Old friends, red mares, dark woods.

It’s been a long and odd week. I’ve been rather grumpy and scratchy, only finding moments of calm and bliss when I’m with the red mare, who made it her business to be at her most charming and enchanting and antic and interesting and clever on every single sunny morning. I can’t take any emotional nonsense down to her, so the hours I spend with her are like daily meditation.

All the same, I knew something was going on, but I was not sure what. It’s tiredness and anti-climax, I thought, vaguely. I was at full stretch at Aintree last week, physically and emotionally, involved in the HorseBack work which meant so much to us all. I’d been travelling, which always exhausts me. I’ve got a lot of work to do and am still waiting for the agent to get back to me. I need to get this damn book sold. When I found myself weeping at the thought of AP McCoy retiring, because I’m going to miss The Champ so much, I suspected that there was a little glitch in my emotional wiring. But you know, it’s just life, and all its demands.

This morning, an old friend called. She’s one of those ones who has been there for over twenty years. We have so much shared history and old jokes and mutual affection and understanding. We exclaimed and bantered and shouted with laughter.

And then, she told me exactly what it was that was going on. I’d hardly said two sentences when she cut at once to the heart of the matter. ‘Oh,’ I said, amazed, ‘of course that is what it is.’ She then teased me about it for five minutes whilst I actually slapped the walls with hilarity and merriment. And relief, too. At last, I knew, and knowledge is power.

The mare has done glorious things this week. I’ve asked her many more questions than I usually ask, and although she has expressed moments of doubt and astonishment, once she realised that I was serious and steady she gave the good answers. We’ve found the most lovely trot, and she is learning to bend her body and drop her head and go from left to right like a dressage diva. But, oddly enough, the thing of which I am most proud is her newly intrepid spirit.

We start each ride with an offering. I give her the reins and ask where she would like to go. She has the whole set-aside to play in, and generally she describes a known circuit, from the feed shed to the top gate to the bottom gate to the far paddock and back again. About a month ago, she delighted me by striking out to the scary woods, where the treeline starts and shadows and rough ground are found.

Today, she went to the even more scary woods, which run to the south and go up a sharp hill. When she first arrived and I took her there, she wigged out entirely, rearing and reversing downhill like a crazy horse. I didn’t blame her. The trees are thick and the shadows deep and the going treacherous and I won’t walk far into those woods myself, for all my rational cast of mind, because who knows what sprites are hiding in the dark.

To get to that place where Here Be Dragons, she had to walk all the way around the main paddock railings, along a fairly narrow path, taking two sharp right-hand turns. It’s not an obvious route. And the really funny thing was that I was on the telephone at the time. (Children, do not try this at home. It’s very, very naughty and I should not do it.) Because I was chatting away and had no hand on the rein, I did not really realise where we were until I suddenly looked up and found that we were about to fall off the edge of the world.

As I did so, I heard the sound of rattling hooves. The little Paint filly, obviously believing that we were about to strike off into the unknown and leave her alone, was remembering her barrel racing ancestry and was charging down the field at full gallop.

‘Hold on,’ I said to the person on the telephone, ‘it’s all kicking off here. I had better concentrate.’

It’s spring, and I was out in a strange part of the field, and the red mare’s friend was going loco. That should have been a light the touchpaper and then retire moment. I fully expected the mare to want to gallop too. Instead, she regarded her charge with tolerant eyes, and did not move a muscle. I put my hands on the reins, certain an explosion would come. Nothing happened. The Paint, as if also expecting at least some reaction, and quite miffed that her glorious display produced no more than a sceptical eyebrow, did a perfect sliding stop in front of us and then put on a small rodeo display, as if she were in the Calgary Stampede. She wheeled, did twisting bronco leaps, bucked, snorted, and danced in a circle.

The red mare sighed.

‘Well,’ I said into the telephone. ‘I think we are all right.’

Then I turned the mare’s head towards home and walked back on the buckle.

I write all that because I want to illustrate how far she has come. That moment was far more impressive, in a way, than the delightful bending trot. But all the same, I have had a suspicion for some time that I have not quite got to the bottom of her. I think I’ve excavated about 90% of her, but there is a lurking 10% of old emotion, trapped feelings, subterranean worry, that lies at her core like black old silt. If I can dig that out and bring it into the light, then we shall be all glory.

They say that horses are the mirror of their humans. I think that I too have a layer of silt, difficult or shameful or stupid feelings which I don’t want to look at too closely. That is what has been going on this week. That was what my dazzling friend saw at once. She cast daylight on the mystery, and at once it had no more power to paralyse me.

This particular friend has faced things in the last two or three years which would have sunk a lesser woman. She has stared straight down the gun-barrel, unflinching. There is no frailty or self-pity in her voice. She is exactly the same as she always was: incisive, clever, idiosyncratic, funny, absolutely her own self. As we talk, and she makes me laugh so much that I can hardly breathe, I silently take all my hats off to her. I don’t say that. I wonder if she knows. For all that I pride myself on Saying the Thing, I am still British, and do irony and jokes better than earnest sincerity.

As we finish our conversation, she says, another teasing note in her bright voice, ‘Well, at least you have that horse.’

‘YES!!!!’ I bellow. ‘I have the horse.’

I have the old friends; I have Stan the Man; I have the red mare; I have this place, these hills. I have love and trees. I’ll be all right.

 

Today’s pictures:

Far too much going on to take out the camera, so these are from the week:

You can see the start of the scary woods in the background. To the right, out of shot, is the place where they get really dense and alarming. That was where my brave girl went:

One perfect moment.

Author’s note: I did of course have wonderful plans for the first post back. I’ve been out in the world, and I was going to tell you about that. I had stories to tell. I’d been thinking many, many thoughts on the long drive back. I was going to be like the Ferrero Rocher ambassador, and spoil you. Then the red mare did something so lovely that I could only write of that, because I could only think of that. (There really is not enough room in my mazy brain for more than one thing at a time.) So I’m afraid this is very, very horsey, even more horsey than usual. I’ve put in some extra Scotland photographs at the end, in a tragic attempt to make up for it.

 

Back after a very busy, very wonderful and very emotional week at Aintree. I was at full stretch, doing all my HorseBack work, and now have hit the wall and need to sit quietly in my room for a while.

As I drove home through the snowy mountains, I thought of my dear red mare. She is the thing that pulls me home. I may have been seeing some of my most beloved racing stars, some of the most elegant, beautiful and elite athletes on the planet, but the face I miss is that of a muddy, woolly duchess, who never won a prize in her life.

I got on her back this morning after not having sat on her for six days. The popular wisdom is that in springtime, with the new grass and the twinkles in the toes, thoroughbreds should not really be leapt on like that. I did about ten minutes of groundwork first, just to check her state of mind and remind her that her good leader had returned, and then, off we went.

Because I’ve been learning a completely new way of working with horses, we haven’t done any advanced or technical riding. I’m still trying to figure out how to do everything correctly on the ground, to get her and me to the place we both need to be. My version of schooling in the saddle consists of two daily exercises, both unbelievably basic.

The first is called Where do you want to go? I get on the mare, let out the reins, and allow her to go where she will. If she gets stuck anywhere, like the gate or the feed shed, I work her there, and then let her go again. It’s a fabulous exercise and it fixes about eight different things and I love it and it makes me laugh. But it’s not exactly technical. It mostly consists of me waving my arms in the air or scratching her withers whilst asking: where do you want to go? I’m always curious to see where she chooses, and wonder what is going on in her dear head whilst she makes those navigational decisions.

Then we move on to the Left Right exercise, which is about balance and straightness and light steering. If the horse goes left, you steer it right, and vice verse. It’s really that simple. So you see, we are not exactly doing collection or flying changes.

We were working on these today, doing our ABCs, and she was a little tense and tentative and I was bringing her down until she relaxed. We were looking for softness, which is our holy grail. And then, suddenly, in a ravishing collected trot, she started going in perfect circles, with the most beautiful bend in her body, using every inch of that duchessy thoroughbred self. She used to be quite stiff, and she would drop her shoulder, and she would lean on me, and her body would go out of alignment. I have not worked on any of that specifically. I’ve just done this wonderfully basic work on the ground and under the saddle, trying to teach myself as much as her, concentrating on getting each small step right, sometimes feeling like a fool because I am still muddling about in the foothills when everyone else is galloping over the mountain peaks.

But there, out of the blue, she described a balletic, poised, perfect circle, with everything in the right place. When that happens, you can feel it, like someone has thrown a switch and the whole world has changed. And the really lovely thing is that I was not doing anything. She was doing it by herself. That’s the point of all this work, to give her the confidence to carry herself. I simply point the way, ask the question, and then let her alone. There is no nagging or correction.

I was so amazed that I dropped the reins and let her go, simply moving my body with hers. And she kept right on going, in her delirious dressage diva circuit, everything in harmony. Every inch of her body, every muscle and every sinew, was working in time, each moving part going smoothly with the other. I’m not sure I ever felt anything like it.

In a daze of delight, I said whoa, and she stopped on a sixpence and I leapt off and covered her in strokes and rubs and kisses, wishing I could express to her the brilliance of what she had just done. She stood like a statue, with her head low, her ears in their dozy donkey position, her lower lip wibbling in the suspicion of an equine smile.

Did she know? I hope she knew.

She made me cry actual tears of joy and gratitude.

There is something sometimes frustrating about putting myself back to school, about having to learn humility and patience and rigour, about having to go over and over and over and over the very, very small things, until I have them right. I’m quite a slow learner, and sometimes I think: oh, bugger it, let’s just gallop off into the middle distance and forget all this. But what it does mean is that I appreciate the smallest things as if they are dazzling diamonds. I shouldn’t think many other horsewomen burst into tears today because they did a slow sitting trot in a circle in a green field. They’d probably think: right, that’s done, let’s move on to transitions. But for me, it was like winning that damn Grand National.

The older I get, the more I believe in the small things, in all areas of life. The red mare teaches me so many life lessons, and returns me to earth when I become idiotic or hubristic, and shows me the value of the plain virtues. She is the Empress of Small Things, and I can never thank her enough.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are actually from yesterday. The road home:

And the faces that greeted me:

Quite often, when I get back, she’s not that bothered. There’s a bit of – yeah, right, whatever. But this time she came straight over for love, and then followed me round the field when I went to leave. I do fight anthropomorphism every single day, but I swear this face is saying: where have you been?:

Meanwhile, Stan the Man was very happy to be back in the feed shed, hunting for RATS:

An Easter present from the red mare.

It’s a Bank Holiday Monday and the place is as quiet as a cathedral. The sun shines down and I decide to take a day off.

I don’t always take off weekends and national holidays. That’s the thing about writing; it expands to fit the space available. And I like to write every day, even if it’s only ten lines.

But still, to take a day off when the rest of the nation takes one makes me feel stitched into the social contract, which is a feeling I like very much.

Down in the quiet field, in the sunshine, the horses show their spring fever. The Paint drops her belly to the ground and gallops, ventre à terre, as if she is hearing her ancestral voices from the wild frontier. The red mare, much more upright, as poised as a ballet dancer, tail flying like flags, snorting like a steam train, gallops beside her.

The beauty is so elemental that I stand and stare, rooted to the good Scottish earth.

Then we do some work. The mare forgets her snorting and her Spanish Riding School of Vienna and her spring fever, and drops into her soft place, all her attention on me.

For the last few weeks we have been losing the trot. It’s there, and then it’s gone. Her stride breaks up, ragged and uncoordinated, she puts her head in the air and begins to rush. In the old days, I would have thought this perfectly normal for a thoroughbred ex-racehorse. I would have sat tight and kicked on. Now, if I do not have a soft horse, I have nothing. So I’ve been searching and searching for that softness, endlessly going back to the beginning, looking for the places where I have made a mistake.

It’s a practical thing – bending to a stop, doing lateral flexion, working up through the walk – but it’s a mental thing too. If I do not always have that good, true starting point with me, I am lost. This kind of horsemanship, so new to me, is all about rigour. If I have one stride that is too snatched, too quick, too tense, then the whole thing will fall apart. If I do not correct that stride but let it go, then I shall have trouble later on. No detail is too small to be ignored.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time. It’s taken two years, learning this new approach, and I’m still working on the trot. Sometimes I get cross at my slowness. My great mentors, Warwick Schiller and Robert Gonzales, could fix that trot in a morning. TWO YEARS. What have I been doing?

The answer is: I have been making mistakes. Unlike those two mighty horsemen, I do not have the work of a lifetime locked away in my muscle memory. If I did not make the mistakes, I could not learn anything. There’s still a part of me which is livid that I could not just get it, and gallop off into the horizon. But learning is not a matter of furious will and snapping of fingers. One can understand something in one’s head, but still find it has not quite percolated down into the gut. Over and over again, every day, I have to practice, getting it right, getting it wrong, until it becomes second nature.

I learnt to write because I did it every day. I learnt to write by being really, really bad at writing. My first books were so rotten that I still feel embarrassed when I remember them. But if I had not been rotten, I would never have got good, because I would not have had to try.

Today, in the silent sunshine, there was the lost trot. We had found it. I’m not quite sure how. I’d been breaking things down into their constituent parts, going back and checking that every small thing was good. If the yielding of the hindquarters was even a little off, I went in until that great, powerful body was at the exact angle I had asked for. There is a sternness to this way of thinking that I like. This is no place for the slapdash. It’s for the exact same reason that I shall go back through a tenth draft, and remove a single semi-colon. It’s a tiny thing, but it makes a difference.

And through all that rigour, all that attention to detail, all those small steps, comes absolute freedom. When we found that beautiful, contained, easy trot, we were set free. I did not have to worry about anything, or ask her anything, or tell her anything. She was doing it all on her own, and I went with her, and we were part of the moving world, shimmering in harmony. We were going as slowly as two old dowager duchesses, but inside we were flying.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy Easter -

After the ride, she had a little doze. This is the same mare that an hour before was hoolying around the field like a crazy horse:

It has taken a long time, and I do castigate myself for being slow and stupid, but in that long time we have built something very precious. We may not be doing flying changes, but we are a partnership. I am the senior partner, because that kind horse needs a good leader so that she may feel safe. But we are, truly, in it together. It has taken a long time, but perhaps it needed to take a long time. Perhaps it should take a long time. It’s not, as I remind myself every day, magic beans. It’s building something enduring and true, and the foundations must be dug deep and each brick put on the one before. That does not happen overnight.

Into the woods. Or: be brave.

There is a moment in a book when I think I am editing and slashing and cutting, killing darlings with a ruthless hand, slaying those irrelevant, indulgent, extraneous paragraphs like Attila the Hun on a wild Saturday night.

In fact, I am fooling myself. I am living in a state of tense fear. I have written all these damn words, and thought all these damn thoughts, and I am holding onto them for grim death. I trim a passage here, and chop a conclusion there, but I am tinkering round the edges. I find that my perspective goes, and I can’t liberate myself. I’m so terrified of losing the good stuff that I dare not murder the bad stuff.

This morning, in the field with the red mare quietly grazing by my side, I shouted into my mobile telephone to my agent. We had one of those revelatory, galvanising conversations which change everything.

‘I AM GALVANISED,’ I hollered, into the light Scottish air. The mare took not the blindest bit of notice.

I did not go to HorseBack, but ran straight to my desk. I merrily threw out 1700 words, and wrote 2339 new ones to go in their place. I was no longer frightened. It had taken me nine months of trying to work out what this book was really about, and, finally, it was the objective eye of the clever agent that cut through the thickets and saw the light.

The thing that is making me laugh is that the heart of the book turns out to be the part about which I harboured profound doubts. It was a piece of folly and self-indulgence, I thought, too much even for me. I could not resist it, but I corralled it into little separate sections in each chapter, so that when the agent shrieked with derisive laughter, as she surely would, I could quietly remove those nutty bits and sit up straight and be a grown up.

Those parts may now be released from their box. It is the happiest irony that they are the glorious, chugging engine of the whole book.

The red mare, as you dear Dear Readers know to your cost, is not just an actual horse. She is a metaphor horse. She is my totem, my shining light, my daily life lesson. After taking a holiday whilst I was cheering on her cousins at Cheltenham, she has come back into work, and I got back on her for the first time today. Warwick Schiller, the lovely Australian horseman whose precepts I follow, has a delightful exercise which he does with his horses every day. It is called: ‘Where do you want to go?’

The idea is that you get on and you let the horse wander where it will. The only rule is that they must keep a steady gait, but you do not steer them. This achieves many wonders, too many to go into now, but perhaps the most important is that it teaches them not to get stuck. If Red heads for the gate or the feed shed or the place where her little Paint friend is grazing, I make her work by disengaging her hindquarters and moving her in tight circles. When she goes off kindly, I leave her alone. Sometimes I wave my arms in the air, just for fun, and think about how good this is for my independent seat. I always love seeing where she wants to go next, and sometimes have to lie on her neck as she weaves her way under low-hanging branches and through the trees.

On this day of all days, after I finished the liberating, galvanising conversation with the agent, I got on the mare and asked her where she wanted to go. She set off to her usual haunts, near to home, and we described a familiar circuit.

Then, something amazing happened. She pricked her ears and struck off into new territory. She was going where the wild things are. She headed with purpose, without any doubt or terror, to the scary woods. The woods to the west are indeed dark and deep, with rough ground and alarming shadows. The pheasants which used to send her into shocked, vertical leaps live there, along with cohorts of invisible woodland critters, hiding in their umbrous lairs.

In she went, had a wander about, took everything in, and then found her way out again into the light. On the border of the scary wood is a ragged area where the building yard beyond the southern treeline stores all its old stone. Huge blocks of ancient Scottish granite lie there in heaps, along with old carved pediments and fanciful curlicued columns. Some of it has been there for so long that the moss and grass has started to grow over the sleeping humps, as if the very earth is reclaiming it for its own. This was not only far out of her comfort zone, it was treacherous ground, difficult to navigate. She was Magellan now, setting out without a map, going to the edges of the known world, into the realm marked Here Be Dragons. I stifled my delighted laughter, and went with her, wherever she wanted to go.

She beat the bounds, picked her way, sure-footed as a mountain goat, over the hummocks and crevices and sharp edges of the monumental stones, tracked her way past the young trees, and emerged, triumphant, all terrain conquered, back into the familiar flatlands of her own field.

I’ve been guilty of thinking she was not a very brave horse. I made a category error. It was not courage she lacked, it was good, sturdy, human boundaries. Once she had those, it turned out she could go anywhere.

There is a profound idea that when you work a horse well, you find out who it really is. If the human is not up to scratch, the horse may hide its true nature under a defensive layer of compensations and survival mechanisms.

Now she has confidence in me, the red mare may be brave. As my agent has confidence in the book, so I may be brave. It was a perfect piece of symmetry.

I cast away the old words, and wrote the new, and I had a humming sense of pleasure in the work. But nothing, nothing, could match the delight of that moment when my courageous mare cast off her shackles and headed out into the unknown.

 

Today’s pictures:

There was too much going on to take photographs on top of everything else. Here are a couple from the last few days. I’m afraid I am taking the opportunity to show you yet another lying down picture. Any excuse.

She’s actually staring at the scary woods in this picture, because some invisible creature is moving about down there and making a racket:

Stan the Man is always brave as a lion when he has that magical stick in his mouth:

In which I cast off my British reserve, and say the thing. Because sometimes you just do have to say the thing.

It’s been a mighty, mighty week, and there is so much I would love to write for you. I have, however, reached the stage that the poor Dear Readers know so well, when my bamboozled old brain is trying to crawl out of my ears and find a place of safety. Still, I’m going to type a line or two, and hope that I make at least some sense. (At this point, there is a very real danger that I won’t.)

There is a line in The Big Chill, one of my favourite films of all time, which goes something like: ‘How much fun, friendship and good times can one man have?’ Of this week I feel like saying: how much learning, revelation, brilliance, elegance and sheer poetry can one woman take?

I could fill a volume with the specific things I have learnt from watching a great horseman in action. I’ve already applied some of them to the red mare, and even though I am clumsy and bumbling in comparison to the grace and accuracy of Robert Gonzales, we have still made a glittering leap forwards. This week, we rode round a huge open field, with no reins, in a steady sitting trot. NO REINS. I tucked them safely under the pommel of the saddle and lifted my arms in the air, and let the good mare find her own direction. The important thing was that she should keep the same, even gait, with her neck nice and relaxed, going kindly within herself, which she did, with all the fine poise of a dowager duchess.

We did it on two consecutive days, so it was not a fluke. I was so proud of her I felt like crying absurd tears of amazed joy.

I am still in the scrubby lowlands, but I can raise my eyes to the hills, and that view shines like diamonds in my mind and heart.

But perhaps more importantly what I learnt was a human lesson. When somebody is really, really good at something, and has all the quiet confidence that brings, they do not need to hector or swagger or showboat. They do not need to prove anything, or cast anyone else down, or put out more flags saying Look at Me, Look at Me. They quietly go about their business, drawing other humans in through gentleness and politesse. They make their point by shining example. They remain absolutely present, in the moment, carrying their talent and their assurance lightly, so it is a lovely generous thing which sheds its refracted light into observing eyes. Perhaps most importantly, they are entirely themselves.

That is what I saw this week, and it was a great privilege. For once, I am not reaching for creaky jokes, or clever lines, or antic paragraphs. I am committing the great British sin of being as serious as stones. But sometimes in life you see something which is serious, which leaves a profound mark you know you will never forget, which is so beyond the run of the ordinary that it lifts you up and gives you a new and gleaming perspective. Respect is due.

Because I am British, I can’t possibly speak these words to the gentleman in question. In real life, I have to scuff my foot along the ground, and be ironic, and smile a goofy smile and look away. But I can write the words, in the shelter of the page, even though I feel quite shy about doing even that. Sometimes though, you’ve damn well got to say the thing. Because life is too short.

So - thank you, Robert. You are a remarkable horseman. But you are an even more remarkable human being.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy friends, sharing their morning hay:

Stanley the Manly, ear flying, with a triumphant stick. It’s not the best picture I ever took in my life, but I wanted you to have the action shot:

I grew up in a racing and showing yard, where every single equine was gleaming and pristine. I could not hold my head up unless each hoof was gleaming with oil, and manes and tails were neatly trimmed, and coats were shining from grooming. I used to brush my ponies until my arm ached. Now, even though I can still appreciate a Best Turned-Out, and know how much work goes into a polished horse, I appreciate a different kind of beauty. It is the beauty of a mare just being a mare; hairy, scruffy, unadorned, covered in the glorious Scottish mud, with no prizes to win or points to prove. Herself is herself, and that is the thing I want most for her:

A trot, a drive and a thought.

I found my trot.

There it was, all the time, down the back of the sofa. The red mare, moving lightly within herself on a loose rein, as composed and collected as a 19^th century marchioness doing the gavotte, twitched her ears in the Scottish air as if to say: yes, yes, I think this was the item you were looking for.

Then I went for a drive and looked at the blue land in the sunshine and felt lucky.

I did some other things as well, but it’s Friday, and I don’t want to bore the arse off you.

(Wrote book; made soda bread; ran errands; had long and soothing conversation about the human condition. Same old, same old.)

Felt particularly pleased that I captured an image of Stanley the Dog with the Scottish sky in his eyes. All the time he was posing he was itching to be off to the undergrowth, where he heard the rustle of tempting critters. But he goodly stayed, and I got my shot.

There have been some interesting pieces of wisdom floating around on the internet lately. I find these reassuring, as the news gets madder and badder. (Greece; Putin; Libya; chaos and sorrow and insoluble problems.) The small wisdoms restore some sense to the stretched mind. One of them was from a lovely man called Ira Glass, and it had at its heart: don’t give up. Keep trying, keep pushing through, and you may achieve the beautiful thing you wish to make.

When I get frustrated with my bumbling horsemanship, I have to remind myself that I was off a horse for almost thirty years. I sat on a pony before I could construct a sentence, but that long gap meant that old, good instincts and muscle memory had atrophied and even disappeared altogether. The people I admire and wish to emulate have been doing it, every day, for those thirty years. They can do things without thought on which I have to concentrate very, very hard.

I can write a sentence which pleases me because I have been practising with words for those thirty years I was off a horse and at my desk. I knew a lot of the theory when I was in my twenties, because I read all the books and I had an avid mind. I went to all the great ones for example and advice. But I could not quite yet get my ducks in a row, because the knowing is one thing, and the doing is another. The fine doing comes only from the years and years of practice. Do your scales; play your arpeggios. Don’t give up. Embrace your mistakes, because without them you learn nothing.

I can write a sentence because I worked at it. I’d still like to write a better sentence, so I’ll go on working whilst I have a brain that functions and fingers that type. I’ll go on striving to be the horsewoman that my mare deserves until they have to hoist me into the saddle with ropes. It’s never finished.

Don’t give up. Keep trying. Stretch your sinews to the sky.

That, slightly to my surprise, is my thought for the day.

 

Today’s pictures:

Every day, in every way, I love that face a little bit more. I should not have thought such a thing were possible. I did not know one small human heart had so much love in it. It’s sort of crazy that it’s a horse who has unlocked this bounty, but I do not look gift mares in the mouth. (Except of course when her teeth need doing.) Love is love, wherever it might be found.

A day.

Sunshine. Cook breakfast eggs for The Mother. Groundwork. Riding. (I have lost my trot. It is tense and rushed where it should be smooth and collected. It takes me some time to find it, a process which cannot be hurried, so I am late to the rest of the day.) Members of the extended family are visiting; a lot of sweetness. HorseBack: photographs, notes, many discussions. Talk to my friend The Marine about the time he rounded up cattle in Colorado. Two hundred foot vertical drops up on the narrow mountain trails. I blanch. I am ashamed to say I make girlish shrieks.

Back to the desk, still at least an hour behind. Important emails and telephone calls. A wonderful plan is hatched. Errands.

Work, work, work, work, work.

Forget lunch. Abruptly remember that I have forgotten lunch. Feel suddenly very weak. Attempt to cram all the food groups into one very late tea-time snack. Still quite weak. Where is the iron tonic?

Back two winners at Huntingdon. The second, in particular, is a delightful gentleman of a horse, flowing neatly and enthusiastically over his fences with his ears pricked, occasionally throwing in a mighty, soaring leap just to show he is no mere workman. He is a Venetia Williams horse, and a lot of them are like this: honest and charming as the day is long.

Take huge amounts of stuff to the charity shop. The saintly glow of having a clear-out is slightly marred because the nice paper bags in which the things were neatly packed have been ripped apart by Stanley the Dog when he was in the back of the car this morning. I suppose he was looking for RATS.

Attempt to upload a HorseBack video to YouTube. Fail. ‘There was an error uploading your video.’ Have burst of First World rage. Swear at the computer, fruitlessly. Buggery YouTube will not have me.

Watch the sun change colour over the trees. Give Stanley the Dog a treat to tell him he is forgiven. (He had not even noticed he was in disgrace, and the ladies in the charity shop were very understanding. ‘I have spaniels,’ said one, darkly.)

Think about work done and work still undone. Find myself reading an article about To Do lists, and how they are never finished.

Feel rueful.

Wonder if I should check my emails again.

Think I’ll go and give the duchess her tea instead. There I can breathe and stand still and feel the air on my face and the love in my heart and see the snowdrops and think of spring.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy girls in the lovely morning light:

Step-sister, step-niece, red mare and me, taken by the Lovely Stepfather. I appear to be having a very, very bad hair day. I try not to mind:

A chicken, for the Dear Reader who likes chickens:

The Marine, with Brook the ex-sprinter who now works with veterans at HorseBack UK. Who says that ex-racehorses have no useful purpose once their race is run? Quite a lot of idiotish people, is the answer. This fella does a very, very useful job indeed:

I know I bang on a little about the prejudices faced by ex-racehorses in particular and thoroughbreds in general. But really, you should read what the ignorant say on the internet. Don’t even get me started on the superstitions about chestnut mares….