Age cannot wither her. Or, bugger the menopause.

I am, for no known reason, re-reading Middlemarch. I picked it up because I was thinking about my father and the racing world I grew up in. It was a marvellous world, and I remember it with flinging fondness, but it had absolutely no thought in it that was not about horses. When I first plunged into the wide prairies of Middlemarch, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I could not stop talking about it. (What a dead bore I must have been.) After a while, my father patted my hand gently and murmured, very kindly: ‘And this George Eliot, has he written any other good books?’

He was a horseman, what can I tell you? He read Timeform and The Sporting Life.

I was fourteen. Now, thirty-four years later, I come back to it and it is just as dazzling as I remember. But the perspective of age has changed it all. I had quite forgotten Eliot’s sly jokes, so naughty that they make me laugh out loud. (I don’t recall laughing at the time, I was far too earnest.) I now understand, after only a moment, exactly why Dorothea marries Mr Casaubon. At the time, stupidly romantic, I could not understand one word of that. Those moles. Now, I see why her ardent soul could not bear all those well-meaning relations and friends and neighbours, why poor Sir James with his ridiculous puppy and his good-hearted cottage schemes would not do for her.

I think: how funny it is that schools gave me these books to read when I could not comprehend half of them. The summer after Middlemarch, I was reading The Knight’s Tale, L’Étranger and George Herbert. After that: Huis Clos, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Keats and Robert Lowell. I must admit I never got on with pious Mr Herbert for a solitary second, but I was all over the existentialists and convinced that I had the measure of Lowell’s knotty Nantucket poems. I was living proof of the correctness of Donald Rumsfeld (not a phrase I ever thought I would write): a perfect festival of unknown unknowns. I had no idea how little I knew.

When I am not wigging out about mortality, or getting cross with myself for making schoolgirl errors when I really do know better, I like age. As I motor towards fifty, I think that there are lots of lovely things I have now which I did not then. My vanity has almost entirely disappeared. I have a ten-second moment of despair when I see pictures of myself looking bonkers, with terrible hair and no chin. (I never had much of a jawline, and it is running away now, gravity taking its toll.) But most of the time, I don’t really care what I look like. I have a uniform, suitable for doing horses and writing books, and I stay at a reasonable weight so that I do not burden the red mare’s delicate back. I brush up for the races, because it’s the least those fine thoroughbreds deserve, but that’s it.

I know that, apart from actual life and actual death, things really are not a matter of life or death. I was thinking this morning, as I happily walked my horse out into the long meadow, the view reminiscent of the green grass of Wyoming, of the broken hearts of my twenties, when I really believed that not being loved by a certain gentleman meant my life was over. I don’t do that any more. I keep emotions saved up, until I see the whites of their eyes. At this age, there is death and loss and sickness, a great generation going, brilliant minds fading. I save my sorrows for those.

I can work out now which is Object A and which is Object B. I know that when some people seem scratchy or distant or cross, it is not always because I have done something wrong. It’s usually their stuff. (This is the technical term.) I understand that the humane thing is to leave them alone to work it out, and not make it my drama. I know too that turning everything into a drama is dull and selfish, and drains away the life force from those around you. I think I was a bit of a drama queen in my youth. I’m glad I grew out of that.

I know now, which I did not then, that not everyone sees the world in the way I do, and that is all right.

There’s so much about growing older which is a relief. There are so many circuses which are not my circuses, and so many monkeys which are not my monkeys. The ability to step away does not sound like much, but I think it’s a life-changer.

I can still twist myself into a pretzel of angst, and I don’t expect I’ll ever learn about how to deal with the Cupboard of Doom, and I still get stupidly easily hurt and take things to heart which should not be taken to heart. I’m a bit of a muddler and a bit of an obsessive and my geekiness has never left me. I can fly to vertiginous heights of enthusiasm, which means there is usually a crash afterwards. I can get out the twisty little firestarter of self-sabotage, when things are going too well, as if it’s too scary to sit with good fortune or calm seas.

But there really are a lot of things which have changed for the better since I first picked up that mighty novel. I’m writing them now because I like the idea of them, and I think they should be marked. Women are told so often that age is a disaster, that they become invisible, that the mean old menopause and the hideous wrinkles and the sagging skin tone will render them sad and sexless and altogether negligible. I think this is a big fat lie. I say: bugger the menopause. I say: be as visible as you want to be. I say: those wrinkles, which society says you must despise and regret, are the story of every smile and every frown. Think of the brain. Think of all the things it now has in it which it did not have, when the skin was smooth and unlined. Think of the human heart, which has been beaten and battered and bruised, but which somehow survives, expanding against all the odds, which now has the love of many, many years in it, which can tell the difference between the lasting adoration and the fleeting fancy, which beats steadily on, as the years roll by.

Who needs a Grace Kelly jawline, when they have all that?

 

Today’s pictures:

Actually weren’t very good, apart from the HorseBack ones, so here is a small selection from the last few days:

Not caring about a really bad hair day:

The mare’s hair is a bit scruffy too, but she cares even less than I do:

The Younger Brother took those two last ones. Always credit the photographer. That’s another of the important things I have learnt.

Different fields.

In complete contrast to yesterday, I wake up determined and galvanised. I have huge amounts of work to do, and I’m running at full stretch. There is no time for moods.

The day goes well. I do a long stretch at HorseBack. There is a film crew there, making a short feature about the rehabilitation of Brook the ex-sprinter, and the parallel journey of our veterans. I want to cover every angle, so instead of my usual time-starved gallop in and out, I clear the day. Amazingly, in my lunch break, I run home and manage to fit in an incredibly productive stint of book. This reminds me that quite often the more you have to do, the more you can do. I have a shining feeling of achievement, instead of my more accustomed muddly sense of never quite having enough hours in the day.

I feed the mare and apologise to her for my absence this morning. (A kind friend did the early shift, as I was off with my camera.) She is forgiving and does not hold it against me. I mix her up an extra special tea and give her some love and stomp off to the shop to buy my own food.

In the shop, on the front page of one of the newspapers, is a gleaming picture of Amal Clooney, with a headline saying something like Queen of the Golden Globes. She is immaculate – beautiful, elegantly dressed, carrying that indefinable air of intelligence. Her many accomplishments are listed in the field of human rights law.

In the old days, I would have looked down at my own hands, filthy from feeding time, and plucked the little wisps of hay from my scarf, and contemplated my catastrophic hair day (on account of being out in wind and snow) and felt entirely inadequate. How could I, so scruffy and goofy and perennially trying to canter about in forty different directions, ever compete with such a composed, brilliant creature? I would have compared, because that is what much of the media encourages women to do, overtly or covertly. We poor ordinary females must look at the famous, glittering, magazine women, and wonder why we fall so short. (And there is an answer, say the avid advertisers – buy our miracle cream, and you too can marry George Clooney and save the world.)

Now, I don’t compare. I have my field, which is a literal, muddy one, and the dazzling Amals of the world have theirs. Comparisons are almost category errors. The part I really like about getting older is understanding that there are dreams which can be gently, quietly let go, without regret. I’ll never learn to dress like Ava Gardner or write like Scott Fitzgerald or be an expert in human rights, and that is quite perfectly fine. I need to find my own small field and plough it well.

Not comparing does not mean not striving. I strive like buggery. I want to get better – at prose, at horsing, at life. I want to learn more, open my mind more, comprehend more. I want, perhaps most of all, to gather the art of growing comfortable in my own skin. I can admire the brilliant women then, without being intimidated or diminished by them. I can be truly glad they are there.

The regulars amongst the Dear Readers know that I swear by the perspective police. Today, I listened to two veterans, telling their stories. These tellings were not grand-standing or show-boating. We were all going about our work, and the tales came out, naturally. One was about service in the Balkans, and the things seen. (I can’t actually write them down; they were too bad.) One was about being blown up by the Hyde Park bomb. Two minutes later, we were making bad jokes and shouting with laughter, because that is what these men and women do. They see the unseeable, experience things which stretch the civilian imagination to its breaking point, and then they make jokes about it.

They don’t like it when I write that I look at them in awe, because awe is not what they want. They want, I think, simple, ordinary humanity. But all the same, they have my awe, and they remind me constantly of the virtues of stoicism and resilience and damn well getting on with it.

 

Today’s pictures:

HorseBack runs a Youth Initiative, with which some of the veterans help out. It was this virtuous circle that was being shot in the afternoon, after Brook was filmed in the morning. One of the things I love most is watching people being really, really good at their job. This crew was good. I don’t know much about film, but I could see their qualities - from their concentration, their attention to detail, the way their minds never stopped working.

Despite my tremendous resolution about not making fruitless comparisons, there was a moment when I observed the stills photographer, with her years of experience and her good eye and her proper bit of kit, and felt a tremor. I ruefully looked at my own camera, with its ingrained mud from falling in the field, and its cracked screen from the time I dropped it from the horse, and thought of my own lack of technical skill. I love taking pictures, but I don’t really know how to do it. Every so often, I get lucky, and capture a moment, but it’s sheer chance.

And then I decided not to mind. My pictures are not for exhibition. They are not professional. They are idiosyncratic and sometimes a bit out of focus and the light is nearly always coming from the wrong direction, but I love them because they are mine, and they record those small things which bring me joy.

Here was the scene today:

This is what I mean by capturing a moment. This photograph has no technical merit. It’s all over the shop. But the smile on that young person’s face is worth more than rubies to me:

There’s something about mares. Or, one for the girls.

In the horse world, just as in the human one, there is prejudice against the female of the species. Mares are widely supposed to be hormonal, unpredictable, difficult and generally unreliable. My experience is that the complete opposite is true.

I’ve been having a ball with the girls over the last couple of days. On Sunday, a delightful filly called Miss Dashwood, trained by the most excellent James Fanshawe, roared from last to first in the Goodwood sunshine, producing a withering burst of speed in the final yards to catch the long-time leader. According to her yard, the next day when she was taken out for a gentle recuperative walk after her great efforts, she ‘looked very pleased with herself.’ I know that look. Then, yesterday, in the Amateur Derby, run at Epsom over the same distance as the actual Derby, Mr Patrick Mullins was up on another lovely, determined filly called Beacon Lady.

She had won her last two races, and bagging a three-timer is always difficult. Epsom is a famously treacherous course and she had a big field up against her, including a well-backed favourite.

Mullins gave her one of the kindest, cleverest, most sympathetic rides I’ve ever seen on a racecourse. He dropped her out the back door and gave her time and space to find her feet over the crazy cambers and turns. Admittedly, as I saw her five lengths behind the field, and about twenty off the leader, I said, out loud, to Stanley the Dog, ‘not even Dancing Brave could win from there.’ I was wrong, and canny Mr Mullins was right. He knew his girl. He nursed her into the race. (My fanciful brain decided her was surely crooning at her in his Irish accent, telling her what a fine lady she was.) And then, when she was at last vaguely in touch with her field, he took her wide, down the centre of the track, so she could have a good look at everything and not get stuck in traffic. Everything else was motoring, and yet he still did not ask her for her effort. He sat quite still, and kept her balanced, and let her deepen her stride.

Finally, finally, he said go, in the politest possible way, just shaking up the reins a little and crouching lower in the saddle. And perhaps because he had been so courteous and gentlemanly, the bold filly gave him everything she had, and flashed past the post a length in front. I don’t think her jockey even picked up his stick.

I had money on both fillies and I shouted them home.

Today, the Remarkable Trainer pitched up, back from holiday. Red the mare, seeing there was serious groundwork to be done, was at her most spirited, waltzing about and putting in a bronco buck and showing all her thoroughbred blood. For all that she spends most of her time like a dozy old donkey, occasionally she likes to test the boundaries, to remind us that she is descended from a Derby winner, to show that she is not to be taken for granted. At moments like that, a lot of people would shake their heads and say, darkly, ‘mare-ish’, and start digging out all the old stereotypes. I laughed my head off. The Remarkable Trainer said, ‘she’s just being a horse’. (I think sometimes people forget this about equines.)

Once she saw that this sort of Spanish Riding School of Vienna farrago was not going to fly, Red settled into her work. After a while, I got on, and the Remarkable Trainer suddenly got a rush of blood to the head and started dragging silver birch trees across the grass. ‘There,’ she said, looking at her handiwork. ‘Working Hunter fence.’ It was actually a proper jump, at least TWO FEET HIGH.

‘Bugger it,’ I said. ‘We’re going to jump it.’

So we did. I let Red find her own stride, and concentrated on sticking with her and not bothering her. She is still very, very new at this, and I wanted to give her confidence. At first, she was so amazed that she gave the thing about five feet of air; I could feel it whooshing underneath me, and whooped in astonishment and amazement. Then, she grew more sure-footed, and starting popping over like an old pro. Each time, she came back to a gentle halt, and turned her face back to me as if to say: did you see what I did?

At the time, it was just fun, something interesting and experimental to do. I like to amuse her, to keep her interested, not to let her get stale. It’s lovely, teaching her something new. It was only afterwards that I realised that I’d been blasting about a wide open green space on an ex-racing, ex-polo mare, who half an hour earlier had been bucking as if she were in the Calgary stampede. I’d been asking my posh old duchess, who has only just learnt what a jump is, to leap over a fence whilst wearing only a rope halter. She could have charged off into the blue yonder if she’d wanted to, but each time she came kindly back, despite all the excitement.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said to The Remarkable Trainer. ‘Do you realise what she just did?’

It’s not because I am clever or accomplished or a particularly good horsewoman. I am still tremendously rusty and have forgotten more than I probably ever knew. It’s because I trust her. It’s because I don’t believe any of that bullshit about mares. It’s because she fills my heart with gladness and she is as kind and brilliant and willing as any creature I ever met. Just like her two distant relations out there on the racecourse, she will give you everything if you ask politely. Sometimes she shakes her head and throws a little spirit into the mix, but she comes back at once, docile and biddable and absolutely honest. She is different each day, not because she is a slave to her hormones or suffers from the disadvantage of having ovaries, but because she is a sentient creature, and each day is new to her and will bring its own challenges, which she will meet in her own sweet way.

I suppose I’ve been thinking about this because one of the inexplicable UKIP fellows has been going on again about the frailties and incapabilities of women. (Apparently, women are better at ‘finding mustard in the pantry’ than driving cars.) And just now, I heard a woman in Pakistan interviewed on the radio say, without a trace of self-pity, that the fight for equality which happened in the West has not even started in her own country. She made it a simple statement of fact. I thought it was one of the saddest things I ever heard.

I’m a tremendous believer in the sisterhood. I think women are brilliant, not just because of all the things that they are brilliant at, but because most of them put up with this kind of thing with an extraordinary patience and grace. It goes on every day, even in the enlightened West. We ladies may have the vote and the right to own property and the freedom to do jobs, but the hum of low-level bigotry and tired assumptions infects society still. The women could be working to rule and setting their hair on fire and withholding their favours, and yet, mostly, they just get on with it. They laugh, sometimes a little tiredly, and don’t make a fuss. I have a bottomless admiration for that.

So I suppose when I get furious about the prejudice against mares, it’s a proxy for my crossness about the slurs that all females must put up with. When Miss Dashwood and Beacon Lady show such resolution and doughtiness and pure, thrilling speed, when my beloved Red soars over her birch trees, I think, nuttily, that they are striking a blow for females everywhere. I whoop in delirious triumph, because it is one for the girls.

 

Today’s pictures:

A very random selection, because I’ve been going back through the files and trying to winnow them. Despite my soaring adoration for my girl and my manly Stanley, I really probably don’t need three hundred photographs of them. Each. (Conservative estimate.)

HorseBack girls:

My mum’s new little chap:

MY chap:

With his big red friend:

Scotland:

Oh, that handsome face:

More lovely girls, human and equine:

I am not sure anyone ever made me so proud as this person does:

r

Hill:

The funny thing is that I was not going to do a blog today. I was just going to put up some pictures. I’m very tired and it’s been a long day. Then this all just fell out of my fingers. Brain to fogged to tell if ANY of it makes any sense, so please forgive.

Look, Look.

‘Look, look,’ I cry to the Horse Talker, like an eager six-year-old child. ‘Watch this.’

She kindly watches.

I break into a run. Red trots gently by my side. I slow to a walk. She at once walks. I run again; she trots. I walk, she walks. I stop, she stops.

‘ISN’T SHE CLEVER?’ I yell.

The answer can only be yes. The Horse Talker sweetly supplies it.

I very rarely use the Universal We. It drives me nuts, most of the time, especially when it comes to women. We, say ladies on the radiophonic device, or in the magazines, or in the newspapers, all want X and Y and a bit of Z. What We want is often negative: to banish wrinkles, lose six pounds, get rid of cellulite.

Bugger off, I shout; I don’t want any of those things. I may have ovaries, but I have no interest in diets or shoes. Don’t tell me what I want; we have not even met.

But I dare to venture that We, as humans, almost all have a little voice in us which says: Look, look. Watch this. And what interests me is the things we choose to shout about. It may be: look, look, I can write a thesis, or make a million pounds, or drive a shiny car. It may be: I can make a garden or write a sonnet or do fascinating things with an old Fairy liquid bottle and some sticky-back plastic. (Or, in that case: look what I can do with nostalgic Blue Peter references.)

I suspect that possibly the road to inner peace leads to the quiet prairie of not having to prove oneself. Perhaps really, We should all try to get past the Look, Look voice. It is a form of pride and showing off, really. But on the other hand, it is very human. Someone said to me the other day that she thought life could be boiled down to needing three As: affirmation, affection and attention. The most generous thing you can give to a person is your time. You can watch, you can pay attention; you can be a witness.

For some reason, I quite like the fact that my current Look, Look involves something so basic that it would never make a YouTube hit. The other day, I watched a video on the internet of a young New Zealand woman putting a horse into counter canter without a saddle or a bridle. It was skill of a dazzling degree, and so natural and relaxed that it made me gasp.

I have to accept that I shall never be able to do that, just as I shall never be able to play a Mozart sonata, or sing like Nina Simone, for all my private efforts in the kitchen with only Stanley the Dog to hear. (I can, if the light is coming from the right direction, get a little blues break into my voice, and when that happens I flush with idiot pride.)

Yesterday, I did another kind of Look, Look. I had a two pound bet on four horses. My old dad loved nothing more than an accumulator and I do one pretty much every day, for fun, for the challenge, for the memory of the auld fella. I imagine him laughing his head off in the great William Hill in the sky.

My four lovely horses won. The bet paid £207.96. I was beside myself. I took at once to Twitter, to tell everyone. Well done, my racing posse said kindly; you deserve it, they tweeted, generously. Then I felt slightly ashamed. I metaphorically cleared my throat and shuffled my shoes. Of course, I wrote, I don’t tell you all about my utter catastrophes. I was incredibly proud, and flushed with the thrill of the thing, but then I felt a bit bogus, boasting about it.

I’m not quite sure what the point of all this is. I did have a good point, when I started. I like to tell you small stories which have a moral to them. I like to dig out the life lessons, over and over, to remind myself. I learn things and then forget them and have to go back, endlessly, to the beginning.

I think perhaps the point was something about the small things, my enduring theme. I think it was that there will always be a bit of Look, Look, and even though I would love to be able to do complicated steps and championship manoeuvres, I rather like it that my current totem of utter achievement is that my horse and I may move in harmony. It’s not fancy, but it’s real.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are of the past week:

Ha. Just as I was about to send this, an email dropped into my inbox, from one of my various Google Alerts. It was from CNN. CNN, without fear or favour, was asking the big questions this morning. Are women foolish to love stilettos? it wanted to know. Talk about the utter idiocy of the universal we. There are about eight-seven things wrong with that question. I almost jumped onto the highest of my high horses, ready to gallop off in all directions. Then I thought: it’s a Sunday. The birds are singing. Stanley the Dog is stalking a fly in the next room, amusing himself mightily. I put the horse away. I laughed, instead.