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.

The Power of Admission.

I was going to give this post the title: The Answer to Everything. Obviously, that would be crazed hyperbole, so I restrained myself. However, it’s not that far off.

Here, instead, is the Answer to Really Quite a Lot:

1. Do something foolish.

2. Hurl yourself into a defensive cringe, covered in angst.

3. Raise your head, and admit the folly.

4. Share the experience with a group of kind people.

5. Smile and smile as they all say: oh yes, I did the exact same thing.

6. Realise that everything is perfectly all right.

Everybody knows that everybody does perfectly idiotic things from time to time. Everybody forgets that everybody does those things, and so when they themselves do them, their irrational mind believes they are the only one. And that is the point when one goes into the garden to eat worms.

The power of admission is one of the great overlooked powers in life. It’s as strong as love. It’s incredibly tempting, when something horrid and stupid happens, to run away into a cross little lair, to turn in on oneself, to sit alone in a world shrunk to just you and your angst. The critical voices in your head, who are on their third Negroni and are punchy by now, are yelling that you are pointless and useless and feckless and there is no health in you. They find this hysterically funny. It’s impossible to argue with them because they are so convinced of their own rightness and they do that annoying drunk thing of moving the goalpoasts.

To use the simple declarative sentence, to say plainly this is what I did, becomes almost impossible, because everyone is surely going to laugh and point. Your folly is then compounded and shame comes storming down the outside with an unstoppable run and wins the race.

Admission is the only thing which can beat these brutal battalions. Because people really don’t laugh and point. What they do is say, kindly, ruefully, empathetically: oh yes, I did that too. At which point the sun rises, the orchestra strikes up, the bluebirds begin singing, and the world, which was dark and angry, is suddenly filled with light.

The thing is still the thing. It was folly, or silliness, or wrongness, or carelessness. But usually, it can be fixed right up, amends made, lessons learnt. The power of the thing, however, has been completely taken away by the kindness. The kindness is quite often, in this rushing age of social media, that of strangers. It can also come from one human you love. Either way, it works in spectacular fashion.

Words are important too. Yesterday, I chose my words wrongly, because I was so in the grip of the critical voices that I could not see straight. I wrote: I am an idiot. I was wrong. I’m not an idiot. I sometimes do idiotish things. (More often, perhaps, than I would like.) This is quite different. That nice shift of perspective was also what was brought about by the admission and the generous reaction.

I sometimes think the sweetest words in the English language are: me too.

Thank you. Thank you all.

 

Today’s pictures:

The hill:

The oystercatchers on the roof, singing their dear heads off:

The Younger Brother, who is off to Ireland, looking at the view of the hill from his bedroom:

The Sister, who is moving south, standing in front of her hill for the last time. I’m very sad, but I’m not making a big thing about it. Or, not too much of a big thing:

There was a lovely photograph of the Brother-In-Law too, who has generously completely forgiven me for the car fiasco, but he says he does not want to be on the internet. ‘You won’t put me on that blog?’ he says. I think guiltily of the times I have snuck in the odd close-up and shake my head. Here are the ears of the red mare instead, on our ride this morning:

And here she is, graciously standing for her photograph after the ride. She can do this for many, many minutes, untethered, only sighing a very little at the absurd antics of her human:

I am an idiot.

You would think by now that I would have got used to being an idiot. I have a fairly high level of folly. Some of it I am aware of; some of it I am not. There are things which I think quite normal, which make other humans look frankly terrified. (‘What have I said?’ I ask myself.) Some of the idiocies I try to fix up, to make better, to smooth out. Some I think do no harm, and may be left. Some make me want to cry.

Today was my mother’s 81^st birthday. All her children are here, which is a very rare thing, since we are geographically scattered. It all started very well. There was the sweet birthday breakfast, with flowers and laughter. I brought roses. Then I went off and did the horse and did my HorseBack work and walked with the Younger Brother and ran back to my mother’s house to make smoked mackerel paté and tomato and red pepper salsa and guacamole. The extended family arrived, right down to the smallest great-niece, and the sun shone, and everyone was in harmony.

I left early to go back to my desk, since it is a school day. Smiling, I leapt in the motor and reversed very slowly into the brother-in-law’s shining new car.

I AM AN IDIOT.

It’s a turn I make every day. Each morning, I go down and cook my mother breakfast, and each morning I leap in the motor and reverse into that space to make the turn for home, and, this lunchtime, because I’m used to there being a big space there, not a gleaming blue car, I did not look. I just drove, heedlessly, thoughtlessly, without care or attention.

I had to go in and confess. I walked slowly, with the steps of a condemned woman. The brother-in-law, who was having a lovely time, looked up. ‘I’ve done something terrible,’ I started to say. But he knew. He knew before the words were out of my mouth. ‘You’ve hit my car,’ he said, sadly. He loves that car. He was having a perfectly delightful time and then some idiot female smashes up his motor.

He is a gentleman and he was incredibly polite and kind about it. But I could tell how sad he was. There was a dying fall in his voice and a mournful look in his eye. I could hardly speak, I was so mortified. I did that awful incoherent apologising which does not make anything better. He was manful.

It’s all very well being a bit of a flake. I’m used to it and most of the time I don’t think it so very bad. But could I not at least look where I am going?

I reflected, as I came home, entirely down in the dumpiest of dumps, about the little things. The regular readers know that I am slightly obsessed with the little things. This is usually in a good way. I cherish the moss, the trees, the stone walls, the low whicker of the mare when she gets her breakfast, the look on Stanley the Dog’s face when he emerges, triumphant, from the vast tunnel he has dug under the feed shed. If I am feeling a little sorrowful, I cast my eyes up to these hills, and everything is all right. But the little things work the other way round too. Everything was enchanting today. Even the dear old Scottish weather was on our side. My mum was having a grand birthday, all the family was there, everyone was in fine form. It will not be all the delight I shall remember, because the stupid unnecessary shunt has wrecked all that.

It won’t wreck it forever. I’ll ring up the perspective police and they will do a raid. I’ve written a note to the poor brother-in-law and enclosed vast lumps of cash so he won’t be out of pocket, although of course that is not really the point. But for the rest of the day I’ll have that awful sick feeling of angst as I recall his stricken face, caused by my folly.

There is a very dear horse forum I belong to. The people there are very kind and encouraging, and everyone writes about their small steps of progress with their horses and everyone else says well done, you’re doing a great job. This morning, a young girl in Australia posted a video of the work she is doing with her beloved mare. I’ve seen the young girl’s posts before, and she is a polite, enthusiastic, rather sensitive person. She tries vastly hard with her horse and is learning all the time. Even though she is thousands of miles away, I feel very fond of her, oddly protective, and quite often leave comments saying how well she is doing and how lovely her horse is. Today, someone chose to write a blighting comment. The burden of the song was that people should know what they are doing. (I wish I knew what I was doing, and quite often don’t, so it rather struck my heart.) The young girl, who is only sixteen, was devastated. The whole group rallied round her, and by the end of the morning there were a hundred kind, supportive comments to the one mean-spirited one. But I suspect that young girl will remember the ungenerous rather than the generous. Her rational mind will be soothed by the good stuff, but her irrational, undefended mind will be laid waste by the bad stuff.

I sometimes think this phenomenon is like smell. How is it that one bad smell will always linger, no matter how many good smells there are to combat it? Drains will always conquer roses; old rubbish wins out over lavender. To a tender mind, the single poison-tipped arrow will always cut through the finest armour.

Ah, well. I suppose it is just another lesson in life. I really must learn to butch up a bit. Make the mistake, make as many amends as one can, learn the lesson, put right what can be put right, and move on. Nobody’s perfect. But oh, oh, oh, I do wish that I were not quite such an idiot, and that I had not made the brother-in-law sad.

 

Today’s pictures:

The birthday girl:

The family:

The guacamole:

The red mare:

The Paint filly, very dozy and relaxed after being comprehensively anointed with special neem oil to keep off the flies, with her human:

I love this. It’s very slightly out of focus so I think it looks like a painting. The mare was coming up from the set-aside for her breakfast:

No blog today.

Happy day. Family, enchanting telephone call, sunshine, mare, Stan the Man digging for rats, HorseBack, book, and all work done and done and done so I could sit down and watch the racing. The glorious fillies are about to come out for the Oaks, and you know what I am like about the thoroughbred fillies.

As a result of the dancing girls in the Epsom sun, I have no time to write the blog. I am ruthlessly sacrificing you to the beauty of Legatissimo and Jack Naylor and Crystal Zvezda and Lady of Dubai. I expect that the mighty Aidan O’Brien will run away with the spoils, and give his usual modest interview afterwards so that I can play AOB bingo and count how many times he uses the word ‘listen’. (Also: ‘the lads’.) But today I’m a Luca Cumani girl, and I hope his brave, galloping Lady of Dubai might upset the odds.

Whatever happens, I hope they all run their race and come home safe.

Happy weekend. Back on Monday, I hope with some more coherent sentences than these.

 

Today’s pictures:

The duchess was bred to win the Oaks, but couldn’t even manage a selling plate. Bless her sweet, slow hooves:

Stanley the Manly, posing with some interested cows:

A shining light. Or, some thoughts on friendship.

I ring up the Beloved Cousin.

‘Oh,’ she exclaims. ‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you too,’ I shout.

‘I was only thinking, just the other day,’ she said, ‘that I miss you. It was something that made me laugh, that I knew would make you laugh too.’

The Beloved Cousin and I are quite distant cousins. Our great-grandfathers were brothers. Our grandmothers knew each other quite well, and our fathers met as boys, but then went in radically different directions, one into racing, one into politics. So, in the end, we met quite by chance, when we were in the same university town at the age of eighteen. It took a while. She was very glamorous and went to London a lot. I was a bit of a swot and spent most of my time discovering new libraries. (The day I found the Codrington was the day I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.) I did go dancing in the evening, because it was the eighties and we really did go disco dancing, but for quite a long time I was more of a History Faculty sort of gal. And then our worlds, which had always slightly overlapped, came together, and suddenly, almost from one day to the next, we were friends, and that was that.

Thirty years, give or take. Imagine that. We’ve driven across Ireland together, and flirted with poets and piano players and a famous old politico, who appeared out of nowhere rather to everyone’s surprise. We were together on the Worst Holiday in the World, when a group of twelve of us crammed into what was advertised as a Spanish villa, and turned out to be a house the size of a postage stamp, situated opposite a 24-hour petrol station. The fallings out started within half an hour and by the end no-one was speaking to anyone, except for the cousin and I.

We’ve bitten our lips as we watched each other fall in and out of love with entirely unsuitable gentlemen. I would drive down to Brighton to see her in rep, in her acting days, and she would be by my side at each book launch. We’ve stayed up till dawn and watched the sun rise, and now, in our middle-age, we put on our slippers and have a glass of the good claret and take grateful old lady early nights.

We’ve spent Christmases and Easters and New Years together. We’ve shouted them past the post at Ascot and roared them up the hill at Cheltenham. Our eyes have met in speaking understanding across dinner tables filled with crashing bores (and crashing boors). I saw the very first smile of her second daughter, at three weeks old, and to this day, we all say, in unison: ‘It was not wind.’ On the night of my father’s funeral, it was she who took me in. Three weeks later, I drove her the two hundred miles home from her brother’s funeral.

In those thirty years, I think we’ve had one falling out. It lasted for about two hours, and once we talked over the misunderstanding and almost wept with relief, we never did it again.

Our lives are stupidly busy, and our schedules are quite different, and we spend a lot of time thinking we should ring and then not ringing because it’s not the right moment, so when we spoke this morning we had not heard each other’s voices for a few weeks. Within four minutes, we were laughing so much we could not breathe or talk. We were laughing at two memories, ranging back over many years, because we’ve got so much history together, so many stories, so many disasters and heartbreaks and muddles and absurdities. The amazing thing is that even the heartbreaks make us laugh now.

When I was very young, I suspected that someone, somewhere, had made a bit of a category error. Into the category of indispensible things, of defining fulfilments, that someone had put romantic love. It also went very much into the Woman category. That was the thing that the ladies could not do without. Men, the swaggery adventurers that they were, could probably live quite well without a love of their life, but the tender-hearted females would be lost without it. I remember getting really quite cross about this. I thought the love that mattered, the love that endured, the love that one could not survive without was friend love. In all my early novels, the true love is that of friendship.

Thirty years on, I think that I was right. I was wrong about pretty much everything in my youth, except possibly my views on the Repeal of the Corn Laws. I had that arrogance of too much education, and could not yet tell the difference between book learning and life learning. But I think I got that part right. Apart, obviously, from having a red mare, the greatest joy in life is a true friend.

I smile as I write this. I think: why is she such a good friend? Why do I love her so? Let me count the ways. She is funny, and clever, and kind, and wise, and literal, and unexpected. She knows a lot about a lot of things, and she is very modest about it, hiding her light under a bushel. She’s stoical; she damn well gets on with it. I admire her, because she’s made one of the best and happiest and most interesting families I’ve ever seen. Her house is a happy house.

She’s an enthusiast. She does not make a three act opera of everything and she knows very well that not everything is about her. She is a good listener. She’s an incredible amount of fun to be around, but she also has something earthed in her, steady and rooted. She always makes me feel better than I am. She gets every single thing I say, so I never have to explain myself. She is generous and thoughtful. In thirty years, she has never bored me for a single second.

All that is true, and yet that is not all of it. She’s got that indefinable extra thing, that little sprinkle of stardust, that something special, that cannot go into easy words or blithe adjectives.

British people tend not to tell their friends how absolutely bloody marvellous they are. We Britons are brought up to read between the lines, rely entirely on understatement, take refuge in irony. It’s quite terrifyingly embarrassing to use a simple declarative sentence or make a direct expression of love. Even paying a compliment can feel alien and vulgar and must at once be followed by a joke. The real truth will generally only come out after copious amounts of strong liquor. (This may be why dear old Blighty is an island of drinkers.) But sometimes, I say to myself sternly, one must Say The Thing. If one has such a friend, it is worth more than rubies. From time to time, the thing must be marked. Respect is due. And gratitude, too.

 

Today’s pictures:

I love this one of the BC, not just because of the idiosyncratic rock and roll sunglasses, but because you can see me reflected in the left hand lens. There we are, together, at the click of a shutter:

With her girls:

And a little random collection of pictures from the last few days: