A quiet Friday

Ha. After spending all week telling my students about how they may drive off the dark, destructive critical voices, defy The Fear, and believe in their own true selves, I spent all last night tossing and turning, convinced that every single word I wrote here about writing was utter buggery bollocks. The irony elves were busy in the small hours, the little tinkers.

It’s probably because bone-tiredness has set in. I have used up all my energy, so today I am going to sit very still, with a bottle of iron tonic and Test Match Special on at full volume. The voice of Blowers will restore me to sanity and calm.

The dear mare gave me a restorative morning too. Even though the sun started to beat hard from the moment I woke, the set-aside was still cool and shady. We have new neighbours; the sheep have been moved into the high east field, and are wandering and calling as they get used to their new home. I had a long, soothing chat with the farmer this morning. One of his girls was in distress on Wednesday, and I got a message to him so that he could come and get her, and before breakfast he roared up in his dark blue Landrover to thank me. ‘Is she all right, your ewe?’ I asked, concerned. I am very fond of these sheep. The good news is that it was a vitamin B thing, and she will be fine. I love talking to the farmer. I love people who do good things on the land, people who know livestock and weather patterns and are rooted in the earth.

After that lovely beginning, I went down to Red, who is finding the savage sun all a bit too much. She has a heat rash, so I cooled her off with buckets of water, and a little witch hazel, and spent fifteen minutes soothing her poor coat. She does a very touching thing when I do things like this for her. Whether I am anointing a scratch with wound cream, or applying citronella for the flies, or giving her this water treatment, she seems to know that I am doing something for her. She submits with a sort of gentle gratitude, standing very still, offering me her head, looking at me with soft eyes. I am almost certainly making this up in my addled brain, and she is not thinking anything at all. She is a horse, after all. But it does often feel as if she understands that I am here to help.

Then I let her out into the wide set-aside for a pick at the lush grass. I used to take her out on a rope, but now I let her wander freely. She is not going anywhere, and comes at once when I whistle. It was an enchanted thing, watching her find her way through the shady trees, searching out the most delicious patch of grass. She was her most peaceful, equine self, at one with her surroundings; just a horse, at home in a green world.

Neither of us is going to do any work today. We are going to have a lovely Friday holiday. We are just going to be.

 

Today’s pictures:

The farmer, on the right, coming to have a morning chat:

Red’s blissful morning:

Look at that happy face:

Do you want me to come now?

The hill:

Housekeeping note:

It has been brought to my attention that there are Dear Readers who have broadband that is less than whizzy, and find the blog slow to download, on account of the pictures. I love putting up lots of photographs, so you can see the full Scottish beauty. On the other hand, I imagine it must drive you mad, waiting waiting waiting, for the damn thing to appear on your screen. I’m not quite sure how to resolve this. Too tired to work it out today, but those of you who are seasoned bloggers might have ideas.

In the meantime, have a lovely, sunny Friday. And if you are cricket fans, fingers crossed. Australia about to bat.

Blog post the second. Or, a really glorious day.

Today was a glorious day. The sun shone, I woke galvanised, I got things done. After yesterday’s slightly dulled acceptance of some really pretty good news, I felt suddenly fired with purpose. Not just that work, but all the work could be done.

A pitch for another project, a salvage mission after the Great Set-Back of late last year, had been weighing on my mind. The set-back had left me bruised and bashed, and a horrid, tense procrastination had set in. Finally, the thing fell into my mind as if someone had sent it through the post. I wrote 1706 words in two hours, which is almost physically impossible. It sometimes happens like that. When an idea has been cooking long enough, and the sun comes out, literally and metaphorically, you can write as if someone is dictating the thing in your ear. This was one of those very rare moments.

The galvanic momentum even led me to get dull, logistical tasks done. I dyed my hair dark auburn and cleaned out two cupboards, and threw away things which were two years past their sell-by date. (They hide in the back of the kitchen cabinets, and occasionally reappear to mock me.)

I even worked out my Cheltenham outfits, because that is where I am going, on my trip south. I am going to see the mighty Sprinter Sacre in the flesh for the very first time, and you can’t just wear anything for a titan like that.

I spoke to the Beloved Cousin, I discussed politics and disgrace with my mother (her mind runs much on the matter of Lord Rennard), I did my HorseBack work.

Then, with an astonishing and most uncharacteristic jump on the day, I allowed myself two whole hours in the sunny paddock with the herd. Lately, time has been so pressing that I run down, at top speed, work, feed, groom, walk Stanley the Dog, and then hare back to my desk. Today, I could let my shoulders drop and enjoy the horses.

There was the great moment of the first time The Horse Talker sat on her beautiful filly. That is recorded for posterity, as such a moment must be, on the previous post. It was filled with great joy and serious achievement, and I could not have been prouder of the filly if she were mine.

Then I worked with my own good girl. We had a little moment in the woods yesterday. There is a particular combination of stimuli which sends her into orbit. It happens very rarely, but when it does, it is quite spectacular. It seems to be to do with being on her own, in a new place, with any sense of confinement. I sometimes think she is perhaps having acid flashbacks to her racing career; maybe she is remembering the tight rattle of the starting stalls.

Whatever it is, I decided we needed to go right back to the beginning and work on trust. That way, when she has these little emotive floods, she will know that she can rely on me to deal with them.

Back to basics we went. She was dozy and compliant and willing. So I took it up a notch, and improvised with the desentising. Off came my cardigan, to be turned into a flappy, unpredictable object. This highly-bred thoroughbred mare stood, stock still, untethered, until she was literally wearing the woollen item as a fetching hat. It might have been a little beneath her dignity, but it showed me that the bond of trust was there. I even blindfolded her with it, and she allowed herself to walk behind me for a few steps without being able to see.

This was not complicated dressage. It was not competition work. The movements I did with her were small and simple. But they were profound for all that. I had held a tiny flutter of worry after our bronco episode in the woods. Was I doing something wrong? Did she not believe in me at all? Had I failed her as the Good Leader? Today, she was so kind and attentive and still and immaculate that she set every corner of my mind to rest.

She got a lot of love, as you may imagine. She gives me so much, it is the least she deserves.

 

Today’s pictures:

The Horse Talker:

The girls, watching the show, like two old ladies at a matinée. I swear they almost handed each other a nice box of Maltesers:

Myfanwy was not as impressed as she might have been:

Heroine of the day, the lovely Autumn:

My dozy old girl, pretending she has never had any bronco thought in her head, ever:

Stanley the Dog was a bit left out of all this. He is still uncertain about the horses, not being able to decide whether he wants to play with them, chase them, flirt with them, or live in fear of these huge red and white creatures, so for serious work, he has to stay away. He was rewarded with some serious stick action:

The hill. Even after two days of a balmy seven degrees, it still has snow on it:

Spring, springing

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Here, for a little change of pace, are some photographs of my garden. I realise that I am (true to my calling) rather text-heavy in this blog. Two of my favourite bloggers, the lovely West Coast pair that are Charlie Circus and Miss Whistle, often use photographs in their postings, and I always get tremendously excited when a new one is up and wish I could follow their example. My problem is that I am currently in possession of an exceptionally crappy camera, and despite making heroic efforts to deny my perfectionist streak, I don't much like the idea of showing you horrid substandard snaps. (Even more shameful, I do actually have a good camera, which cost many of my Scottish pounds, but I seem unable to locate the charging cable.)

Today has been a glorious festival of sunshine, and spring is finally going crazy here after a long, bitter winter. Up in the north east of Scotland, we are about a month behind the south - so the horse chestnuts have just come into leaf, the daffodils are only now giving up the ghost, and the blossom is getting into its full pomp. My little garden is beginning to turn into a riot of different greens - the bright acid of the euphorbia, the deep emerald of the elders, the dark olive of the osmanthus. There is a naughty invasion of ground elder, which I am bravely battling, and the lawn is still shaggy from its first post-winter haircut, and my little clumps of lavender, which I planted more in hope than experience, have died a cruel death. The lilac buds are still tightly furled, filled with the promise of flowers to come. But it is starting to look pretty again, and so I feel that a photograph or two is in order, as a salute to the new season.