The momentous news

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The rain fell. I rather oddly ate quiche for lunch. I never eat quiche, not through prejudice, but mostly because I do not much fancy it. I had a sudden seventies moment and had some. It rather reminded me why I don’t eat it very much. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing hugely right with it either. If I were a whizz at pastry, I might make my own, but I’m mostly in ham sandwich territory just now, on account of the book.

I did work. I snuck a peek at the Chester Vase. I was dimly aware that Andy Coulson was saying things to Lord Leveson which seemed to be making people on Twitter snigger and make naughty Rebekah Brooks jokes. And then I, rather randomly, followed a link to MOMENTOUS NEWS. I mostly shun the erratic use of capital letters, preferring the quiet dignity of italics. But sometimes capitals are the only things which will do, and this is one of those times.

The MOMENTOUS NEWS is that Barack Obama has declared himself in favour of gay marriage.

This is huge for about twenty-seven reasons. The farther reaches of the Republican and Religious Right have been saying many disobliging about gay people lately; Mitt Romney even let a spokesman go, apparently because of his sexuality. North Carolina recently added an amendment against same sex marriage to its constitution. There appear to be some people who genuinely believe that homosexuality is the work of Satan. I do not think they are being metaphorical.

So, for President Obama to say this is a truly historic thing.

When I read the story, I felt incredibly happy. I also felt oddly relieved, as if I had been holding my breath. I had not realised how much I minded about this. I watch a lot of Rachel Maddow via the miracle of the internet, and she covers the darker shores of the argument quite a lot, so perhaps it had gone into my consciousness like a thorn, and lodged there.

I’ve never really understood the argument against gay marriage. There are lots of arguments with which I do not agree which I understand perfectly. I am a fairly big government person, but I completely get the small government side, and think it makes some good points. (I believe in government on quite an emotional level, and am willing to admit my faith in it may sometimes be misplaced.)

But the idea that two people may love each other and want to commit their lives to each other and then are told they may not because of their gender seems to me inexplicable.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, say the true believers. But why? Marriage used to be between a white man and a white woman; interracial matches were outlawed. No one could explain that either. History moved on; it moves now. The young people do not understand the fuss. (This is when I love the young people very much.) They have gay friends, they have straight friends; the vast majority of them cannot see the difference.

Oh, civil unions, people say. There is a faint whiff of the throwing of a bone. Chew on that, Gays, and let us get on with our day. You can have your piece of paper, but you can’t have real marriage, because you are not good enough. You are not quite up to it, like the Straights are. It slightly reminds me of the time when women were not allowed a university education, because it was felt their intellects were not up to it. The ladies were sentimentally lauded as the angel in the house, but could not go to Oxford in case their tiny pink brains exploded.

I was really pleased about civil partnerships, because it was so much better than what went before. One of the happiest days of my life was going to one, in the blinding sunshine of south London, holding a fat bunch of tulips. I called it a marriage; it felt like a marriage; it is being lived as a marriage. Now I think: come on, let everyone have the real thing. This odd first class, second class situation makes no objective sense.

I felt incredibly proud when David Cameron declared his support for gay marriage last year; I like very much that some Tories are calling it a truly Conservative argument instead of harrumphing about tradition. There is some backwoods backlash, but I really hope the Prime Minister sticks to his guns. They are great guns.

Beyond anything, it is a simple matter of fairness, and I think the British like fairness very much.

Love is love, says my wise sister. When you see love, why would you try and tell it it comes in the wrong variety? We need more love, not less. If people are so devoted that they wish to promise love in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, we should put up bunting. The human heart beats and yearns and lifts and falls just the same in the chests of all sexualities; it knows no difference.

All the same, there are people for whom there really does seem to be a difference, and that is why I think what President Obama did was brave, and fine, and, most of all, true. So I am hanging out more flags.

 

Despite the rain, I took some garden photographs:

Red the Mare, from yesterday, when there was some light:

Myfanwy the pony:

Their view:

Pigeon, with patient, waiting for the ball face:

And yesterday's hill, as today it is hiding bashfully in the murk:

A very ordinary day

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Author's note: This is actually yesterday's blog. I stupidly pressed publish and then moved away from my computer, so I did not see the flashing error 403 message. As a result, this crucial piece of reportage lay unpublished all night long, whilst I blithely slept. I can only apologise for the crashing logistical error.

So, even though the blog says 10th of May, this is, in fact, the 9th.


Today I:
Did the horses. Gazed anxiously at the weather reports, trying to judge whether the equines would be warm enough without their rugs. Wrote approximately 1900 words. Did research. Saw my mother. Spoke to my brother. Watched the great-nephew gather eggs. Sent a long email to The Beloved Cousin. Had a blinding idea for a play, which is ironical, since I have absolutely no idea how to write a play. If I were brave enough, I would ring up my friend The Playwright and ask him. But that would be too gauche.

I ate the smoked mackerel paté, which was really rather good.

My favourite old gentleman arrives, having suddenly taken it into his head to mend my wall, which I had broken, by reversing very slowly into it whilst thinking of something quite else. It turns out that among his great talents is the ability to make a dry stone wall. I stand in awe and wonder as he makes good what was a crumbling mess. He is eighty-two years old and he fixes up that wall as if he were a man of forty. I run out of words for thank you.

I walk the dog and inspect the garden and contemplate what spring planting I should do. I read a book. I sneakily take half an hour to watch a couple of races from Chester and back two winners and have a little shout.

I go back up to the horses, for their evening check. I get some equine love, not quite as mystical and miraculous as last night, but still pretty good. I gaze at the blue hill and feel gratitude for the view.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, the Queen made her speech, and I did not hear a word of it. Normally, I would watch the whole thing like the political geek I am. At the moment, I am so intensely mired in book and horse that there is no space for anything else. I get little glimmers and hints of what is happening in the outside world from Twitter (very informative, despite what its detractors say) and snatches of the Today Programme. But just now, it is passing me by. I am letting the gaudy carnival swing on without me.

I feel a peculiar low level guilt, but it is quite restful in a way, not having to have a strong, well-formed opinion on every single matter at the exact moment it occurs. I start to understand what the apolitical people must feel like. I start to get a faint sense of the to hell with the whole shower brigade. I can’t ever be like that for long, because of the geekery, and also because of the Pankhursts. I figure that if women tied themselves to railings so I might have the vote, the least I can do is be engaged in affairs of state. It’s an absurd belief, but it’s my belief, and I am sticking to it.

The light is going now. I scan the sky, hoping for good news. The sky stares back at me, promising nothing. One day, I think, the warmth will come, and I can cast off my tweeds and shawls and feel the sun on my back.

Some very quick pictures for you, because it is late and I am tired:

Love

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Today, I thought I had no words for you. Some days, the words arrive in battalions. They shimmer and leap and dance and riot across the page. This is not because I am being brilliant; they appear to have very little to do with me. I am just the transcriber. (I am responsible for the thoughts, which may be pedestrian, but can paradoxically be quite well written, because the words pitched up.)

On other days, there is nothing. The words fall dead onto the page, with the leaden thud of partridge shot to death. (Strained metaphor alert; klaxon goes.) Doesn’t matter how much coffee I drink, the words some out pallid and lifeless. I frown and twitch; I roam plaintively round the thesaurus; nothing works.

This was one of those days. I contemplated a recipe. I made quite a decent smoked mackerel paté today. But even that felt dull; everyone knows how to make smoked mackerel paté. I was not strong enough to contemplate the election of M. Hollande. (Although I do think it interesting that we may have a real-life Keynesian experiment, and the romantic in me really, really hopes it works.)

The political woes at home were too demoralising.

Then I went up to the horse. (HORSE STORY ALERT: those of you with allergies, move quickly to the pictures.) The reason horses interest me so much is that they are so inscrutable; much, much more mysterious than dogs. In Secretariat, a lovely film with the luminous Diane Lane, John Malkovich, who plays the great colt’s trainer says something like: ‘I’ve worked with horses all my life and I still don’t have the first clue what they are thinking.’ I bet the real-life trainer said those exact words. You can sort of tell the obvious things: when they are full of beans, or when they feel like showboating, or when they shut down, and become very private and internal. Most of the time, you can see their strong ancestral memory, stirring over vast spaces of time. But you don’t really know what they think of you, or even if they do think of you.

With the Pigeon, I know perfectly well that she thinks me marvellous in every particular. She follows me like a shadow and jumps for joy when I return from a trip. This is because I keep her supplied with biscuits, sticks, and stomach rubs. It’s the simplest, purest bargain in the world. Dogs do a doggy version of love, all flags blazing. There are some people, for instance, she likes much more than others, although she can be a bit of a tart with the ASDA man, when he arrives in his van bringing her Bonios; that is sheer cupboard love, blatant and shameless.

I’m not sure if horses do love in that way. What you are trying to earn is their trust and ease. You are trying to communicate safety, most of all, and a bit of leadership, so they can slot gently into their place in the herd. They don’t bound up to you and lick your nose like a dog will. This is especially true of thoroughbreds, who are bred for speed and strength, the will to win tracing its way back to the three great stallions from whom they are all descended: the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian, and the Byerley Turk.

Anyway, tonight, up I went, and did the usual things: checking the legs, putting on the rug, bit of apple, bit of love. Red quite likes it when I stroke her white face, and has her sweet spots, but she can take it or leave it. She is too duchessy and dignified to vamp for love. The moment I take off her headcollar, she moves politely away, and goes back to the things that really interest her, which are eating grass and gazing out to the west.

Tonight though, she did not move away when I set her loose. She rested her head against my arm. I moved to her side, and gentled her elegant cheek, and the soft place just above her muzzle, which is fine as velvet. Her eyes drooped and her lashes fluttered. I heard her breathing slowly. The majestic head dropped onto my shoulder, and rested there, heavy with trust. I hardly dared move. I held my breath, then I remembered that held breath signals tension to a horse, so I let it out again.

We stood there like that for about ten minutes. Eventually, she gently removed herself and went back to grazing. I don’t know what it was. There was some sun today, and she was in a dozy mood. But in that free moment she gave me a bloody great present, beyond words, beyond feeling, beyond thought. It had a purity to it that you don’t find too often in life. I wish I could find some words for it. The best I can say is that it was a communion, still, and deep, and quiet, and oceanic. It felt, in some strange way, ancient. And the sun fell over the mountain, and everything was lit and blue, and I laughed out loud, in humility, in gratitude.

 

Pictures taken in the evening light:

Will you throw the ball? Will you?

If I make this completely adorable face?

Hill:

A good man

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

On this day, one year ago, my funny, clever, tall, handsome, kind cousin died at the stupid age of 57.

He did lots of interesting and rather impressive things in his life: he made olive oil, he designed gardens, he spoke perfect Italian. But what I really remember him for was his ability to make your heart lift, when you walked into a room and saw him standing there.

He had that kind of easy charm that is so bone-deep that it’s not like charm at all. It’s a lovely human facility to make other humans feel comfortable and happy and as if they are suddenly a little bit more brilliant and amusing than they thought themselves five minutes before.

One of my other relations says that you can divide people into drainers and radiators. There are those ones that suck the very will to live out of you, with their insistence on looking on the bleak side, or their dedicated neediness, or their dramatic sense of self, which means that every single thing that ever happens is all about them. Then there are the radiators, who radiate laughter and good times and general approval and a clever sense of their own essential absurdity, which allows you to be absurd too, and not to worry about it.

Well, the cousin was a radiator. I remember him always laughing. I remember him wry and teasing and dry as a bone. It’s idiotic that he is not here. He is the one I am thinking of today, and those who loved him, and whom he loved right back.

 

For some reason, in a kind of living well, seize the day kind of manner, I decided to make a really proper dinner. Delightful baked Portobello mushrooms, which I put in dish, scattered with marjoram from the garden, crushed garlic, lots of Maldon salt and black pepper and a huge knob of butter, and am now cooking for about twenty minutes. I'm going to eat them with a very bloody sirloin steak, and that is that:

Outside, the garden was blooming in the gloaming:

The Pigeon, blue in the light, had found a most excellent stick:

Up in her field, Red the Mare would be gazing out to the west, which is what she has been doing most of the day, as if there is something there of infinite fascination:

And the hill is its majestic, hilly self, unmoved by small human regrets:

Sunday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

On Thursday night, I buried my dog. It has been a year since she died, and I had not been able to do it before now. That sounds absurd and melodramatic, but there it is. The sun shone, the family came, I planted a tree and put the ashes in, I said some words. Then we all went inside and drank champagne. It was the same day a year ago that I buried my father, so there was some symmetry in that. There was a lot of death, hovering about, so I had to concentrate very hard on the love and the trees, which are my great consolations.

The horrible person who has done horrible things continues to dog me. Sometimes, I can do zennish calm, and remember about living well being the best revenge. The Younger Brother calls it the Dalai Lama Let Go. (He is a great admirer of the Dalai Lama.) We say it very quickly, in unison: Dalia-Lama-Let-Go, as if it were a dancehall craze from the 1950s. Sometimes, my attempts at sagacity desert me and I write vengeful letters in my head. I suppose everyone has one horrible person. Perhaps it is a good contrast, to remind one of the loveliness of the Lovely Ones.

This morning, in the freezing cold, I go up to the mare. My new thing is to play games with her, to keep her amused. (There are horse people who would consider this nuts, but it makes me laugh.) I see if I can get her to trot after me when I set off at a run, and then stop when I stop. We do this without a rope. I think some people call it loose schooling. I call it highly diverting. She does it. Three times in a row, so it is not a fluke. I feel as flushed with joy and triumph as if I was leading in a Derby winner.

I get a faint sense she is humouring me, as if to say: better go along with the old girl. She seems slightly bemused when I shower her with congratulations. But her wibbly lower lip twitches, which is always a sign she is happy.

The tiny children come out to see her, and she lowers her head graciously so their little hands can reach her soft muzzle. She dips her forehead to them in regal greeting, and they stare at her in awe and wonder. We all groom the little white pony, who now has a blog name. She is Welsh, and the children chose a tremendous Welsh name for her: it is Myfanwy. Apparently it means ‘my lovely little one’ which could not be more appropriate.

The sky lowers, and darkens. The forecast is for snow. Snow. The Pigeon shivers in the wind, and looks at me reproachfully, as if I could do something about this unseasonal weather. But the garden is starting to bloom, despite it all, and the Duchess’s beautiful apple tree stands up straight and strong in its new home.

 

Pictures are from Thursday.

Duchess's tree, and the wild garden I made for her:

 

Pot table, tarted up specially for the occasion:

Younger niece with Pigeon:

Ready for her close-ups:

Red the Mare:

With Myfanwy the pony:

Their view, with snow clouds coming in:

The hill, in the last bit of light we've seen for a while:

Caesura

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I’m going off the blog for a couple of days. Two things are happening at the moment. One is quite small, but looms large for me, and is a matter of sorrow. One is horribly big, and so revoltingly sordid that I need to invent new words for ghastly. I would tell you about them but I am still a bit headshy, so I’m going to take a pause instead. I need to get through all this and regroup. I shall return soon.