My family, and other happinesses.

This is always hectic time of year for us. The clans begin to gather as the day of the highland games approaches. The entire family is here – both nieces, and all four of us brothers and sisters together, which is a very rare occurrence, especially as The Younger Brother lives in Bali. We also have visitors from abroad, which is rather thrilling: one from Australia and one from Thailand. Scotland puts on her pomp for them, as the sun dazzles and dances, and they go off this morning to see the glory that is Glen Muick. I feel happy that they shall see the mighty glen at its finest.

Last night, very tired after a long week, I attempted, as graciously as I could, to refuse a kind dinner invitation. The Brother-in-Law was having none of it. ‘But I’m speechless with exhaustion,’ I said. ‘No matter,’ he said. ‘You can just sit there and say nothing.’

Two hours later, I WAS SINGING.

Yes, my darlings, there was singing. Various humans actually played the tambourine. I may have picked up a pair of maracas. The Older Niece has the voice of an angel, a proper voice, which can send shivers up your spine. The rest of us can just about carry a tune. The Brother-in-Law and The Man in the Hat (husband of Older Niece) both whack merry hell out of a guitar. There is even a Gibson in the house.

So, we have a musical evening. I perk up amazingly when it turns out we are having Friday night wine on a Thursday. Nothing like a bit of Margaux, miraculously produced by the kind guest from Thailand, to put a spring back in a tired step.

I sang, I laughed, I shouted. It was one of the best evenings of my life. I used to be a bit cynical about family. Blood was certainly not thicker, in my rather jaded view of things. Now I think that there is nothing like it. There is nothing like being surrounded by the people who have known you since you were born, and whom you have known since they were born. They don’t mind if you sing and shout, because they’ve seen it all before. There are all the old jokes and the collective memories and the stories of childhood. It is a thing of enchantment.

Despite an excess of the good claret, I have no hangover. I run about in the dancing sunshine, doing the horse, going to HorseBack, writing my book, having two astonishingly successful bets at Goodwood, thanks to the mighty combination of Hughes and Hannon, who can do no wrong just now. Stanley the Dog has a ball and is in seventh heaven. I never saw him so happy.

There is a lot of joy in these hours.

Most of the time, I am pretty cheerful. I have a lot of delight in my life and a lot of great good fortune. I have animals I adore and a job I love and some voluntary things to keep my conscience reasonably clear. I live in a place of beauty. I have the trees. But there are the daily worries and stresses which fall into any life, however lucky. This sheer, soaring happiness which comes with the family around me is actually quite rare, I realise. It pushes everything else out. It lifts me up and sends me out into the day thinking that nothing else matters.

I like to record it too, so that when life returns to normal and I am assailed by doubts and frets, I can look back and remember. It’s important, I think. Write it down; write it down. Record the joy.

 

Today’s pictures:

Scotland, this morning:

Garden:

Stanley the Dog, in canine heaven:

Best Beloved, who was of such goodness and sweetness today that I run out of adjectives. She did three amazing pieces of work, two for strangers she had never met before, and was greeted with cries of joy and disbelief. She is making up into a horse that dreams are made on:

The hill, almost lost in the dazzle:

As I write this, the wizard that is Dermot Weld sends out Unaccompanied to win at the Galway Festival he makes his own. It completes a very happy little treble. I shall have some cash to spend at the games tomorrow. And I end the day as I started it, with a smile on my face.

Of interesting people, and pandas

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I met a really interesting woman today. She was wearing a panda suit. She said things like: ‘when I went into Chatham House they thought I was there to bring the tea.’

I said: ‘If I could even say I went into Chatham House I would be happy.’

She told me that she had been a lobbyist for landmines and cluster bombs. She had already said about twenty interesting things by that stage.

I said: ‘Oh, it’s too much, you are a saint too.’

I laughed. Then I paused.

‘Unless of course you were lobbing for landmines. You weren’t working for an arms dealer, were you? You weren’t saying, yes, yes, more cluster bombs?’ Luckily she was not. Imagine the faux pas.

She had been to Eritrea with Bill Deedes. I grew very excited at this stage. I met Bill Deedes a couple of times when I was about eighteen. He was one of the wryest, driest, funniest, coolest old men I ever met in my life. He had the great talent, common to all the best people, of treating you as if you were the Queen of Rumania even when you were a raw teen of no discernable importance.

We were with The Older Niece. ‘Do you know about Bill Deedes?’ I said. She did not. I explained about how he was the inspiration for Scoop, how he was Dear Bill in Private Eye, how he was one of the last of the old school Fleet Street legends. The Interesting Woman said that his copy was so good that none of the subs would change a word. I had not known that. I am so glad I know it now.

Then we had a most excellent conversation about whatever happened to the liberals in Texas. For over a hundred years,  Texas was one of the most dependably Democratic states in the union. Now, it is a solid red state, with Governor Rick Perry at its helm, and a wild libertarian streak. I am always fascinated about how things like that happen. We moved on to the fabulous mystery which is Newt Gingrich. (I really want to write about the bizarre rise of Newt at length, and may do so tomorrow. It’s about time we had a good, meaty, outraged political post.)

It was a real treat. One of my enduring freaks is an intense, almost obsessive interest in politics, and American politics in particular. It’s very, very rare that I meet anyone who is much fascinated by that subject, let alone can talk fluently of it, and knows all the names. I wish we had had time to get on to the crash of Herman Cain and the strange pronouncements of Michele Bachman about Iran. (I discover, to my shame and chagrin, that all these months I have been spelling her name incorrectly. Disconcertingly, she uses the single L. I can’t be fagged to go back and change them all, so if you read a misspelled version in an old post, I can only beg forgiveness.)

Now, you may be wondering about the panda costume. In my book, everyone should have one and wear it at least once a week. (I admit I have gone a little panda-crazy since the arrival of Sweetness and Light, or whatever they are called, at the Edinburgh Zoo, on their special panda-jet from China.) In this case, it was put on a for a special photo call. The Older Niece and The Interesting Woman have produced a wonderful collection of songs for children, and they wanted some shots of them together.

I am shamelessly plugging their work. There are CDs of just the songs, and a special DVD with adorable shots of the human panda, lots of small singing children, old tractors, and dogs. What more could you want?

You can find them all, including downloads for your MP3 player, on Amazon here.

And they have a website here.

And these are a couple of the pictures I took of them today.

In elegant sepia, with added Pigeon:

In full colour, with both dogs, and the hill in the background:

Now, in other news, this is what the day looked like:

The amazing thing is that even despite the arctic temperatures and gales and snow, my little rosemary is still alive:

And the pot table, whilst a little moth-eaten, does have some green things on it:

The very opposite of moth-eaten is her ladyship. See how she is getting all furry for winter?:

And is the very mistress of the unwavering gaze:

Two hills today. One as usual, one in panorama: