:

Her slightly punk hairdo is because she was hogged, for her previous work. It is growing out, and soon shall be smart and normal.

Some elegant black and white Pigeon photographs:

With her friend in the south:

And the three small people, who today have a new sister:

If she is anything like as sweet as they are, she shall be a very, very splendid girl indeed.

Ask and Tell

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

You know I don't normally blog on a Sunday, but today is a day of such moment I can't resist. The American Senate, finally, against all the odds, voted to repeal the nasty little law that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

I shed actual tears, which was a bit odd, considering all this happened three thousand miles away and I know nobody in the American military. I think it was because I had got so used to bad news coming out of American politics. Every day, some idiot senator would say something egregious, or some dimwit congresswoman would peddle arrant nonsense, or some crazed governor would refuse  desperately ill people liver transplants, or Sarah Palin would shoot a caribou. The voices of intolerance rose high in a twisted chorus, and the voices of reason seemed drowned out.

I think it was because I love and admire America, and I did not like to watch it being mean and petty. Refusing to repeal a law which said that men and women could fight and die for their country but only as long as they kept their sexual preferences to themselves was the ultimate in meanness and pettiness. It also involved hypocrisy and prejudice and a turning away from all empirical evidence.

I think it was also because I still keep faith in Barack Obama, and he seemed so battered by all the forces arrayed against him. He has been called a fascist, a communist, and a socialist, by people who clearly have no idea what socialism actually is. (Repeat after me: the control by the state of the means of production.) He has been accused of being a secret Muslim, a natural-born Kenyan who took the oath of office under false pretences, an anti-American, a kow-tower to dictators and despots. The Left said he was a sell-out who rolled over for the big banks and the insurance companies. The Right said he was a maddened statist, who was coming to get their guns and kill their grandmothers. The press said he was, variously, weak, aloof, out of touch, too stubborn, not stubborn enough, driven by political calculation, not driven enough by political calculation, deluded in his attempts at bi-partisanship, and a general failure on ten different counts, heading for a disastrous Carter-style single term.

I think he is like Mohammed Ali in that great rumble in the jungle against George Foreman. I went to see that film with my friend D at the Fulham ABC, a hundred years ago, and I still remember watching with my mouth open as Ali took punch after punch, sagging against the ropes as violence rained down on him. I could not believe that a human could sustain such a beating, let alone turn around and win. But Ali took the blows, and just as you could not believe he would survive, he got up and landed the knock-out punch.

I think Obama is like that. Everyone said his healthcare bill was dead, and he got it passed. Everyone said the tax plan would never fly, but he got it through. And everyone said that there was no earthly way that he would fulfil his promise on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The forces of reaction were just too strong. The Republicans had their tails up, and all they said was no. It was open season for bigotry, as opponents of repeal all but insisted that if such a thing happened, the armed forces would decide to regale the Taliban with show tunes instead of shooting them. There were endless threats of filibusters and procedural road blocks and the reading out loud on the floor of the Senate of eight hundred page bills; anything to stop the legislation coming up for a vote. But the president kept his head down, while all about him were losing theirs, and pressed doggedly on, and suddenly, like a miracle, this good thing happened.

It is a good thing for everyone who has a gay brother or sister or daughter or son. It is a good thing for anyone who believes in fairness. It is a good thing for all those fighting men and women who no longer have to fear dismissal because of who they love. It is too late for the 13,000 service members who already lost their jobs under this horrid law, but it means there will not be another 13,000.

The President said: By ending Don't ask, Don't tell, no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love.'

That was why I shed a tear. It's Christmas, and there is, for once, some Good News.

 

In other good news, the poor stranded niece is finally on the train, chugging north. I have instructed her to stock up on emergency sandwiches, in case the points are frozen at Montrose.

'I had a little wail on the blog,' I said, 'when I heard you were stuck at Luton.'

'I wailed all over Luton airport,' she said. 'You should have heard me.'

This what she will see when she gets home:

There will be SNOW DOGS coming to greet her.

Marks:

Set:

Go:

GO GO GO:

I know these pictures are a bit blurry and out of focus, and also there was snow falling at the time, which did not help, but I cannot resist the SNOW DOGS in action.

Here they are in their stiller moments:

And then back in the warm, all wrapped up:

Exhausted after all that snow dog activity:

Finally, here is today's view of the hill, almost entirely obscured by the snow. If you look very closely, you can just see the trace of its outline through the white:

PS. I got a lovely comment yesterday from a reader who was stuck in a demoralising hotel, so that she could get to work early the next day. She was obviously longing for her own bed, but she said that my little domestic post had cheered her up. There is usually a voice in my head that says: must try harder. I don't mind this voice too much; I think it is good to strive. But sometimes I do worry that a post has been too slight, or rambly, or even self-indulgent. To hear that occasionally something I put up here may dispel a little gloom is a very fine compliment indeed, and has made me smile ever since. I know that some of you will be struggling with travel, or unable to get where you need to go, or without longed-for family or friends because of the weather. That is why I gave you extra snow dogs, because it is my secret belief that the sight of funny black dogs running wildly through the weather must act as a tonic. They keep me incredibly happy, anyway. I hope that they put a smile on your face, wherever you are.

And may I say, one more time, ASK AND TELL. Oh yes.

PPS. Oh, and here is the lovely face I shall see when the train finally arrives: