Hardly a single thought left in my head. Or, a good week.

I wanted to write you a huge, diverting, positively blowsy blog today, because you have been so lovely and the week has been so good. I had thoughts about everything, including the human search for meaning. (Come on, you know you long for a winding tangent on that subject.)

But I’m knackered, and my fingers can hardly move, and my brain has shut up shop.

I wrote 1514 words, had the lightest, most dreamy ride on my red mare, backed a nice winner, had two conversations which made my mind dance, and started to get wildly excited about the return tomorrow of Big Buck’s.

I wanted to examine why this week has been so good, in case I could draw life lessons from it. You know how I crave a life lesson.

But there is no more thought left in me. All I can say is: everyone was lovely, everything was interesting, many things were funny, the canine was enchanting, the red mare rose to new heights of gloriousness, my heart burst with love, and even though I am a bit of an idiot, I’m not quite as much of an idiot as I at first feared.

I’ve been thinking about what is the most important thing, even though I’m not sure there is a most important thing. Different things assume different importance on different days. It’s like choosing your favourite album. It’s impossible. But if I had to choose, I would say: have passions.

Be passionate, and do things with your whole heart.

I think that is what is most important.

I have no energy left for going through the pictures now. You know what this means. Oh yes. An archive shot of what Charlie Rich would call the most beautiful girl in the world.

And actually, there is just enough life in me left for one more, of Red with her sweet Paint friend. This is what they look like in the mornings, when we let them out to mooch around in the set-aside. It’s one of my favourite sights in the world:

One of the things I believe in most is letting horses be horses. It sounds shatteringly obvious, but you would be amazed how many people don’t give that idea much weight. I love this because it is one of the times when they are absolutely at their most easy, natural, horsey selves.

Have a delightful rest of Friday, and a lovely weekend. Your comments this week have been stellar. They have made me smile and laugh and think.

A very brief meditation on an absurd passion.

A quick bulletin, as it is another of those crazy days, and I want to get everything done in double quick time so I can watch the racing and listen to the cricket.

Sudden, pouring, Scottish rain. Gentle horse morning, but no riding as rain has stopped play. Work, work, work. 1178 words of book. The picture becomes a little clearer although I have made life difficult for myself by deciding the whole thing is set in the wrong season. Weather is important in fiction.

Dawn Approach did not win. Toronado finally fulfilled his promise, repaid all that hope and love the Hannons have put into him, all the faith they have kept, and he flashed up on the outside and took the race with a storming late run, by half a length. It was a brilliant, brilliant contest between two titans, and the strong bay horse prevailed on the day. I can’t wait now for the next chapter in that story. There must be a rematch for sure.

But I won my money back because a lovely, rather exciting filly called Ribbons won the 4.50 for the most excellent James Fanshawe. He’s a trainer I admire, and I think he might have a bit of a star on his hands.

She’s a diva for sure. She stopped dead, half way to the start, and her jockey James Doyle had to jump off and attempt to lead her down. She wasn’t having that either. Some poor hapless fellow ran down to wave his arms at the filly in a vain attempt to get her moving, and she stared at him as if she were Lady Bracknell confronted by a handbag. I’m not sure I ever saw such equine de haut en bas.

Once she eventually consented, purely on her own aristocratic terms, to get to the stalls, she went in kindly, leapt out like a running deer, and absolutely took apart a big field, dancing away with the thing as if she had never had a mulish thought in her pretty head. I love her. She’s my new heroine.

Stanley the Dog is happy; all the family is gathering for the highland games; I wish there were twenty-seven hours in the day instead of twenty-four. I have had slightly too much coffee. But the racing is glorious, the cricket is starting, and I feel keenly aware of my luck.

It’s a sort of blanket luck, to be alive when there are such sights to be seen. It’s a very specific luck too: to be self-employed, so I can switch about my schedule and watch it all. Mostly though, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, it’s the good fortune of having passions.

It’s all a bit nutty, my idiotic love for racing; my adoration of these horses I shall never meet, my forensic following of the form, my living through the triumphs and disasters as if they were my own. A nice man wrote, kindly, forgivingly, on my Twitter timeline yesterday that he did not understand a word of my racing tweets but quite enjoyed them anyway. I thought that was very generous.

It did make me feel a bit goofy. I am forty-six, after all, not sixteen. But I read somewhere not long ago that one of the vital ingredients of happiness in life is to have a passion. It’s quite tiring, minding about the things I mind about so much. But it does galvanise. It keeps me alive. It does not let me slip into blah existence, but acts as a roaring shot in the arm. I think I’d rather be a bit absurd than be bored and disengaged. Well, that is my story, and, my dear Dear Readers, I really am sticking to it.

 

Too wet for the camera today; here are a few pictures from the last 48 hours:

One of my favourite of the HorseBack mares:

The mare and her little filly foal. I rather love that I got this picture all wrong and that they are slightly out of focus. Sometimes I am quite fond of my mistakes:

Garden:

My lovely Red, last night, having a good old pick out in the wild grass:

LOVE:

The Older Brother and his Beloved came to pay the dear old duchess a visit:

We haven’t had a good Myfanwy picture in a while:

My most excellent sight dog, sighting things:

Yesterday’s hill. Today’s hill is lost in cloud: