Bloody freezing

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It is freezing and grey and the bitterest of the bitter winds is howling out of the west. When I come inside it takes about five minutes for my fingers to get warm enough to type. It is the middle of May, I think, this is absurd.

Between the horse and the book and the weather, I have no space for knowing what is going on in the world. Rebekah Thing did something bad and everyone is very cross and she is cross that they are all so cross and so it’s grumpiness a go-go. Greece is going to crash out of the Euro again, and all the stock markets are panicking again, just as if this hasn’t been going on for the last three years. I know that we ladies are supposed to be the hysterical ones, on account of our hormones and our mysterious lady parts and our small pink brains, but the markets are still run in the main by men, and I never saw more collective vapours in my life. They shriek and jump every time they see a shadow on the wall; oh, no, was that rustling a mouse? Kill it, Reginald, KILL IT.

Sorry, I appear to be temporarily channelling Alec Guinness cross-dressing in an Ealing comedy.

The Pigeon, meanwhile, much more importantly, is moving into seen-it-all grand dame mode. She sighs at the black skies and stretches herself out in awful dignity and sometimes does a sort of great lady rumble. It’s the exact same noise that teddy bears used to make when I was a child, when you pushed their stomachs.

Red the Mare, fired by the wind, has cast aside all thoughts of being a duchess, and was observed in the field today doing circus tricks. When I went up just now she gave me a dopey look, as if butter would not melt in her mouth, and vamped for apples, but I know exactly what she has been up to all day. Apparently, it made the farmers fall about laughing. The idea of my mare entertaining the tough farming gentlemen is giving me inordinate delight.

Meanwhile, to take my mind off impending deadlines (the book, the book) I dream of the Lockinge on Saturday, and watch endless reruns of Frankel demolishing a top class field at Goodwood last summer. The more I watch him, the more I think, in terms of pure speed and class, he may be the greatest horse I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. There is something about his acceleration, when he stretches out his great, raking, dancing stride and goes into turbo-boost, that makes me gasp, no matter how many times I see it. He is officially rated the best horse in the entire world at the moment, ahead of the majestic Black Caviar, and I hope he lives up to his billing on Saturday. Sometimes all I ever want is to see a great champion being a champion.

 

For about seven minutes just now, the sun came out, and the Pidge and I ran out with the camera to get some pictures of the light for you:

Red the Mare:

The Pigeon, on the hunt:

Gazing regally to the west:

Sniffing the wind:

Two different views of the hill, today: