Life and horses and hats

Real life and work are rather getting in the way of the blog. I am running around, perennially about fifty minutes behind. I make lists in my head and then forget them and then yell, internally: Bugger it. But the sun shines and the snow continues to melt and I work well with my mare.

She throws down a bronco challenge; spring is in her, and she decides to put on a little show. I deal with it, look at her beadily, and say: is that the best you’ve got? It’s always good when a session is not perfect; it’s only when they do something unexpected that you know exactly what it is you can deal with. She’s never mean or aggressive. She’s not being naughty or defiant. She’s just doing the things that horses do. And sometimes she likes to remind me that she damn well is a thoroughbred, however much she does a bit of a donkey impression from time to time.

I sometimes think the mistake people make with horses is to let the ego rule the day. The humans make it all about themselves. That horse, they say, through gritted teeth, is trying to get away with it, making a monkey of me, taking the piss. Actually, horses have no concept of piss-taking. (Although I do maintain that Red has a fairly well-developed sense of humour.) They are just being their equine selves.

Mostly, they are trying to tell you something. What Red told me this morning, as she leaped and bucked on the end of her rope, was that it is spring, and she’s been standing still in a snowy field for too long, and she’s got twinkles in her toes, and she would really like to be galloping about instead of trotting in collected circles.

And I told her: that’s all very well, madam, but we are actually following my plan, and this is what I would like you to do now, and once you’ve done it, you can gallop your head off. So I got her back and finished the work and by the end she had her dozy old head down and was paying attention to me and all was fine and well.

Still running late, I went up to HorseBack. The minute I was out of my field and in the car, all the To Do lists came swarming back into my head like angry bees. Then I spent half an hour talking to my friend in the cowboy hat about horses, and how they think, and how humans can read them like good books, if only we may take the time. Some people don’t want to take down that book and slowly read. But I do. It’s a book of which I never tire and from which I learn every day.

And then I felt soothed and better, because it was a good conversation with a clever man, and a fascinating session with an interesting horse, and all the To Do Lists can go hang.

 

Today’s pictures:

My mother’s Easter table, from yesterday’s lovely lunch:

The man in the cowboy hat:

Quite hard to believe that this person is capable of leaping three feet in the air when the mood takes her. I rather love it that she is:

Hill:

A really quite absurdly random list

Was just going to do some more random pictures for you when I came across this on the internet.

Of course I am so insanely competitive that if one person puts up a Things I Like list, I have to do one too, even though it is a stupidly busy day and I do not really have time for distractions.

(Talking of distractions: the Five-Year-Old has just come up beside me and said, in her most charming voice: ‘Oh, I like watching you write.’

She goes quiet for a bit. Then she says: ‘Have you tried potato chips before? But really, have you?’

She is the mistress of the non-sequitur.)

Here are the THINGS I LIKE:

Authenticity.

Risotto.

People who are good at things.

The semi-colon.

Love and trees.

Mares. Especially slightly duchessy mares who can do Spanish Riding School of Vienna tricks in the middle of a muddy field just for the hell of it.

Working dogs, of all stripes.

Black dogs.

Mongrel dogs.

Blue hills.

Church bells.

White china.

Irony.

The glorious anticipation in the days running up to Cheltenham, when each morning one wakes like a child counting down to Christmas.

Enthusiasm.

Kindness.

Did I say trees?

Racehorses. And pretty much the thoroughbred in general.

Typing fast.

Reading books. Not all books, obviously. Good, true books, where the writer does not show off too much.

Things that smell nice in the bath.

Chicken soup.

Leonard Cohen.

Friends who make me laugh so much I don’t know what my name is.

The English language.

Those really bright green olives the size of walnuts.

Rosemary.

People who say interesting things.

Radio 4.

Black and white photographs.

Scotland.

Robins.

Woods.

Moss.

Olive oil.

American politics. All politics really, but the Americans have the most dramatic and interesting and sometimes incomprehensible kind.

The colour green.

Shakespeare.

A very dry martini with three olives.

Suede.

A really good font.

Those very delicate engraved glasses that the Edwardians used to drink out of.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Braque.

The National Portrait Gallery.

The Repeal of the Corn Laws.

Blue sea.

Eggs for breakfast.

Moleskine notebooks.

F Scott Fitzgerald.

Wit.

Mozart.

Good manners.

Hoar frost.

The smell of woodsmoke.

The memory of summers on the coast of Connemara.

Lists.

And on and on it goes. I’m not even half finished. (Did not mention italics, sand, Bach or Mrs Woolf and Mrs Parker. Or the scent of warm asphalt after rain, a really good hotel bar, Persuasion, and the paintings of Rothko. Or Chinese food, boat rides, Scots pines, red patent leather handbags and lichen.) How anyone can get it down to a list of 14 I shall never know.

 

Now for your random archive pictures:

We haven’t had a darling old Duchess for ages. This was when she was old and her heart was going, but it is a rare picture of her smiling. She normally affected the most de haut en bas gaze:

Haven’t had Dad for a bit either. Here he is in his favourite Dave Dick coat. I don’t really know why it was called the Dave Dick coat, except for the fact that Dave Dick had one and liked it. Also, top flat cap action in its field, you must admit:

My God, what a pair they were:

Friday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I was going to do a whole thing on feminism; then I thought about the nature of prejudice, mostly on account of my increasing obsession with The Trevor Project; then I wondered if I might give you a blast on the Tea Party. But it's Friday, and I've thrown quite a lot of politics at you lately, and so I thought I might do some lists. There must be light and shade, after all. And everyone loves a list.

List Number One.

The oldest brother is currently entranced with collective nouns, or what he more elegantly calls nouns of assemblage. I asked him his current favourites this morning, and here they are:

1. A disworship of Scots. (This is sadly derogatory, for which I apologise to my adopted homeland, but I love the word disworship, which does not get used often enough.)

2. A whisper of snipe. (Remember that part in High Society when Grace Kelly says, in that wonderful affected voice: 'Ah Deluth, it sounds like singing'? I think that a whisper of snipe sounds like singing.)

3. A muster of peacocks. (There is a marvellous martial urgency to this: come on, you damn peacocks, muster, muster.)

4. A fidget of choirboys.

5. A malapertness of peddlers. (I did not even know malapertness was a word. It means impudence or sauciness and comes, of course, from the French. According to the Free Dictionary, this particular collective noun dates back to 1486, when obviously there were many saucy peddlers roaming the streets.)

List Number Two.

My three favourite books to read whilst ill in bed:

1. Don't Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford

2. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

3. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

I used to feel a furtive guilt about my inordinate love for Georgette Heyer. After all, her books were blatant romances, not Serious Literature. Then one day I heard AS Byatt on the radio, talking of her own adoration for Heyer. I thought: if it's good enough for Antonia Byatt, it's good enough for me.

And on the subject of books -

List Number Three.

Books I know I should love, but do not:

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This is absolute heresy. Lolita is not only a cast-iron classic, but Nabokov is the writer's writer. I have tried three times. Can't do it.

2. Rabbit, Run by John Updike. I know that the Rabbit series is revered by people who know about books. I know that Updike is considered a master of the Great American Novel. I could not find a single thing to love. (Am beginning to wonder if this list was such a good idea; I feel there is a danger of people starting to throw things.)

3. Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence. Lawrence makes me want to go and lie down in a darkened room. Curiously, I love his poetry, which is beautiful and unaffected and shoots like a silver arrow straight to the heart. I read Snake when I was eight years old, in a big old anthology I think my mother or one of my godparents had given me, and even though I was far too young to read between the lines or get the whole meaning of the thing, the language was so direct and vivid and strong that the image of the snake and the watching man and the searing heat and the sharp moment of regret shot straight into my childish mind and has stayed there ever since.

(Because one of my vices is a shaming streak of intellectual vanity, I would like to keep my end up by saying that I race through Henry James and TS Eliot as if I were reading comics. Oh yes, and Mrs Woolf too. I'm not a complete philistine.)

List Number Four.

Excellent scientific discoveries this week:

1. Dr Eric Anderson at the University of Bath has discovered that male students are busy kissing each other. This is tremendous news. 'The mean gruff homophobic macho man of the 1980s is dead,' said the professor. (RIP those mean gruff homophobes.) My favourite line in the reporting on this: 'It's not yet known how the trend of men kissing extends to non-university segments of the British population.'

2. Researchers at the Universities of California and Harvard have discovered a 'liberal gene'. Which they have sexily named DRD4. Actually, it's not quite as simple as that, although it makes a great headline. There is a great deal of hedging and qualification and nature plus nurture going on. The most fun is seeing how it has been reported. My favourite is from the bastion of rigorous fairness that is Fox News: 'Don't hold liberals responsible for their opinion - they can't help themselves.' (I know; it's like a disease.) The New York Daily News wins my headline of the day award: 'Being a liberal and hating Sarah Palin, may be a genetic trait, scientists say.' This despite the fact that no scientist breathed a word about Mrs Palin, because why would they, when they are exactly the kind of ghastly elites that she so despises?

3. Did you know there was a 'Travelling Salesman Problem'? (This sounds like something from a Carry On film, but apparently it is a very serious matter.) Did you know that researchers at the University of London have discovered that it could be solved by examining the actions of bees? I certainly did not. Dr Nigel Raine said: 'Despite their tiny brains, bees are capable of extraordinary feats of behaviour.'. Apparently, our apian cousins hold the key to solving traffic jams. So hurrah for the bees and their tiny brains.

List Number Five.

Random quotations, because if there is one thing people love more than a list, it's a quotation:

1. 'Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?'

Lily Tomlin.

2. 'All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.'

James Russell Lowell

3. 'Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.  Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.'

Groucho Marx

That's quite enough lists. Here are some Friday pictures.

Viola:

Sedum:

Marjoram:

Leaves and lichen:

Spider's web on the old stone wall:

Tree bark:

Roses:

The inevitability:

(Perhaps before the year is up, scientists will have discovered a can't help putting photographs of dogs on your blog gene. I can only live in hope.)

Happy Friday.