Pictures.

Crazy working day and there was no time for the blog. Hopeless. Here are some photographs from the last few days to make up for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about the smallest of small things – the hills, the moss, the green, green grass of Scotland, the mare, the dog, hunting for beauty and tiny pleasures in each day. I suddenly realise, as I post these pictures, that the small things are all there. The red mare and these Scottish hills are vast to me, but in the scheme of the world they would not even make the back pages. As I get older, the things I love and value are further and further away from the classic headline desires. I’d love my next book to be a best-seller, but only so I can keep the horse in hay. I’d like to make some money, so I can build many beautiful paddocks out of lovely post and rails and fill them with ex-racehorses. I don’t want to be fashionable or famous or feted. I want my fingers to work so I can go on playing with prose, and my body to work so I can still be riding thoroughbreds when I’m seventy, and my eyes to function so I can read and look at the racing and gaze at this beloved landscape. I’d like my reflexes to stay sharp, so I can drive south and see the old friends. I’m starting to think I’d quite like a goat. That’s about the sum total of my ambition.

Love and trees, my darlings. Love and trees.

And sheep, of course. The ewes this year are so elegant I can’t stop staring at them.

Pictures

A galvanic work day. I wrote hundreds of words. I edited tens of pages. I can see a little horizon of hope. There is so far to go and the resolution is so uncertain, but still, one must keep buggering on and this was splendid buggering.

My brain has, however, had it.

There is a faint snapping sizzle as it short-circuits.

Here are some randomly chosen pictures from the archive instead of words. I’m all out of words. We sold right out.

HorseBack and horses and no words left.

Been working all day on stuff for HorseBack. It’s always the hardest kind of writing I ever have to do, because it’s for such a serious purpose. This is not just for me, for my own vanity or success or amour-propre. It’s for an organisation which really does transform people’s lives. It’s a keen responsibility.

They are all so no-nonsense and funny and matter-of-fact down there it’s sometimes easy to forget what an extraordinary thing it is that they have undertaken. Since I’ve been working with them, I’ve watched a man with no legs trot off into the wild Deeside hills, talked to a gentleman whose body is filled with bullet holes, observed a laughing fellow guide a horse round an arena using his last remaining digit. People come there for whom the simple act of sleeping is a rare luxury. So these words damn well matter.

My brain is now so stretched that it is about to crawl out of my ears and hide behind the sofa, so there is nothing left for the blog. You are good people; you understand about priorities. I know that I do not have to apologise for this.

 

There are, however, some pictures. Almost a little photo essay, you might say. Because today was the Red Letter Day when Autumn the Filly got her first saddle on her back.

We were expecting a bit of a buck or a jump or at the very least a tossed head. But her trainer has worked so well with her on the ground that she mostly just went to sleep as the big foreign object was placed on her. Yeah, yeah, whatever, one could almost hear her saying, her ears in firm donkey position.

Hmm, and you want me to react to this how?:

I suppose it is faintly interesting:

But NOT as scary as you thought:

Really nothing to see here. Move along:

I’ll just do a bit of collected circling:

At this point, the Horse Talker arrived, who is the owner of Autumn, and the filly pricked up her ears as if to say MUM:

Look what I DID:

It was actually quite hard work, I suppose:

Meanwhile, Red was off in a doze, eating her hay:

When the thrilling decision to do some free schooling was taken:

And it was - Come on everyone, LET’S GO:

They have been very still lately, with all the weather. They had so much fun cantering about that, afterwards, Myfanwy clearly thought she was Queen of the World:

Which she almost certainly is:

And then they just hung out for a bit, very pleased with themselves:

But of course the main thing was that Stanley the Dog HAD HIS BALL:

Oh, yes:

No hill today. I would love to say it is lost in music, but in fact it’s lost in the cloud.

Sunday pictures

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

 

Most lovely and wise comments yesterday. Thank you. One of the Dear Readers gently suggest perhaps a picture of the Duchess. I had been thinking of this for some time, but wondered if it might be a bit sad, or maudlin. Now I think: why not? This is what the ladyships were doing on this day last year:

And one more for luck:

She really was outrageously beautiful, wasn't she?

Pigeon today, in black and white:

The hill: