I am grateful.

I’ve been reading about gratitude lately. Gratitude sounds a bit hippy-dippy. It may be practised by those rather maddening earnest types who are always buggering off and finding themselves in foreign parts. To the phlegmatic, stoical, faintly sceptical British spirit the whole thing may seem faintly embarrassing.

But it has science to go with it, and I love a bit of science. There are empirical proofs. If one is grateful for what one has instead of cross about what one does not, everything is better.

Apparently, gratitude has even more teeth if one looks at a thing about which one would normally complain and finds some good in it. The most usual example is: when it is raining, don’t complain about the rain, feel happy you have an umbrella.

I am far too cussed for fads, and disdain bandwagons. (Watch them rumbling past with everyone leaping on the back. What a shower.) On the other hand, I have a natural feeling for gratitude. I’m always looking at the trees and thanking nature for the green leaves. I can find acute joy in a piece of moss. I sometimes grow fraught about my job, and the hoops through which I must jump. Then I remember that I have opposable thumbs, so that I can type.

Today, I’ve been looking through my ridiculous photographic archive and trying desperately to organise it. Because I am a most amateur but very enthusiastic photographer, and I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, I tend to take an inordinate amount of photographs in the hope of capturing one golden moment. (Sometimes, to my amazement, this does happen, due to sheer dumb luck.) Usually, I get a bit grumpy about the bulging files and the poor over-loaded computer. Today, instead of growing scratchy, I thought: gratitude.

And there they were, all the things for which I am grateful. There was Scotland, and the trees, and Stanley the Dog, looking crazily handsome. There was the sublime red mare and my family and the people I love. There was the sea and the sky and the hills.

There was, in a wider sense, the fact that I have eyes to see, a good camera that works, the time to stand and stare. There was the lovely good fortune which means I may record all these weeks and days, all the things which mean so much to me.

So, I’m still walking in the rain and riding in the rain and standing in the rain. I’ve gone a bit hippy-dippy. I’m not going to go and find myself, because really. But I am damn grateful.

 

Today’s pictures:

From that good old archive; a little gratitude list of their very own:

Not a blog. Just a little hymn of thanks.

Too busy to blog today. So much work, so few hours. But there is always time to go down to the field and get on the sweet mare. Even a half hour on her dear back acts as a lightning conductor for sanity. We did some thrilling high-energy free-schooling this morning. Whoop, whoop, I cried, as I cantered along with her, running over the green turf with the abandon of a child. Let it rip, I called, and she did, stretching out her strong body, as elemental as her wild ancestors. She was all freedom and power, and yet so responsive and clever that she came to a dead halt from a fast pace the second I stopped moving.

This never ceases to astonish me. It is perhaps the thing about working with thoroughbreds that is the most moving. They hold all the untrammelled wildness of their ancient ancestors, yet their minds are so brilliant that you can teach them to observe the most subtle human invitation. It’s a fascinating conflation of the entirely instinctive and the absolutely artificial. Human commands must be so odd to a horse, and yet they kindly obey them. I come back, time after time, to that willingness, that offering, and it never fails to lift my heart.

However tense and fretful I am, however stretched, however slightly panicked by all the things I must do, there is always the magical time, each day, with this good horse, as she does things I can hardly believe. She makes me laugh and she makes me proud and she makes me feel worth it. She raises me above the mundane, the quotidian, and takes me into a realm of her own, where none of the stupid small things matter. That is her extraordinary gift.

I never, ever take it for granted.

This is not the most beautifully composed picture I ever took, but I wanted to include it because it shows how dozy and relaxed she is after riding, and after that fast free-school. Common wisdom says a thoroughbred should be all hopped up on adrenaline by all that, and yet she stood dreamily for ten whole minutes whilst I trotted about, taking pictures of her. Low head, easy neck, donkey ears, soft eye, wibbly lip. My happy girl:

Up and down and round the houses. Or, I count my blessings. Again.

I wish there were a British equivalent for the curveball. It is one of those good American expressions which finds no match in these islands. Perhaps googly would come closest, but it does not quite have the same euphonic ring.

Anyway, just as I was getting a bit cocky and thinking I had sorted a few things out, life has thrown me a curveball. It’s a combination of things. It is stuff.

It is no more than the kind of stuff that every human who does not live in an ivory tower has to deal with. As Stanley the Dog and I march along the beech avenue, I give myself a small lecture about perspective, and buggering on, and being grown-up. What is the worst that can happen? I ask myself, sternly. I contemplate the worst. Well, I say to Stanley, who is hunting for the biggest possible stick he can find, and sniffing the air for pheasants at the same time, we can deal with that. In a perfect world, we would not have to, but we damn well can. We are not drowning, but waving.

As usual, I count my blessings.

Today they come out, one two three four five, fast and reflexive. In this moment they are:

1. Opposable thumbs.

2. This clean Scottish air.

3. The beautiful red horse, whom I love with my whole heart.

4. An endlessly funny dog.

5. The ability to type.

There are many others, too many to count. My family, a brain which mostly works, the good fortune to live in a liberal democracy where I may vote and drive a car, curiosity, even the 1.50 at sunny Wincanton, in which I backed the dear old winner, a lovely mudlark called Benny’s Mist.

After I wept on Tuesday for one of my favourite horses, the gallant St Nicholas Abbey, who cruelly died of colic, I rejoiced on Wednesday, at the news of Frankel’s very first foal coming into the world. Silver linings, I suppose; they must go on the blessing list too.

There is always a silver lining, although it is sometimes an act of will to see it. On this morning’s ride, I was struggling for straightness. The mare sometimes has a tendency to lean, whether from her racing or polo days I cannot tell. She veers off a true line. So I’ve been working on straightness and today it did not go that well.

On the way home, slightly frustrated at a small lack of success, I suddenly realised I was in danger of overlooking all the things she did do. There were three perfect transitions, from canter to trot to walk, from VOICE ONLY. She walked, without blinking, through a four foot gap between a bloody big tractor and a huge tree. There are cobs who won’t do that. Then we found some gentlemen filling in pot holes. There was a rattly machine heating up tarmac, and strange humans in high-visibility jackets, and a big shining truck, pouring out stones and shale and all sorts, to go into the mix. Massive spook alert, for the quietest horse. My chestnut thoroughbred mare walked right past the thing without twitching so much as one of her dear ears.

So what if she wasn’t quite straight? All the rest adds up to miracle horse.

I suppose I am back to my theme of looking for the good stuff. Dig for gold, is my motto for the day. Get the damn spade out and dig.

 

And now there is just time for some quick pictures:

The red mare schooling, with the Remarkable Trainer up:

Mist and hills:

Beech avenue:

S the D, doing yoga:

At least, I assume that is what he is doing.

This land

Warning: crazed insomnia last night, so there is a very real danger none of this may make any sense at all.

 

I read something today about how humans miss the natural world without even knowing what it is they lack. Most people in Britain live in cities or towns. Cities are glorious, thrilling things. I think they are good things, because they must surely decrease fear of The Other. The Other is there every day, in the streets, on the tube, waiting for the bus. Insularity must be more difficult, in that great melting pot. And there is culture and entertainment and architecture and all the other sophisticated pleasures of which city life is made. When I lived in London, I loved her like a sister. I used to refuse invitations to go away for the weekend because I wanted to mooch about in the sunny streets of Soho, or go to a double bill at The Electric. I wanted smoke and pavements.

People still think it mildly eccentric that I should live so far north, so deep in the hills, at such a distance from the theatre and good Chinese food. But I’ve been thinking about the whole love and trees thing (and love of trees), which is probably why the article on missing the earth caught my eye.

I struggle, as does every sentient human in the middle of life, with all kinds of frets, profound and superficial. I battle with mortality. I worry about all the usual things: money, death, illness, work. I feel the mid-life regret at the scattering of friends. Some live very far away, across wide oceans. Some are only in the south, but might as well be in Ulan Bator. It’s logistically demanding to get a family of four onto an aeroplane to Aberdeen for the weekend. We rely on the fact that we can pick up where we left off, because we have twenty years of hinterland behind us. But still, I miss them.

And yet, for all the frets, I am mostly cheerful. I am occasionally haunted by the spectres of loss, but I do not wake every morning with the black dog of despair snapping at my heels. I read something lately too about depression, the proper kind, not the mild down-in-the-mouth to which people sometimes carelessly apply the word. This was about the real thing, the kind that makes the sufferer feel as if they are in a dank, slimy pit and may never climb out. I feel incredibly blessed that I do not have to crawl out of that pit. Even among all the worries and fears, I find daily joy. I laugh a lot, often at myself. I have a lot of love. I love my mare, I love my family, I love my dog.

I wonder, suddenly, whether this oddly cheery resilience is lent to me by the place itself. I know I bang on about the hills, but it does lift the spirit to see them each day. I regard green things, growing things, ancient earthed things. On Saturday night I sat outside under a venerable stand of oaks and ate sausages and drank beer. It was the glorious trees that gave the evening its savour. I walk on grass and smell clean air. I hear birdsong. I watch the swallows fling and play, as they teach their young ones the mastery of aerodynamics. I stare at lichen and dry stone walls and bark. I happily observe the sheep.

Everyone, even the most fortunate human, needs a little help. Life is baffling and inexplicable and sorrows are inevitable. No one may insulate themselves from loss and heartache. Everyone needs an existential walking stick, to negotiate the rocky paths. I think this dear old land is my stick. Perhaps that is why I show you the daily pictures of it. Look, look, I am saying: this is what saves me.

I think far too much, always have. This is a good thing, and a bad thing. Too much thinking can lead to despair. There are too many unfairnesses, tragedies, inexplicable cruelties, for one paltry mind to reconcile. Love and trees, my darlings, love and trees. And hills and sheep. And Stanley and Red, out in the gentle Scottish air, where they may stretch and play and become one with the majestic landscape they inhabit.

 

Today’s pictures are a little selection from the past few days. No time for the camera today. I’ve been doing actual work, 1648 words of it. Something, as always, has to give.

In random order:

On not taking things for granted

I bang on about quite a lot of things. One of the things about which I bang is not taking anything for granted. I mostly remember this but sometimes I need reminding.

I spoke to a serviceman today who described to me, quite matter-of-factly and without being pressed, his condition after a severe training accident. So many terrible things happened to his body that I cannot describe them here. But what stayed with me was his pain. It is excruciating, and it never stops. He can control it a little with extreme medication, but the problem with even the strongest drugs is that the body gets used to them in the end, and the pain reasserts. The agony is so intense that he counts himself lucky to get four hours’ sleep a night. Days will go by when he is existing on no more than two hours of rest.

I go insane if I do not get my full eight hours, and I do not have pain all over my body. I think of the minor moans and complainings I make about idiot things. I think: every morning when I wake up I should hang out more flags over the simple fact that my nerve endings are quiet. The absence of something is quite hard to celebrate, but the absence of constant pain is something that goes right to the top of my gratitude list.

I do think of my luck quite a lot. I think of the great good fortune of living in this astonishing place, surrounded by venerable trees and ancient mountains. There are no riots in the streets. No secret police are bashing down the door. I may drive a car and vote in elections. The usual losses and griefs of a life lived this long may make my heart sore, from time to time, but do not crush or smash it. All my fingers work, so I may type my 1096 words of book as I did today and feel a sense of satisfaction.

There is something I often think of, when there are deaths, as there have been in the last week. I think: say the thing. Give the compliment, express the love, open the heart. Because all the best beloveds are only one bus away from extinction. But I also think: make the list. Write down, literally or figuratively, the things for which one should be grateful. I know it’s the mad old hippy in me, coming out and waving a tattered, tie-dyed flag, but still. I think it might be true. Smell the damn flowers, because who knows what may happen tomorrow.

 

Today’s pictures:

The white lilac and the apple blossom are out:

Happy herd:

The nobility of Mr Stanley the Dog:

The hill:

This and that. And the other thing.

There are so many matters to report and so little time. I wanted to do a whole thing on grammar, since there was a discussion on it as I listened to the Today programme this morning. They were trying to get up a little controversy – the old argument of Does Any of it Really Matter? The language is a living thing, la di dah; it was all different in the time of Shakespeare. Etc, etc, etc.

I love grammar. I mind about it. I love to play with language, but I need to know the rules are the rules, before I can throw them up in the air and make free with them.

In fact, I don’t need to write a dissertation. I think grammar matters because of two things: clarity and elegance. And that is all there is to that.

I went up to HorseBack for my work there. The two men who arrived on Monday, rather hunched and uncertain, are now standing tall, doing all manner of things with their horses, making jokes, even teasing. I don’t still quite know how this transformation happens, but it does, and it is a quite breath-taking thing to watch in action.

The real good professional photographer who sometimes does work for them was there. I felt very shuffly and humble. I take their daily pictures now, and my amateurish efforts are so shabby compared to her diamond brilliance. I muttered some of this to her. She was amazingly kind and generous. I think that people who are really good at what they do can be like that. They don’t need to be judgemental or proprietorial or mean-spirited, because they are comfortable in their own talent.

I rode the mare out, into novel territory, with nothing more than a rope halter and my native wits. The remarkable trainer was up on the lovely American Paint filly, and together we broke new ground and felt the wild sense of achievement that brings. It was only a tiny ride, but I have gone back to basics with my dear girl, almost as if I were backing her for the first time, to build ease and confidence for us both. So even though we never moved out of an amble, it felt like flying. Soon, we will be cantering over the mountains, but because we’ve gone back to baby steps, there will be no trepidation.

I walked down to see her in the evening sun last night, with Mr Stanley the Dog, and stood in the amber quiet before the dusk fell, and felt her head on my shoulder and told her stories.

She listens always, very politely, to my stories, blowing gently through her sweet nose. She is one of the nicest people I ever met. She is the love of my life and that’s all there is to it. That feeling never diminishes or fails to astound or gladden me. It’s not what I expected would happen to me now. None of this is. But it feels like some random existential force just woke up one morning, stretched itself, and decided to send me a bloody great present.

 

Today’s pictures:

The happy HorseBack herd:

The wonderful Mikey, one of my fast favourites:

The real photographer – the great Fay Vincent (available for weddings, parties and any brilliance you want) – with Archie, ready for his close-up:

Someone else who is very good at what she does:

That’s the smiling face which tells the story:

Off for the first ride down to the river:

Stanley the Dog, who has been getting a lot of love and admiration from the Dear Readers lately, to my intense delight:

My lovely red girl:

Chilling out with her sweet American friend after their first ride together:

And on Tuesday, in the bright sun, which has buggered off again:

Myfanwy the Pony, who seems to get prettier by the day:

Very out of focus hill. But since this is a place for imperfection, I thought you would not mind: