Bonus post: The Great Day Dawns

RED'S FRIEND HAS ARRIVED.

It is the reddest of red letter days.

Did you ever see a mare look so happy?

A very, very shaggy horse story; or, lessons I am learning

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Author's note:

Although this post is all about not apologising too much, I do think it only polite to give you a warning for extreme length.

 

As the regular readers will know, one of my blogging instincts is to apologise. Sorry this is too long, sorry this is too short; sorry there are too many dog pictures or too many horse stories or too much political rant. Sorry this is all about me.

Saying sorry is sometimes the most important thing you can do. In fact, I sometimes say sorry when I am not in the wrong, for a combination of emotional and utilitarian reasons. If that will solve the fight or the problem and I have to choose happiness over pride, I choose happiness any day and twice on Sundays. I always, always apologise when I am clearly in the wrong. No hedging, no excuses, just: I won’t do that again.

On the other hand, the borderline apologising of the over-sensitive (of which band I am a paid-up member) can be quite tiring. If people are constantly having to say, oh don’t worry, it’s fine, it’s all right, eventually they run out of patience.

So now I think: I must have the courage of my convictions. I was about to start this with the usual caveat that, oh dear, it seems to be yet another horse story. And some of you do not know horses and have no interest in horses, and how dull it must be for you, and how I try your kind patience.

Then I realise there are three things I think about this. One is: if I can tell it interestingly enough, then it does not matter if you have never seen an equine in your life.

Two is: if I can give you some decent prose, then it should be all right. There are some writers who write of subjects in which I have no interest at all, but I read them because I like how they write.

And three is: the old rule which I tell my students over and over, which is never, ever pander to or second guess your readers. The golden rule is write something which fascinates you; as someone much wiser than I once said, if your writing doesn’t keep you up nights, it won’t keep anyone else up either. In other words, if you are riveted by your subject, then chances are other people shall be riveted too.

That, as my friend The Man of Letters always says, is the throat-clearing part out of the way. If this were a book, I would go back in the second edit and delete every single one of those opening paragraphs. In professional literature, throat-clearing is a terrible faux pas. The rather lovely thing about doing a blog is that it is an amateur thing, in the sense that I do it for love, not money. So I leave the throat-clearing in, because for some strange reason I like that you get me with warts and all.

So, today’s horse story.

One of the things that fascinates me about having a horse is the thing of moods. Because we are so early in our relationship, it is very important, for the building of trust, that the mare senses I am calm, cool, confident, in control. Her prey instincts go back ten thousand years; for her to put her faith in a new leader is a profound act. It is not a given, it is not automatic, and just because she does it one day does not mean it is the end of the story. There are some people who say it takes at least a year for the real relationship to be built, a brick at a time.

This is why I do the groundwork; it is why each day I almost feel as if we are starting from scratch. So when I go up to her, however filthy I might feel, I must at least try to fake the good feelings.

This morning, I had a troubling email; it is an ancient sore, one of those ghastly running dramas that presses all one’s old buttons, and can send one into a tailspin. When I arrived to see Red, I was furious and upset and tense as a drum. I walked into the field, trying to steady my breath and remove the hard fist of rage that sat, low and ugly as a toad, in my stomach.

At first, she trotted towards me, so eager and happy that it broke my heart. What a welcome, I thought, delight edging out the fury. I gave her a carrot, spoke to her, and she locked on and walked with me to the gate. What a miracle, I thought; she is fixing me, on my raging day. I thought the bad feelings had been driven out, but she is cleverer than I, in some ways, and she must have sensed something, because suddenly her head went up, and she cantered away.

Grumpiness returned, like a tidal wave. Oh God, I thought, I’m going to have to do the bloody stomping about the field, pretending to ignore her, until she comes back to me. The Pigeon had not come with, so I was on my own, walking through the sodden grass, singing a half-hearted version of Brown-Eyed Girl. Red did her little ignoring game, staring out to the east as if hoping someone more interesting might arrive. I attempted not to feel hurt.

I walked and chatted to myself and sang the stupid song. (I thought the singing was important because it might drive out my own demons, and would also let her know that I was there, but not coming after her.) She came back to me for a moment, then was off again. We moved far away from each other, and then she did something she has not done before. She moved herself into a fast canter, right towards me, at full tilt. I watched her carefully, stood my ground, opened my arms calmly, and she slithered to a halt right in front of me. I was ready to step aside; I can be quite brave with her, but I am not reckless. It might have been playfulness, or it might have been a test.

All right, you silly old thing, I thought. You are having some fine game here. I walked away again; she followed. I am your trusted leader, I thought; I stood up very straight, levelled my shoulders, lifted my head, breathed.

And suddenly there was her soft muzzle at my right hand, and we were again as one. I put the halter on and gave her a good groom, and suddenly all that antic spirit went out of her and she closed her eyes and lowered her head and dopily let me scratch at the sweet spot behind her ears.

I tell you all this because I think it is such a life lesson. I had to get rid of all my black feelings, because she is a horse, and she does not understand about emails and stupid people doing stupid things. She just knows that I am her person, and if she senses I am cross or fearful or tense, she will assume that there is something out there in the field to be tense or afraid about.

I think: bloody bastard email; she thinks: mountain lions. So it’s not just that she makes me feel happy because she is so dear and beautiful and funny and interesting. She makes me happy because even on a rotten day I have to fake calmness and confidence that I may not, in fact, be feeling. And, after faking it for a bit, I find it becomes real.

A brilliant woman arrived after that, who is going to help me with the mare. Because I have been away from horses so long, I need someone to come up for a couple of hours a week and do some groundwork exercises and generally tell me if I am making any egregious errors. I am working off old instincts, and some of those instincts may be wrong. We talked for a long time about general horse stuff, and Red the Mare stuff in particular. The really lovely thing is that the brilliant woman sees horses in the same way that I do, as mysterious, essentially wild creatures whose ways we should try to understand, for communion to be possible.

A lot of people think that all this getting into the horse’s mind thing is airy fairy nonsense. They see horses as servants, here to do what we want them to do. If an animal acts up in any way, it is always naughtiness, and should be dealt with with force. Kick ‘em, or whack ‘em, or get your stick out. That’s how you let them know who is boss.

I hate and loathe that idea. I am relearning how to think like a horse, to see the world through a horse’s eyes, to remember the ancestry of the horse, partly because I think it is a much more effective way of achieving the ends I seek, through mutual trust and consent.

But partly I think it is mere good manners. I would not go abroad and shout at foreigners in English, outraged if they mulishly refused to understand. No more would I march up to a horse and impose my human ideas on it. If Red decides to give me her trust it is a thing of rare privilege. The very least I can do is respect her point of view, tune myself into her horsey old mind, attempt to speak, however haltingly, and with however bad an accent, her glorious foreign tongue.

 

The weather continues to be appalling. Dear old Red is toughing it out in her new technology rug, very stoical. But it's too blah and bleak for pictures, so here are some old ones.

I discovered a new function on my camera called something like dramatic tone. It produces this rather pleasing effect:

No need for dramatic tone with this beauty:

I know the gatepost is in the way, and it's not artfully framed, but she looks so sweet I could not resist showing you.

Here she is, rather more artfully arranged, in elegant sepia, as if from a dusty old photograph album from before the Great War:

Oh, that jawline. No wonder she thinks she is a bit of a duchess.

And speaking of the aristocracy:

No hill today; it is still obscured in lingering cloud. One day, one day, it shall come back to us.

In which my horse turns out to have a sense of humour

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

A really hard work day. At five o’clock, my brain goes pop, as if a gasket or a fuse has blown. Normally I would go on until seven or eight, but that seems to be it for the day. I had all this tremendous horse stuff to tell you and now I hardly know what my name is. (I am certain you are quite devastated; I know that all you need on a rainy Monday is another twenty-seven paragraph horse story.)

Although I will tell you that she put up her sternest challenge today. Oh, she brought out her box of tricks. And there were people watching. ‘Don’t embarrass me in front of the watching people,’ I said in her ear. Ha, ha, ha, ha, went Red the Mare.

The really strange thing was I absolutely loved it. I have not had to concentrate so hard since the old queen died. And, again, we got there in the end. Today, achieving any kind of gentle forward motion involved a lot of circling. I had forgotten how much the circle is your friend. You can use it for everything – for getting her attention back, when she is being silly and not concentrating; for slowing her down, when she is going too fast; for getting her moving, if she plants her feet. A half ton horse will absolutely not move forward if it decides not to, however much you kick on. But it cannot resist a tight turn.

Besides the circling, my friend today was laughter. For some reason, I found it incredibly funny that she was putting me through it a bit. The really strange thing is that I take it as a compliment. I can damn well rise to the challenge, and I wonder if the mare knows that, somewhere in her old horsey mind. One of the things I love most in the Pigeon is that she makes me laugh. Now it turns out I also have a funny horse. I adore her. She is an absolute hoot.

And in other headline news: today is The Sister’s birthday. So it is happy birthday to the dearest, most beloved sibling, and to old Will Shakespeare too, with whom she shares the day. And now I must go and sit quietly whilst my brain shuts itself down.

 

Too shattered even for pictures. Here are a couple of my naughty, funny girls:

 

See that dopey, dozy, butter wouldn't melt in my mouth, blinky face? Don't be fooled for a moment.

A rather long horse story.

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Very occasionally, the blog feels like a bit of an effort. I am tired, or cross, or filled with aches, and the spit spot part of my brain is saying, come along, there must be something for the dear readers, and I have nothing. Then I stare at the screen with a kind of mulish despair and just put up lots of dog pictures and hope you don’t notice.

Sometimes, I cannot wait to sit down and tell you things. (This is quite peculiar, when I think of it, but that is part of the mystery of the blog.) Today is one of those days.

Because of the weather, the mare and I have not ridden for a few days. It’s so sodden and horrid and it’s not as if I am getting her fit for some great competition. On the other hand, I felt a bit grumpy and was oppressed with a slight sense of failure. There must be routine; they like routine; everyone who knows anything about horses says they like routine. And my legs were getting stronger. And we were getting used to each other. So the not riding felt a bit sad.

Still, there may have been a silver lining. The groundwork is really important, and I might not have done it otherwise. And she had been getting a bit fussy, the last time I rode, so maybe the going back to basics was good.

This morning, I managed to find the one shaft of sunlight in the whole week. It was literal and metaphorical. The rain stopped for five minutes, and Red was at her absolute sweetest and dopiest when I arrived. She came ambling to me, presented her head for scratching, leaned gently against my shoulder, graciously took a bit of apple. She loved her grooming (sometimes she can take it or leave it); she stood like a rock, eyes closed, dozing, while I tacked her up. Everything was more perfect than wit could devise.

Then I got on, and there was the fussing again. I had wondered if it were the tack, and rigorously checked saddle, girth, every inch of the bridle. Everything fit perfectly. I had run my hands over her back, again and again, in case there was soreness. There was none.

What happens is she tenses up a bit, behind the saddle, and plays about with her head. It’s an effort to get her going forward. There was a moment when I thought there was really something wrong, and I almost gave up. But her ears were pricked; if she were in pain, she would tell me. I decided to press on.

Round the field we went. Fuss, fuss, fuss. She wanted to go one way, I told her to go another. Suddenly, something interesting happened. A hundred thoughts had been running through my head: mostly that I was doing something wrong. My confidence, which is pretty good on a horse, had wobbled a bit. Perhaps all this talk about my remembering my ancient instincts was nonsense, and I had no clue what I was doing. But the interesting thing was that, all at once, the confidence came rushing back.

I decided that this was not a disaster, but quite funny. I started talking to her in a joking, teasing way. You silly old thing, I told her. Come on, we can do this. My shoulders, which I realised were a tiny bit tense, came down; I felt my body and legs long in the saddle, I sat right down into her. Even when she jumps about a bit, I don’t shift; I fit her very well.

We did a trot; we did a canter. She half tried to cock her head and do a bit of a plunge and a race; I convinced her that was a very silly idea indeed. After a couple of goes, we were doing collected trot, and collected canter. She had stopped mucking about with her head; she was listening to me.

The next most important thing was to get her to stretch her neck out and relax her back completely. I wanted to get her to ride out on a long rein again, like we did at the beginning. There’s a good half mile bit of straight, so I took her out of the field, and we went down that. Tiny bit of a fuss, momentary stop and stare, then on, on, and down came the head, and suddenly there was the lovely forward momentum I had been looking for. There was the happy swinging stride. There was the harmony. There.

I have a theory. The regular readers will know I love a theory. I think that there are many phases when you get a new horse, and a horse gets a new human. First of all, Red has been used to being ridden by the best horseman I know. Second of all, she is now living a very different life than the one she was accustomed to. We had to go through the settling phase, when she was uncertain and nervy and needed enormous reassurance from me. When she was not spooking, she was very good indeed, almost submissive.

Now, I think the nerves have gone. She knows the place, likes the sheep, is familiar with the dog. She knows I am her person. So now, I think she is seeing what she can get away with. It’s not naughtiness, it’s horsiness. She might have been the slowest racehorse in Britain, but she was a racehorse. She’s not some dear old cob; she’s got champion’s blood in her veins. She is asserting herself, and measuring me. Also, she is a mare, and mares can have moods. There was a wind blowing when we set out, and that alone can lead to a bit of dancing and prancing.

It took about fifteen minutes for her to see that she could not freak me out. I just sat and rode her on; I let her get the devils out of her. And then the decision was made, and she started to move easily and happily.

I think there will be a bit more of this. There will be a step forward and a step back. I’ve said before that I love that she is not a novice ride. I love that she makes me draw on my resources. Her essential sweetness means that she is not frightening, but that thoroughbred spirit means that she will throw down challenges. The lovely thing is that it is exactly what I can take, no more, no less.

My suspicion is that in a few weeks, as the weather gets better, and I get stronger, and she gets more and more settled, she will start going along like an old Labrador. I shall look back and miss the early, glitchy days, when I really had to ride, really had to think.

Yesterday was a funny old day. I felt ill, felt sad, thought of my dad. I spent the evening with my family. I had almost chucked, I was feeling so seedy, but in the end I took my iron tonic and went. I was never so glad I did anything. It was exactly what was needed.

Then, today, I had two hours of loveliness with my horse. I had a little bit of challenge, just the exact right sense of achievement, and then, the profound love, which makes my heart feel like a flower blooming in springtime.

It was a pretty rash decision, suddenly to get a horse after thirty years. I did not especially think it through. I acted on whim. But sometimes life does send you what you need at the exact moment you need it, and I think this is what has just happened. I smile as I write this; I smile as I think of her. She is a very, very dear person indeed, and I love her madly.

 

Again, I'm afraid it is too horrid now for pictures. Everything outside looks as if someone has thrown a bucket of dirty washing up water over it. So here is a random selection from the moments in the last week when there has been a shaft of light:

Red's view:

The lovely girl:

The other lovely girl:

She came with us on our ride today; she is getting used to what she clearly thinks of as a huge red dog. All the same, she is passionately glad when I jump out of the saddle and am down on the ground again.

Love this noble face. Oh, the nobility:

Last known sighting of the hill, lost in the dreich:

Saturday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

In the end, my body has cleverly taken over. I feel revoltingly ill. Everyone has their pain, don’t they? I never get headaches, for example. When my body is all packed up and tired and cross and worn out, I get a bashing ache all over my back, from stern to tip. I always describe it as if a very grumpy Shetland pony has kicked me all over. It’s the physical version of saying: stop.

The good thing about this is that I have to stop. No choice in the matter. I can’t really think about anything else, but lie like an old lady on the sofa, with the Pigeon slumbering under a blanket. Outside, the rain falls. I have a couple of disastrous bets which makes me think of dad. Definitely channelling his Saturday afternoon catastrophes.

I think of him. I think: a year ago today a flawed, funny man died. What was he else? Not like anyone else you ever met. So other really, that ordinary words aren’t much good for him. He was a bit wild, unconsciously unconventional, brave, generous, and oddly unworldly. He didn’t really understand about rules and divisions and social mores. Because of this, people put up with his sometimes slightly eccentric behaviour with smiles. He could light a room. All he wanted was a joke, a horse to ride, a woman to flirt with and a drink to drink. I sometimes wished for a more regular family life, but in the end, looking back, I think I probably got lucky. I get the different drummer, which is worth quite a lot of tea in China.

As I finished writing this, I went next door to watch the Scottish Grand National. There were a lot of hotly fancied horses running in it, some young stars from Cheltenham, some big money. An old Scottish fella called Merigo was trying to win it for the second time. He won two years ago, to tears and cheers in the winning enclosure, managed a gallant second last year, has done bugger all this year. He has a big old white face, and a huge great pair of quarters. He is eleven, which is getting on. I could not have a penny on him.

As my fancy pulled up before the fourth last, I suddenly saw the old white face cantering along on the outside. Other, younger legs were passing him, but he would not give up. He pulled into the lead, put in a couple of glorious leaps. Oh come on, Merigo, do it for Scotland, I shouted.

After four miles, his legs were tired. Pace goes, as they get older. A bright, dark bay horse went streaming past him, full of running. But Merigo loves Ayr; he runs better here than anywhere else. This is his race. He picked up, put his auld head down, and went for the line, refusing to be denied. He won by a short head. I shouted as if I had the house on him. I shouted for love. I love the old campaigners, the ones who aren't perhaps naturally brilliant, the ones who win on grit and heart and guts and sheer damn determination.

That feels like my rule for life today.

 

Only one picture today:

Is this normal?

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Quite a lot of the time, I want to ask: is this normal? I do this, or feel that, and I wonder if it is just what other people do or feel too. There is a great deal of back and forth, in my mind. Sometimes I could not think of a worse thing than being normal. One must be singular, surely, follow one’s own drummer. At other times, when I want to teach the world to sing, I think: I just want to be like everyone else. (Also, I suspect there are things which seem perfectly normal to me which other people would consider quite peculiar.)

Sometimes I like to imagine myself a creature of mysterious quirks. Look at me, defying convention. I eat soup for breakfast. I sing to my horse. (Last night, it was The Rhythm of Life, which she seemed to enjoy very much.) At other times, I think myself unexceptional, prey to the exact same hopes and fears and sorrows that all flesh is heir to.

I’m not sure if there even is a normal. Normal is just a random construct; a set of mores invented by the culture. Not that long ago, it was considered not normal for women to be educated. It was thought that our poor delicate little brains would be sent mad by philosophy. Now, ladies fly fighter jets and go into space and lead entire countries.

All of which is a very long way of saying: I really miss my dad.

Tomorrow will be the day he died. All week, a shadow has been hanging over me. The weather does not help. It has been brown and low and bleak and cold for days. There is rain and smudge and cloud everywhere I look. Very occasionally, in the evening, a shaft of sun breaks through, but it is the kind of sun that may not be trusted. It arrives, for a moment, to tantalise; to remind me what light feels like; and then it buggers off again, laughing heartlessly.

I have gone back into a bit of a fugue state. I have become afraid of sleep again. This happened in the first weeks after he died. Grief is tiring, and the one thing I would say to everyone, apart from make soup and plant trees, is: get enough rest. But I resisted sleep, in a horrible, self-destructive way.

There were two reasons. The first was because it felt too much like death itself. The second was that, in those minutes when you are in bed, before oblivion comes, the mind has no defences. In the day, there is action and purpose; there may be sadness, but it is accompanied by work and food and walking the dog and doing the garden. In those still moments at night, waiting for sleep to come, any thoughts may arrive, untrammelled and uncontained. That can feel quite frightening. Sometimes, I would sleep with the radio on, just to hear the reassuring voices of the BBC World Service, reporters telling stories of a distant place, enough to divert me.

Funnily enough, today I thought: after tomorrow, it will be fine. It’s just the approach to the dread day itself. It should not mean so much, but it does. It has become freighted with far too much significance. Once I get past the significant day, and out the other side, then I may go back to regularity.

So, I wonder, in my battered old brain: is this normal? Is this what happens to everyone? A lovely woman I know, who makes beautiful gardens, and is one of those people whose hands are always mapped with earth, in the way that I admire (my thing for dirty hands is growing into a small obsession) lost her mother not long after I lost my dad. I saw her on the last trip to the south. She is struggling with it all, battling to keep her head above water.

We talked of our departed, in that relieved way that you do when you find someone in the same boat as you, paddling hard. She suddenly leaned forward, looked at me urgently. ‘But,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand. I mean, everyone loses their parents.’

I knew exactly what she meant. It is one of the conversations I have with myself. It is so very, very ordinary. It is one of the most expected things in life. And yet, even though one knows that rationally, there is a part of the heart which is astonished, affronted, shocked and startled. As time moves on, and this odd shock subsides, usual life reasserts itself. The new knowledge settles. And then, every so often, out of the blue, I am assailed again by the strangeness, the gap where this person used to be, the rip in the fabric of the universe. It is so very ordinary, and so very extraordinary, all at the same time.

My old friend The Expat emails, from her faraway coast. She lost both her parents, the year before mine. I have been more than a little deranged, she writes. But, she adds, it does get better. This is what we do; two steps forward one step back. Compare notes. Send the love across entire oceans (six thousand miles from her front door to mine, but the love gets there anyway). Make the soup, plant the trees, love the dog, sing to the horse. Normal, schmormal. Keep buggering on.

 

Despite the weather, I did actually take some pictures today. Here they are:

My two girls, in elegant black and white:

You can see here the true nature of the dreich; just smoky cloud where the hill should be:

In brief

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The day escaped from me so this is very quick.

The weather continues atrocious, cold and bleak and unforgiving. I yearn and yearn for spring. A dolefulness from the unkind elements and the thought of the anniversary of my dad is seeping into my bones. It shall pass, but it is uncomfortable. The wise people say that that is the secret of life, to learn to sit with the uncomfortable things. I say: every day can't be Doris Day.

Luckily my horse is being particularly sweet today. She is gentle and kind; she walks by my shoulder without a headcollar; she does not complain of the cold and the rain.

My dog is also particularly sweet. She sleeps by my side all day as I wrestle with my work and gaze out over the sodden grass and the drowned trees.

I make pesto for supper, and have it with ravioli, so I suppose all is not lost. If I can still make pesto, there are signs of life.

Vaguely, I take in that everyone is very, very cross with the Home Secretary.

Better tomorrow, better tomorrow, runs the mantra in my head. Tomorrow, who knows, there may be sun, literal or metaphorical.

 

The weather was too filthy for pictures, so here are some recent ones:

Finding the one true note

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It’s dirty, visceral work, looking after a horse. I come home with filthy hands. For some peculiar reason, I regard this as a badge of pride. It is as if there is an authenticity, or an honesty, about something which leaves dirt under the fingernails. My girly swot side and my old dad side are having an argument: the first thinks the life of the mind is all that; the second has no time for book learning. Then I think: why can’t I have both?

An odd thing happened tonight. I almost do not want to admit to it. I am feeling a bit fragile, because it is coming up to the anniversary of my father’s death. I know it’s only a random number, but still. I feel it. I couldn’t sleep last night for missing my departed dog, who died just after him. I always feel a bit stupid, saying that. I mean because it’s obvious. Beloveds are gone, of course there shall be missing.

It’s just that it comes and goes, and when it comes, I have an odd need to mark it. I also need to be allowed to miss. Sometimes people worry if you admit to sorrow, or try and cheer you up. But grief has to be done. I feel that very strongly; in fact, after this whole year, it may be the one thing I do know. You can’t cut corners. You can’t cheat it. It’s not bad, actually, if you just damn well do it.

Anyway, the odd thing was that I went up to the field, and the mare walked away. Because of my fragile state, I took this very personally. Oh no, wailed the inner child, she does not love me any more. It took a minute for the inner adult to pitch up. The adult was amazingly reasonable. ‘She's a horse,’ said my grown-up. ‘She’s just doing horse stuff. Maybe she’s spotted something interesting in the east. Maybe she doesn’t want her hooves picked and her rug straightened.’

Luckily, I remembered something I had read on one of the natural horsemanship sites I found on the internet. In my day, there was no such thing as natural horsemanship; there were old men who whistled through their teeth when they groomed their charges, and that was about it. I think they might have been whisperers before whisperers were even invented. Anyway, this article had said something like: if you really want to bond with your new horse, ignore it.

It was worth a try. Luckily, I had the Pidge with me, and we went off for a tremendous walk, in the complete opposite direction from Red. After a bit, we were marching. Round the field, down to the south, across to the west, beating the bounds. I did not look directly at the mare, although I was monitoring her from the corner of my eye. She affected to ignore me too; then she started looking. She shook her head and turned away and suddenly did a little canter, a demonstration of high spirits, like a bronco.

All right, I thought. Come on, Pigeon. This way. On we went.

After about five minutes, I heard blowing behind my right shoulder. Red had come over, and locked on for a moment, walking beside me. I could feel her muzzle by my right hand. I turned away and continued walking. She moved away.

We went on like this for a while, back and forth, like a dance. Eventually, she was walking quite naturally and peacefully by my side. I stopped, and kept very quiet. She lowered her head. I put the headcollar on. Then I gave her the best groom she ever had, all over with the body brush, long even strokes. I did not pet or crowd her. After this, she offered her head to be scratched, and I found the spot behind her ears, and she stretched out her neck in ecstasy.

I was really glad I persevered. In the mood I was in, I might have just given up and stumped away. I would have gone home with a fist in my stomach, that awful balled up feeling of failure. As it is, I feel still and happy.

Horses are not cars; you can’t just switch them on and off. They have moods and freaks just like humans. Everything is still very new for this one, and I think perhaps she is still testing me out, to see if I will do, to see if I may be relied on. Always leave your horse on a good note, everyone has always said, and it’s true. I feared the good note might be elusive this evening, but it was there all along. It just took a little while to get there.

 

No time for the camera today, so here are a few pictures from the last couple of days:

Red:

Her view:

Pigeon:

The hill: