A good, good day

A new definition of tired. This is maddening, since there are about twenty-seven things I want to tell you. But I’ve been at HorseBack UK nearly all day, doing the usual work for them, but this time also riding Western. I cannot tell you the big whoop this creates in my mind.

They were running a UK Coaching Certificate course, so the members of the team and volunteers would have an official teaching qualification. For this, the students needed guinea pig riders to teach, and I stuck my hand up so fast it practically fell off.

Although there are cross-overs, riding Western is pretty different from riding English, and if I had not been concentrating so hard, I would have felt like an absolute eejit. As it was, I learnt something wonderful and new, was taught brilliantly, and had the great privilege of riding the magnificent Archie, an Anglo-Arabian gelding of vast grace and kindness.

I would love to write you through every jot and tittle of the day, and all the things I saw and all the things I learnt, but there is the click click click of my cerebellum switching itself off.

It’s not just the riding and the learning and the concentration and the work. I am an introvert, and being surrounded by people all day always takes it out of me. This is often quite difficult to explain, and can even sound rude. The fact that after company I need to go and sit quietly in a room is a very peculiar one. It also holds the counter-intuitive element that the more fascinating and charming and delightful the company, the more shattered I am. This is because, among such people, I am so interested and engaged and enthusiastic that all my reserves are emptied, and the needle is firmly on red.

So all I can say now, as the light turns a low amber outside, and the first of the spring birds sing their gentle evening song, is that it was the very crest and peak of a good day. On so many levels that I cannot count the ways.

Today’s pictures:

HorseBack UK:

The utterly lovely Archie, putting up with my amateurishness so kindly:

Back at home, Autumn the Filly was doing blinky eyes:

Two Myfanwys today, specially for her top fan (you know who you are):

And Mr Stanley, about whom more stories have been requested. They shall soon be furnished:

And my best beloved, who had a perfectly lovely afternoon getting covered in mud. Almost nothing happier than a perfectly filthy thoroughbred, as spring begins to lend her some warmth and some green shoots of grass:

The hill, still doggedly covered in snow:

So tired that, reading this through, I cannot tell if it makes any sense. I am certainly not offering you any dazzling prose. But there, sometimes a bald, descriptive sentence may be enough, even if it does not sing off the page. Or so I fondly hope.

One small step

The week gathers itself on its haunches like a barrel racer and charges down the course. (Always good when I start on a really strained simile.) I dream of mastering the art of time management. It remains a dream.
There were about twenty things I wanted to tell you but after a long HorseBack morning and some vital logistics, and ordinary things like doing the herd and eating actual lunch, I can’t remember any of them. My poor old fingers stutter and scratch over the keyboard, no more strength left in them.

It is at this stage that I think: enough, I’ll start again in the morning. The interesting thing about the morning is that it usually dawns bright and dazzling with hope. Very, very occasionally I wake to dull grumps; most mornings, even in the filthy weather, there is some kind of song in my heart. Sometimes I even do actual singing with my actual voice. (Good morning, Starshine is my favourite for starting the day.) By the late afternoon, I am running on empty and prone to tired moments of pessimism. But in the morning, everything is possible again. This feels like a bit of a miracle and a bit of a gift, and is the sort of horse I should not look in the mouth.

There was work; the meeting of interesting new people; the observing of officialdom in action. Officialdom both is and is not everything one might expect. Boxes are literally ticked; acts of parliament are cited. But there is less jargon that I might have thought, and some reason to go with the rhyme.

I also got one very good life lesson from my mare. I love it when she teaches me life lessons, and always need to write them down so I should not forget.

I was working her on the ground this morning, when I spied an excellent obstacle. Taking her across alarming terrain is really good training for us both, and builds trust. This one was a deep double rut, where tractors had carved through black mud. It was rough and uneven and steep, and filled with water. Horses generally do not like water; it’s to do with the fact they have very poor depth perception. They can be spooked by shadows on the ground for the same reason.

Hurrah, hurrah, I thought. Terrifying obstacle. Up went my dander. Forward I marched, when I suddenly felt a pull at the lead rope. When I lead Red, I walk ahead, not looking back; she is on a loose rein and I know by feel how she is doing. The taut rope is very rare, and this was very taut indeed. I looked back to see her planted, head in the air, eyes rolling, every muscle in her big, athletic body saying NO NO NO.

There is absolutely nothing you can do physically with a horse in that condition. It is half a ton; you are ten stone. Your puny plan is worthless. You cannot pull it or force it. I would have to think with my brain.

A journey starts with a single step, I thought. I went back to her, gentled her, and asked for one step forward. That was all I wanted. I forgot the Terrifying Obstacle. Just give me a single step. She, being generous and good, gave it. I congratulated her as if she had won The Oaks.

Then one more step asked for. Kindly given. Vast love and praise.

One more, then two. Then I let the rope out, beamed confidence and goodness at her with every atom on my body, walked across the Terrifying Obstacle, and she came gently and easily with me.

Suddenly, the Terrifying Obstacle went from being a big challenge to being a joyful game. We walked back and forth over it, we did little hops and skips through the mud, we splished and sploshed through the once-scary water. We colonised that damn obstacle, until it was our spiritual home.

I could not have been happier with her than if she had completed a perfect dressage test.

My life lesson was: break it down. Go back to the very, very small elements of what you want to do. I suspect this is not startling or new, but it felt rather revelatory to me. I think that clever shrinks and life coaches and people who know about this stuff do talk about this. In the equine world, good horsemen speak of never over-facing your horse; only ask it what it can do. By going back to one small step, the wider goal was suddenly unimportant, and so was easily and gracefully reached.

There was also a horse lesson, which is: listen to that equine. She was telling me something. She was saying: you can’t just spring stuff on me and expect me to deal with something big like that with no warning. (She also may have been saying: I’m far too much of a duchess to be dragged through hock-deep mud.)

She was asking for reassurance, which is why I went back to her so that we could do it together. In the old school of horsemanship, it might have been thought that she was being nappy or difficult or naughty or bolshy. The old school might have been tempted to punish or berate her.

She wasn’t being bad. She was just asking me for a bit more attention and care, and once I gave it, her trust rose, and harmony broke out, and everything was possible. I heard her voice, and she gave me, in return, a great big existential gift. It was one of the best bargains I ever struck.
 
Today’s pictures:

A very quick selection, as that was rather a long blog, after all that, and my brain really is shutting up shop:









My best and most brilliant beloved:



Stanley the Dog, showing that as well as Butch Burt he can do wistful. Bit more like Montgomery Clift here, I think:



HorseBack UK morning:











The dear old hill:

Back to normal

Settled back into my routine at last. Which is: work and horses and dog. I’m still in a slight professional limbo, waiting for verdicts on new projects, and can feel the stress of it tighten in my shoulders and press down over my head.

As always, the very small things give me pleasure, while I wait for green lights. Someone said a kind thing about the work I do for HorseBack UK; keenly sweet to me, as he is not a person given to rash compliments. I stored it up like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter.

Someone I very much admire wanted to be a friend on Facebook. I’m not even quite sure how she knows I exist, but now she shall see pictures of Red the Mare looking happy and glamorous and the little Welsh pony being adorable and Stanley the Dog looking like Burt Lancaster. This gives me idiot amounts of joy.

It makes me think about the sharing of a life. I have a small life. I like that it is small. When I was young, I had grandiose ideas of doing mighty things. I would win prizes and people would know my name. Now, as regular readers know, all I care about is love and trees. I have nothing particularly fascinating to report, no meetings with famous men or encounters with storied women. I do not stalk the corridors of power; I cannot give you inside information on great events.

And yet, I find something touching about the quiet, unheralded lives which may be seen on the internet. I like to know that my blogging friend in California has taken her glorious Dalmatians through Laurel Canyon, or is cooking a delightful new recipe. I cherish charming Facebook pictures of people’s morning views, or chickens, or dogs, or equines. My other great blogging friend, met entirely through the internet with no connection at all in real life, is currently struggling with a mystery pain. I read of her battle and sympathise and feel a curious connection through the ether to an interesting, intelligent woman I may never set eyes on.

This feels like something real and oddly significant. It is a widening of community, not a shrinking of it, as the crosser commentators like to insist. There is an odd zero sum thinking, when it comes to the internet, as if any life online must nullify life in the actual world. It’s very curious, when you think about it. It’s like saying that reading a book means you are replacing real living with fiction. I say: there is room for both. There is room for everything.

Occasionally, one of the Dear Readers, who does not live surrounded by hills and sky, will leave a comment saying how livening it is to see those things. I put up pictures of the hill for those who have no hill. In my mind, the hill, symbolically, belongs to everyone. It is the Universal Hill. I am not trying to prove a point or convert anyone to my way of seeing the world or start hares running. It is the simple sharing of a life, in its plainest sense. If one shard of pleasure shoots into another life, then my work is done. It is: here is an amusing canine, here is a lovely horse, there is a charming tree. Rest your eyes for a moment, and be diverted.

 

Today’s pictures:

One of my favourite of the HorseBack UK horses, a delightful South American veteran, who came out of polo to do this new, good work:

My own favourites, loafing in the sunshine, which has suddenly appeared after last night’s snow:

Stanley the Dog, doing slightly plaintive:

(Or: when are you going to stop faffing around with that camera and THROW MY STICK?)

First signs of spring:

Hill:

Home

Pretty snowy over the Cairn O’Mount, but got safely home. All family sweetly gathered, including great-nieces and nephew. Two people very pleased to see me. One jumped four feet vertically in the air; the other went to sleep on my shoulder. You can guess which was which.

In turnaround

Still on the road. About to turn round and drive back. Ghastliness replaced by sweetness of old friendship. Also, perspective police knocked, quite firmly.

This was what I saw, coming down:

Looking into Perthshire, over the Cairn O’Mount.

Ghastliness

Ghastly day. Almost all ghastliness derived from my own unparalleled stupidity, which of course made it worse. Few things more ghastly than ghastliness for which you may ONLY BLAME YOURSELF. How I long to get cross with someone else, but I may not. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Miss this person:

On the road again

So no blog.

Instead, here is a picture of Jura the HorseBack UK puppy, with his very special friend Charlotte.

Charlotte is also my friend. She is a writer too. Sometimes, we discuss our work together. Sometimes, we talk about the dogs and the chickens.

No blog today

Too much life and work, and not enough time.

Here are two of the sweetest sights I saw today - my two mares blissfully enjoying a graze of actual grass. After a long winter, much of it with the ground under snow, even the best hay grows dull. Taking them out of the paddock for a pick is like taking them to Claridge’s for lunch.

Myfanwy, with the very chic Pony Whisperer:

(I really think there is something of classic Audrey Hepburn about that hat.)

And Red the Mare, who was immaculate today, and won six gold stars. Although officially there are only five stars on offer, sometimes, like in Spinal Tap, they go up to six, and this was one of those days:

Life and horses and hats

Real life and work are rather getting in the way of the blog. I am running around, perennially about fifty minutes behind. I make lists in my head and then forget them and then yell, internally: Bugger it. But the sun shines and the snow continues to melt and I work well with my mare.

She throws down a bronco challenge; spring is in her, and she decides to put on a little show. I deal with it, look at her beadily, and say: is that the best you’ve got? It’s always good when a session is not perfect; it’s only when they do something unexpected that you know exactly what it is you can deal with. She’s never mean or aggressive. She’s not being naughty or defiant. She’s just doing the things that horses do. And sometimes she likes to remind me that she damn well is a thoroughbred, however much she does a bit of a donkey impression from time to time.

I sometimes think the mistake people make with horses is to let the ego rule the day. The humans make it all about themselves. That horse, they say, through gritted teeth, is trying to get away with it, making a monkey of me, taking the piss. Actually, horses have no concept of piss-taking. (Although I do maintain that Red has a fairly well-developed sense of humour.) They are just being their equine selves.

Mostly, they are trying to tell you something. What Red told me this morning, as she leaped and bucked on the end of her rope, was that it is spring, and she’s been standing still in a snowy field for too long, and she’s got twinkles in her toes, and she would really like to be galloping about instead of trotting in collected circles.

And I told her: that’s all very well, madam, but we are actually following my plan, and this is what I would like you to do now, and once you’ve done it, you can gallop your head off. So I got her back and finished the work and by the end she had her dozy old head down and was paying attention to me and all was fine and well.

Still running late, I went up to HorseBack. The minute I was out of my field and in the car, all the To Do lists came swarming back into my head like angry bees. Then I spent half an hour talking to my friend in the cowboy hat about horses, and how they think, and how humans can read them like good books, if only we may take the time. Some people don’t want to take down that book and slowly read. But I do. It’s a book of which I never tire and from which I learn every day.

And then I felt soothed and better, because it was a good conversation with a clever man, and a fascinating session with an interesting horse, and all the To Do Lists can go hang.

 

Today’s pictures:

My mother’s Easter table, from yesterday’s lovely lunch:

The man in the cowboy hat:

Quite hard to believe that this person is capable of leaping three feet in the air when the mood takes her. I rather love it that she is:

Hill: