An entirely random Friday.

The point about this blog, if there is a point, is that it is supposed to be about the prose. If I can give you some good words, some dancing sentences, then my work is done. The photographs are a mere illustration: this is what it looks like. My poor old camera is on its last legs. It actually has ingrained mud around the controls, from where it fell crashing to the ground when I took it out one day whilst riding Red. It has never really been the same since. And photography is not my talent; I am the most bumbling of amateurs. (Sometimes, I get a bit cocky if a shot comes out well; for a moment, I have a little swagger and think I’m all that. Then I see a proper picture by a proper pro, and I am chastened and put back into my correct place.)

But today I’ve come to the end of a very long week, and there are no sentences left. So I thought I’d give you a feeling rather than a prose explication. Today, the pictures are the thing. They show the feeling of the day – glimmering sun, the first suggestions of autumn, a falling peace, the utter, streaming loveliness of watching a red thoroughbred duchess take her ease in the wild places.

I did something today which I always mean to do, and which I sometimes forget. I admitted a weakness. Always admit your weaknesses, the sensible voice in my head constantly instructs. But there is a gap between the good voice in the head and the actual living of life. My weaknesses sometimes frighten me, and I have a tendency to keep them secret. Do a tap dance instead, says the fearful voice, which does not wish to be vulnerable. Divert them with a show tune. Misdirection, says the fearful voice – look, look, point them over here, where they may see mightiness and facility. (Tell them about the winning bets, says the Mr William Hill voice; don’t mention the losing streaks.)

The lovely thing about admitting weaknesses is that very rarely do the recipients laugh and point, as the fearful voices suspect they will. This one merely nodded and took it on the chin and appeared to think no less of me. I walked away feeling a spiralling, giddy sense of liberation.

And now, I’m going to do something very naughty. I’ve got most of what I should do done. I’m going to say sod ‘em if they can’t take a joke, and give myself the rest of the day off. I’m going to watch the racing from Newbury and Ayr and Listowel, and glory in the sheer beauty of the racing thoroughbred, which thrills my heart like almost nothing else. I’m hardly going to have a bet, because it’s a funny time of the season and the ground is soft and anything can happen. (Good decision, as it turns out, since a 33-1 shot has just won the 1.50.) There is a promising youngster on whom I am very sweet called Red Galileo at Newbury this afternoon. But mostly, I’m just going to watch the glorious show and feel lucky. It’s like iron tonic for me, and I shall gather myself and get my stamina back, and write many thousands of words over the weekend. That is my plan. And I have absolutely no idea why I feel the need to map it out for you, but you are the Dear Readers, and you must know everything.

Have a lovely Friday. I hope the sun is shining on you too.

 

Today’s pictures:

In the spirit of the admitting of weaknesses, today’s picture of the hill. My newly liberated self, freed from the bashing imperatives of perfectionism, laughs in delight, and cries: it could not matter less. It’s still the beloved old hill, who cares what focus it is in:

Random

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I have no good ideas in my head today. I was going to do a whole rant about the unkind people who oppose gay marriage but suddenly a rant felt a little too much.

So, it’s a random post. I haven’t done one of those for a while.

1. I start to think that the Rupert Murdoch on Twitter cannot be real and must be a spoof. Here is his latest tweet:

Romney people upset at me! Of course I want him to win, save us from socialism, etc but should listen to good advice and get stuck in!

I simply do not believe that a man capable of building up a billion dollar media empire could write two such sentences. Quite aside from the schoolboy use of exclamation marks, there is the ignorance of what socialism is. I have noticed this a lot on the American right, but it usually only comes from the nutty, foaming at the mouth types, or the very strange, like Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.

If President Obama were a politician here, he would be on the left of the Tory party, or the most rightward fringes of Labour. He is the very model of a pragmatic centrist, with excellent instincts about social justice, a strategic rather than tactical view of politics, and a tendency to caution. He has shown absolutely no signs of wanting to nationalise the means of production, which is what socialism is. I really wish that people would not use words unless they know the meaning of them, especially in public. Everyone says Rupert Murdoch is a very clever man, whether they loathe or love him. That tweet was written by an idiot.

2. My swallows are definitely here. I had been unable to identify their nest. There are many old ones clinging to the rafters, but they all seemed unused, and I had not yet heard the distinctive chirping of the baby birds. Then, last night, I went in to get some wood, and there was the cheep cheep cheep. I looked up, and saw the perfect mud structure with three little tails sticking out. What do they do in there, I wonder? They have their heads right down in the next, and their bottoms sticking in the air. Anyway, I was passionately glad to see them, and relieved that they had not decided to move their nest somewhere else. I would have taken that very personally indeed.

Outside, as I was gazing up, entranced, their parents were putting on a huge show, swooping and crying and whirling about. I presume this is the swallow defence plan, to distract potential predators who might come near their young. It is oddly touching. I heard myself saying, out loud, as I walked back across the lawn: ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ in the same voice I use to soothe the horse or the dog, as if the birds might speak English and understand.

3. The weather forecast continues doleful. The seven day for my village says: light rain, light rain, cloud, light rain, heavy rain, light rain, cloud. I try really, really hard not to let this sink my heart, but it is a tough job. I would not mind so much if it were not for the mare. It’s quite demoralising going out to do her in the wet and the mud. The daily sound is a sad one of squelch, squelch, squelch. I also worry about her getting mud fever. I am not riding at the moment, because the ground is so boggy and slippery, and I miss it. I love the ground work, but I do sometimes long to leap on and gallop off across the fields.

This obsession with the weather is a part of the horse life. The little pony is pretty weather-proof, on account of being bred for the Welsh mountains. Her coat is so thick and filled with oil that it repels water. Red, on the other hand, with her pathetic thoroughbred excuse for a coat, gets drenched, and can be quite grumpy about it. I have found an excellent website which gives me two-hourly weather reports, so I can work out when to put on her rug. Yesterday, the report was slightly off, and the mare got wet and it was too late to put the rug on, because a rug on a damp coat is horrid for her. Some people feel very strongly that one should not rug a horse at all, because they are happier naked, but I don’t like to see a very wet animal, although this may be my own human prejudice.

So, last night, the poor old lady had to put up with hours of rain. My heart twisted in my chest as I gazed out on the steady downpour. This morning, I went up, and she was in a very merry mood, and her coat was dry and as soft as velvet after her midnight bath. I have to keep remembering that horses are much tougher than I think. She is a very precious cargo, but she can take a bit of wet. I must not become one of those hysterical types who wraps their animals in cotton wool.

4. I discover, four days after everyone else, that Katie Holmes is filing for divorce. I remember when she married Tom Cruise, and there was the joke about Run, Katie, Run. I find the whole Scientology thing incredibly creepy, but I once met someone who had worked with Tom Cruise on a film and reported that he was absolutely charming and not strange at all.

Fake Rupert Murdoch has waded into the fray on his fake Twitter account, saying that we should all ‘watch the Katie Holmes story’ and see how truly malign the Scientology movement is. I am certainly not going to watch the Katie Holmes story just because some bogus Twitter spoofster tells me to. I am going to watch the four o’clock at Pontefract, and hope that my bet of the day, Euxton Hall, trots up.

 

Too gloomy for the camera today, so here are a couple of quick pictures from the last days:

Oh, and PS: thank you so much for kind comments of the last few days. Please do not have hoover panic. The only reason it must be done so often in my house is that I wickedly clump in with my boots and so there is actual MUD on the floor. Which, even for me, is a bit much by the second day.

In which you do not ask how I am, but I tell you anyway

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There is an old definition of a bore. It is: the person who, when you ask how they are, tells you.

The British way, of course, is to say: Fine. Even if your dog has run away to join the circus, you have lost your job, crashed your car, invested your savings in a company whose accounts manager has decamped to the Cayman Islands with the profits, when someone inquires how you are, you smile, wryly, and say: I’m fine.

If things are very, very bad, you may elaborate slightly. Could be worse, you might say. But the ironical smile must still be there. You never, ever say: absolutely bloody awful, actually, how about you?

This is the danger of a blog. Blogs need a hard core of authenticity, to be any good. No one really wants to read about a shined up, glossy, gleamy, perfect life. That just makes everyone feel sad and inadequate, by comparison. Comparisons, are, after all, the number one enemy of modern happiness. The new science of well-being is always pointing out that people would be quite happy with their old telly, for instance, if they did not know that the couple next door have just bought a fuck-off plasma screen. It’s the keeping up with the Armstrong-Joneses that kills contentment stone dead.

So there is a very fine line to be walked between truthful and honest, and incalculably boring. No one wants an endless, undifferentiated wail. That’s no way to start a week.

This is why my fingers are pausing over the keyboard. I am frowning at the screen, wondering if there is a way round the thing. Perhaps I should just do a nice little riff on the Oscars, even though now I am forty-five I have no interest in the Oscars. (In my twenties, I used to sit up with my friend The Actor until five in the morning, watching the whole damn thing and shrieking at the bad frocks and the gushing speeches.) Maybe I should do a serious thing on Syria, or an examination of the Chancellor’s doomy statement about poor old Blighty being broke.

And in any case, it’s not as if it was an awful day. I did some work; I had a ride. It was a good ride. I started to remember strength in my legs I had forgotten; the old muscle memory came back. Heels down, toes up, elbows in; trot on, trot on. There was even a lovely moment when I was riding loosely with one hand and The Cousin laughed and said, ‘Oh, are we doing the Argentinian fashion?’

But this Monday has been mostly a day of extreme grumpiness. Oh my God, I was grumpy. I am not usually a creature of moods. Even if I wake up in a bit of a mood, I can usually bash my way out of it by hopping myself up on coffee and looking blatantly on the bright side. I can sniff out the silver lining in a cloud like a truffle hound on the scent.

I don’t mind emotions. Emotions are good, strong, honest things. I get sad, I get angry about things that deserve anger, I get excited, I get happy. That’s fine. That’s all human condition, in its many varieties. It’s the blah, pointless, formless, nothing moods that kill me. They don’t come very often, but one hit today, for absolutely no reason. It’s like a black heaviness, dragging the body down, paralysing the mind, pressing the head down like a horrid iron hat.

Come on, says my rational, empirical mind. There is a reason for everything. What is at the root of this anomie?

No bloody buggery reason, shouts the irrational mind, which wants to be left alone so it can go and sulk in its room like a moody teen.

Even the Pigeon avoids me when I am in this mood. She goes and has a nice walk with the Four-Year-Old instead, which is much more fun. They both come back looking inordinately pleased with themselves.

I’ll work my way through it, I think. I do work. No change.

I’ll cook my way through it, I think. I make carrot soup and winter salad. Nothing.

I take some iron tonic, which has absolutely no effect.

I’ll drink my way through it, I think, as the clock strikes seven. I get out the Guinness. Guinness, what could be more delicious and nutritious? (My father did not even regard it as alcohol, but more like a health food.) Nada. Still furious.

I even find myself doing that fake smiling, because I once read somewhere that by moving your mouth into a smile you release endorphins into your body. The body does not know, apparently, the smile is not real. It reacts as if the happiness is actual, and reacts accordingly. That’s some stupid bad science, I think, as the filthy mood persists.

There is nothing for it but to admit that there are days when I am not mistress of my own ship. Some days, I am just a grumpy old lady. It’s not pretty, and it’s not clever, and it’s not funny. It is just what it is.

Better in the morning, I think, with the last grain of optimism I have in me. Everything is always better after a good night’s sleep. Some days I have to give up, and this is one of those days.

 

Far too livid to take the camera out today, so here is a small selection from the last few days:

Just look at that Pigeon face:

 

This is the lovely little mare I rode today. I really have no business feeling grumpy when I have something as delightful as this to ride out on:

In which I bribe you with dog pictures

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Out in the world, there are Events. Inside my head, there is the swooshing sound of white noise as my last remaining brain cell flies out of my left ear.

Luckily, the Three-Year-Old has some words of wisdom for you.

As I was sitting vacantly in front of the computer, staring fruitlessly at the screen, my command of the English language fled for the hills, she put her head on one side and said:

‘Tania?’

‘Yes?’ I said, looking up, glad of the diversion.

‘Some people,' she said, seriously, 'don’t know what they are doing. And some people do not know where they are going.’

I was slightly taken aback. I paused, unsure of the correct response.

‘That is very true and wise,’ I said.

She nodded, and went back to what she was doing. She was perfectly grave. I thought I heard the bat squeak of consolation in her voice, as if she was implying that I was not alone. As if she understood.

That’s all I have for you, I am afraid. I know I always bash on about how I am going to give you pith, usually after some lunatic rambling post that goes on for 1400 words. Then, when there is pith, I hear the show tune fire up in my head: Peggy Lee in her prime, her voice like smoke and silver, singing, ‘Is that all there is?’

That is, in fact, all there is.

There shall be more tomorrow, when I have reclaimed some of my faculties. In the meantime, I bribe you with dog pictures.

It’s worth a shot:

That Pigeon really should be on commission. She should have her own agent, by now.

An absolutely pathetic excuse for a blog

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There was actually quite a sweet and good blog today. I know it sounds like an awful lot of trumpet-blowing. It’s not so much that I wrote you some enchanting, ground-shattering prose; it’s that the three-year-old cousin said something funny, and I merely transcribed it. I was the stenographer. I can claim no more credit than that.

That will be perfect, I thought.

Then there was: family life and work storm. This is the third draft work storm, and it is more acute and in some ways more difficult to navigate than the first and second draft ones. There is more pressure of time; there is less room to manoeuvre. Things are getting serious now. Now is the time when every hour counts.

It was a good and productive day; more productive than days have been in a while. I felt drained but lightly exhilarated. The good news was that I had the blog stored and saved, with the pearls of wisdom from the miraculous three-year-old. Oh, how you were going to laugh. How wry and comical it was all going to be. (Those of you who have children also need to remember that for me, the quirky remarks of the small are like the sayings of Confucius. I find them both profound and really funny.)

Then, at last, day over, I came back to put on the pictures. The computer made a growling noise. Then it made a shouting noise. Then it made a noise like industrial machinery. Then the whole thing froze.

I jabbed fruitlessly with a pointless finger. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I gave in, and rebooted.

I would like to say in my defence that the auto-save is on. It catches most things. The vital notes I had made for the book were only light by 77 words, and I have a feeling those were not crucial ones. But the blog was lost.

So now I’m afraid you just get this, which is written in a state of exhaustion. I always feel a bit of a fraud writing that, since it’s not as if I was down a mine all day. I have not been attempting to solve the Iran problem. I expect Mr William Hague is a bit more knackered than I.

Anyway, you must have something, and this is what I can muster. I suspect the next few days shall be patchy, as I adjust to my Southern regime. With any luck, there might be some reasonable prose by the end of the week.

 

Also, I'm most apologetic that I had no time to take the camera out today. All I can offer you is three Pigeon pictures. I like to think that a Pigeon picture makes up for a thousand omissions, but that may be mere fantasy on my part:

In which I hope to come back with a bang, and end up with more of a whimper

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The Dear Readers. Really, you have outdone yourselves. You’d have thought I had come back from an Antarctic trek, the warmth of the welcome was such. How kind and good and generous you are. I feel rather overcome and very humble.

The weather is flat and low, not at all a gaudy homecoming. I don’t care. The trees are there, and the low light on the hills, and the roots and the lichen and the stone walls. The Sister and I march round the block, talking and talking, one black dog at each of our heels.

I do work, think a bit about the news, eat a pastrami sandwich for lunch. The light dwindles and fades into a black, moonless night. The Pigeon is fast asleep, making little sighing noises of contentment. At last, there is time to sit down and do the blog. After all your incredibly kind words from yesterday, the least I owe you is something absolutely bleeding marvellous.

I pause, fingers stretched over the keyboard. I shake my head, as if I can ginger up my cerebellum, as if some blindingly brilliant thought might be dislodged. I wait for it. Nothing.

First day back and there is only blankness? This is not the way to do it at all. I wonder about the weight of expectation. I remember, a hundred years ago, a wise old shrink saying to me that the enemy of happiness is false expectations. My expectation, just at this minute, is that you are all sitting there, waiting for the good stuff; my expectation is that after a week off I should be able to give it to you. A perfect symphony of expectation is playing in my head, drowning out all coherent thought, crippling my fingers, crabbing any decent mental process.

Hmm, I think. Can I pass this off as a little life lesson? Will this serve as some kind of parable? Can I dig something out of nothing? If I scrunch up my brow a bit more and pummel my brain and really, really try, could I scoop out one tiny, gleaming nugget of universal verity?

There is something there, something about the weight of expectation crushing everything flat. Don’t expect too much sounds like the most awful cop-out; a pedestrian, gloomy way to go through life. It’s not exactly inspiring. You wouldn’t put it on a t-shirt. On the other hand, the sensible managing of expectation could be one way to peace of mind.

Could it be a sort of Goldilocks principle? Not too hot, not too cold, just right. As a theory, it needs work. I am going to go away and ponder it. When it is all polished and shiny, I shall come back and lay it at your feet.

 

And now for the pictures of the day.

I adore these young beeches. They seem to grow more glorious with each passing day:

The magnificence of a dry stone wall:

The gnarly old beech trunks, which always remind me of an elephant's foot:

This one is all blurred and out of focus, but I rather love it all the same:

And here are the trees, in proper focus:

There were gales whilst I was away, and two of the great old trees have come down. Some very efficient person has been tidying them up with a great big saw. This is always a sad sight:

But on a happier note, The Pigeon has got a really, really big stick. I imagine she is thinking of Roosevelt, and following his advice to speak softly and carry a big stick:

The hill comes at you from a slightly different angle than usual:

Oh, those colours. Who knew that I would be so lucky as to end up living in the shadow of a violet hill?

Of oatmeal, geekery, and service dogs

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

No racing today; it’s all been iced, snowed and generally weathered off. I am slightly grumpy, because I was looking forward to Sandown, although my brain feels oddly grateful that it does not have to frown over the William Hill website all afternoon, desperately trying to find a winner. It’s almost as if someone has given me the afternoon off.

I spend it in a most fruitful fashion, catching up with the Rachel Maddow Show from the past week, and whistling through my teeth as I watch Mitt Romney say one more not true thing. This is how extreme my political geekery has grown: my idea of a fun Saturday afternoon is watching American politics shows on my computer.

As for the racing geekery, that beast shall be sated later in the day, when I will be unable to resist watching re-runs of Kauto Star storming round Kempton into the high annals of sporting history. (You do see the wildness and wonder of my life.)

In order to attempt some kind of balance, I make soda bread, with the special oatmeal of Alford. I love the oatmeal of Alford (pronounced Aff-ud) because it is made up the road from here, about twelve miles north. It feels very local and very precious and almost personal to me.

I like it because it is produced by a tiny, tiny company, and yet it is so good that you may now see it on the shelves of serious shops. No longer do I have to hunt it down in tiny speciality stores; there it is in the Co-op.

It reassures me, because it seems to say that you do not have to be a monstrous, amoral giant to succeed in business. If you make something that is delightful and good, you may succeed, however minuscule your operation. Also, it’s not some horrid, meretricious article laced with additives and e-numbers; it’s good and plain and wholesome. Oatmeal should practically carry a government grant these days, since it is stuffed full of B vitamins, which have a particular effect on the nervous system. And God knows the collective national nerves need soothing, just now.

Scratching in the back of my mind is the news from the wider world. I can’t talk about Syria. I know that is a terrible cop-out. But it is so horrendous and intractable and almost unimaginable that I have no good words for it. Even thinking about it, I grind to a full stop.

Here’s one of the interesting things about blogging. I think it’s important not to disappear down the rabbit hole of one’s own trivial concerns, but when there are things out there which are very big, and very bad, it’s incredibly hard to address them. Partly, it’s a matter of tone: it’s easy to fall into preaching, or holier than thou. Also, I have the odd sense that there is a danger of grandstanding: oh, look at me, caring about things. There’s a really annoying song out at the moment which goes something like: I can’t do anything about poverty and war, but at least I can care. Which is an amazing way of making dire world events all about you.

Yet in some ways, one of the marvellous things about the world of the blogs is that it can act as small, potent antidote to general news despair. Sometimes, it is the discrete ray of light which can illuminate darkness.
I stumbled upon one such ray today. It is a blog which tells the enchanting story of training a service dog. I am slightly obsessed with service dogs. There is an extraordinary woman in our village who trains guide dogs for the blind. She has a lovely young yellow lab at the moment, and every time I see them out and about, I break into wreathing, spontaneous smiles. It really does feel like a good deed in a naughty world.

Training one dog is not going to redress manifold world problems. But it will make a human life immeasurably better. I think the people who do it are little miracles in themselves. It is the kind of small, potent act which gives me hope.

Well, I’m not sure how I ended up here. I was just going to talk about the racing being off. But tangents are my middle name, and I’m glad I gave the service dog people a shout, because I’m not sure they get enough credit. And I do so like credit where it is due.

You can find the lovely blog here. I guarantee it will  make you smile.

Oh, and talking of credit, I would not have found the wonderful blog had it not been for the brilliant Libertylondongirl, who tweeted about it.

The weather was too filthy today to take the camera out, so here are some pictures from the week:

























That last one is the famous are you going to throw the stick again face.

Just as I was about to press publish, slightly annoyed that I was going to have to give you yesterday's hill, the black cloud which has pressed down all day suddenly broke. A most extraordinary, diffuse, amber light suddenly fell upon the land. I rushed out to see if there was enough of the fading brightness left to capture my dear old hill. And do you know, there really was. So instead of this, which was from the blue dazzle of yesterday:



There was this, which is from the astonishing red light of today:



It is rather incredible that the same thing could look so different in the space of 24 hours.