Tania Kindersley's Blog, page 54

Happy Birthday.

Today would have been my father’s 84th birthday. I sometimes think he should have lived to be a hundred, but the truth is that he hated old age. When he died, he was ready to go. He wasn’t even particularly ill. He was in hospital, but not for anything catastrophic. He sang a song he had just invented specially for the sweet Australian nurse who had taken his fancy – Dahlia from Australia, he sang. Then he drank some Guinness which was smuggled in for him. Then he said he was going to have a little sleep. He did not wake up.

It was a bloody brilliant way to go. There was no drawn-out departure, no beeping machines and snaking wires. For a long time, his bashed old body had been failing him. He was a physical man, strong and hard in his prime. Even when time put weight on him, his arms were still like steel hawsers, from years of holding strong horses. As he went into the twilight of age, all the crashing falls and breaks and dislocations caught up with him. He had, after all, broken his back and his neck twice. The bones protested and cried out. His back stooped and hunched. He could no longer do the things he wanted to do. He grew fretful and melancholy. He would have loathed being a hundred. He had run his race.

I think of him every day. I can hear his ghostly laughter, as the last leg of my 3000-1 accumulator gets beaten a short head. I remember him as I work my mare. I think the sole reason I got a horse after thirty years was to feel closer to the old horseman. The funny thing is that he was not a brilliant rider. He was not the most stylish, or the most technically accomplished. But he had such dash and courage and sheer guts that horses responded to him. They are telepathic creatures, instinctive herd animals. He gritted his teeth and threw his heart over those great birch fences, and the horses, infected by his Corinthian spirit, would have gone with him anywhere.

He never really knew what the internet was. He was the oldest of the old school. But the internet knows him. As I rummage about the Google, I find kind words and happy memories from Brough Scott and Martin Pipe and regular punters and people who lived in the Lambourn valley and the Amateur Jockeys’ Association, of which he was chairman.

There is an old tweet from George Baker, who trained Belle de Fontenay to win a charity race at Newbury run in my father’s name: ‘To win anything named after the legendary Gay Kindersley is a privilege.’ I remember George when he was a young racing fan, devoting every spare moment to rushing off to Sandown and Newbury. Eventually, he chucked in his sensible job and followed his dream, and last season he lived the very pinnacle of that dream, leading the doughty campaigner Belgian Bill into the winner’s enclosure at the Royal Meeting. He is exactly the same person as a professional as he was when he was a fan: smiling, enthusiastic, fired with love for the mighty speed and strength and courage of the thoroughbred. The thought of him remembering Dad is very touching.

More touching still, I discover a photograph on the Amateur Jockeys’ Association website, of the Fegentri World Cup at Goodwood. There is my dear old Fa, aged but still doing what he called his grinny face, having just presented the trophy. To his left is the winning trainer, John Hills. John died last week, at the absurdly young age of 53. His race was not run; it was cruelly cut short. He too was a horseman and a gentleman. He and his brothers were a pulling thread that ran through my childhood. I have snapshots of my head of them flinging their ponies over massive jumps at high speed. They rode like cowboys, with wild élan. In the sadness of John’s death, I find a glitter of light, as I see him smiling next to the auld fella, both of them brought back to vivid life.

Mortality tugs at my sleeve, as I think of the Dear Departed. There are too many of them. They no longer come as single spies, but as battalions.

I think of Dad, and wonder what he would say. He would sing a song, and laugh a rueful, self-mocking laugh, and drink a drink. He would not put it into so many words, but by example he would tell me to live every moment as if it were the last.

He never gave me any advice, except not to back odds-on favourites. Instead, he showed me many good life lessons by example. Be generous, laugh at yourself, never give up, always be the first to buy a round. He judged humans on their true selves, not inessential externals or societal yardsticks. He lived high life and low life and saw no difference between the two. He did not understand any set of rules, but made up his own as he went along. He had the wonderful talent of bringing fun with him, wherever he went. Soon after he died, I ran into a gentleman who had been a steward with him for many years. ‘Oh, your father’ he said, his eyes lit with memories. ‘Every time he walked into the stewards’ room, it was a party.’

I ponder the imponderables of life, and I know exactly what my Dad would say. He would say: ‘What the hell is going to win the 7.30 at Windsor?’

 

Today’s pictures:

Very young and rather serious. Top boot action:

He did a huge amount for the amateur riders, and he loved doing it. The jocks and everyone at the AJA loved him right back:

The old riding style makes me laugh and laugh. Several things about this picture bring me joy. There are the tremendous britches, Dad’s traditional gritted teeth, and the bright face and pricked ears of his horse. I’m not sure which one it was; I’ll have to ask my mum. She remembers them all. She was the one who had to watch him roaring over those obstacles at high speed, sometimes through her fingers:

He would have loved this beautiful girl:

You’ve all seen this one before, but it remains my favourite:

And many, many years later, at Goodwood, with age on his shoulders, but still that blazing grinny grin. Dad is second from the left, then the winning jockey, and then John Hills:

Friday.

Author’s note: I’m sorry to say this is not the most sparkling piece of prose I have ever written. I’m rather over-tired after a packed week, and even iron tonic cannot galvanise my brain. But I wanted you to have something, so I let it stand.

 

A long and busy week, but one filled with sweetness. A very old friend came to stay, and I remembered the keen sweetness of those long friendships which go back all the way. We first met almost thirty years ago at university. He was in the college next to mine and also read history and we made jokes about Lord Macaulay which we still remember with gusting laughter. I love that with someone like that you can pick up exactly where you left off, and nothing needs to be explained, and all is ease and understanding and comradeship.

The World Traveller and the Landlord came for cocktails, and we wickedly drank martinis on a school night, and all was merry as a marriage bell.

I took the old friend to see the Mother and Stepfather for breakfast. ‘Goodness,’ my mother said this morning. ‘So handsome and charming and easy.’ A palpable hit.

In the midst of all this sweetness, the red mare suddenly went hopping lame. She was picking up her hock so high it looked as if she had stringhalt. I went into a tendon panic, and got on the blower, and two vets arrived, shining with seriousness and expertise.

It turned out the lovely girl had developed an abscess. A great deal of paring and digging went on. I was so riveted by the process of cutting a hole in the hoof so the infection could escape that I went to stand by Red’s hindquarters to watch. The vets suddenly stopped what they were doing, astonishment spreading over their faces. ‘Look,’ said one to the other, pointing. ‘She is standing perfectly still and nobody is holding her.’ I felt as proud of the good mare as if she had won the Oaks.

Ground-tying is one of the things I had consciously taught her, but there is also a fascinating thing that she does when she is in need. She seems to know when I am trying to help her. Whether I am rushing down to fling on a rug in a sudden hailstorm, or putting wound cream on a cut, or applying fly repellent, I find her at her stillest and most accepting. I’m not sure I shall ever quite understand what horses know and what they do now, but I do believe that when something is wrong she senses I am there to make her better. It is an inexpressibly touching thing.

This morning, as I went down to put on a new poultice, she walked up almost completely sound. The abscess had drained, and the soreness had gone. You miracle girl, I thought, you heal as well as you do everything else. Is there nothing you cannot do? She even cleverly goes and puts herself in the shelter, instituting box rest of her own.

As there was no work to be done, we hung out. I always think this is one of the most important things you can do with your horse, although sometimes I get so carried away with riding and schooling that I forget it. It is part of my Zennish notion: sometimes, instead of doing, you can just be.

I took her out for a pick in the lush green grass of the set-aside. I groomed her all over and anointed her with balm to keep off the horrid flies. I chatted to her. She looked at me gravely and gave me her head so I could scratch her sweet spots. There was a spreading delight in doing absolutely nothing, under the bright Scottish sun.

How glorious she is, and how lucky I am. When I think of the whimsical sliver of chance that brought her into my life, I catch my breath. (I had not planned to buy a horse after thirty years of not having one; she was sold to go and play polo in China, only the man with the lorry never turned up.) I can’t imagine my days without her glimmering, benign, beautiful presence.

 

Today’s pictures:

Happy again, no longer in pain, having her morning pick:

The sweet Paint was also very calm and happy:

BLINKY EYES!!! They get me every time:

Friends:

The beech hedge has finally gone green:

The old friend brought flowers:

And I arranged some myself:

Sage from the garden:

Stanley the Manly was sadly unavailable for his close-up. He is hunting mice.

 

S

Not a blog. Just a little hymn of thanks.

Too busy to blog today. So much work, so few hours. But there is always time to go down to the field and get on the sweet mare. Even a half hour on her dear back acts as a lightning conductor for sanity. We did some thrilling high-energy free-schooling this morning. Whoop, whoop, I cried, as I cantered along with her, running over the green turf with the abandon of a child. Let it rip, I called, and she did, stretching out her strong body, as elemental as her wild ancestors. She was all freedom and power, and yet so responsive and clever that she came to a dead halt from a fast pace the second I stopped moving.

This never ceases to astonish me. It is perhaps the thing about working with thoroughbreds that is the most moving. They hold all the untrammelled wildness of their ancient ancestors, yet their minds are so brilliant that you can teach them to observe the most subtle human invitation. It’s a fascinating conflation of the entirely instinctive and the absolutely artificial. Human commands must be so odd to a horse, and yet they kindly obey them. I come back, time after time, to that willingness, that offering, and it never fails to lift my heart.

However tense and fretful I am, however stretched, however slightly panicked by all the things I must do, there is always the magical time, each day, with this good horse, as she does things I can hardly believe. She makes me laugh and she makes me proud and she makes me feel worth it. She raises me above the mundane, the quotidian, and takes me into a realm of her own, where none of the stupid small things matter. That is her extraordinary gift.

I never, ever take it for granted.

This is not the most beautifully composed picture I ever took, but I wanted to include it because it shows how dozy and relaxed she is after riding, and after that fast free-school. Common wisdom says a thoroughbred should be all hopped up on adrenaline by all that, and yet she stood dreamily for ten whole minutes whilst I trotted about, taking pictures of her. Low head, easy neck, donkey ears, soft eye, wibbly lip. My happy girl:

A day.

Breakfast discussing the European elections. Horses. Forty pages of editing. Happy bank holiday bets. The genius of McCoy, the prettiness of Cartmel. My treble comes in. People on the internet are funny and kind. Some are people I know, and some are people I do not know. They all make me smile. Stan the Man looks handsome. Gentle evening ride. The red mare has a go at spirited, but I persuade her that dozy old donkey is much better look, so she settles for that. Sunshine and oystercatchers and demure pigeons.

Just before I finish, I have a small shaft of inspiration. Now I know what I shall cut tomorrow. I am ruthless.

Stanley the Dog.

The red mare, with her duchessy sense of entitlement, does tend to colonise this blog. She gave me a ride this morning of such grace and ease and joy that I almost wept with delight. She was so relaxed that I let the rope rest on her dear neck and steered her with my body. An ex-racing thoroughbred, out in the wide open Scottish spaces, with no reins. A lady with a dog did look rather startled. Red gave her a yeah, well, whatever look.

Then we did a bit of a whooping sprint, just for fun. She really is quite fast. Feel the power, baby.

But she is not the only creature of my heart, and I thought that I’d do a little Stan the Man photo shoot, and give my lovely boy his moment in the sun. He did seem to rather enjoy the posing. He starts off with a rather contemplative look, as if he is pondering the Universal Why, then moves on to pure nobility, throws in a bit of quizzical, and ends on a laugh. He should be a supermodel.

It’s been a long week and I should continue flat out until supper, but I’m shattered, and I’m going to finish work now and watch the racing.

As I thrill to the speed and courage and beauty of the mighty thoroughbreds on Goodwood’s green turf, I shall be thinking of quite another horse, and quite another rider. I spent this morning at HorseBack with a very remarkable Marine. He is one of the most inspirational men I have ever met. He’s incredibly funny, incredibly kind, and he has no legs. And today, he started learning to ride. It was absolutely bloody brilliant.

I got very excited and took many pictures, and I’m putting up a link to them here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152413657640568.1073741948.197483570567&type=1

And here is Mr Stanley, in all his glory:

The mighty Marine:

And here is something we have not had for a while – the beautiful blue hill:

The kindness of strangers.

I was going to write a lovely, wandering blog for you about love, and the true meaning of the word amateur. I wrote it in my head as I was riding my red mare this morning. But it was a HorseBack day, and that ate up the hours, and I have absurd amounts of work still to do, and miles to go before I sleep.

So there is hardly time for words.

My glorious girl was at the height of her magnificence today. We had one of those rides that live in the memory. A beautiful, athletic walk, some dandelion dressage, a delightful collected canter, and then I let her go and she put her sprinting shoes on and I felt her power. For a moment, I thought I’d given her too much rope, and we would end up in Coull. But even as she hit full stretch, the moment I said ‘walk’, she walked. Oh, the cleverness of her. I was so proud I practically fainted.

She also made me laugh helplessly. After yesterday’s old person Rocky Horror Show, she has clearly done some hard thinking. As we wandered down the lime avenue, all dozy and in harmony and on the buckle, I spotted a horde of ramblers. Ramblers!!! With their mysterious poles and their ordnance survey maps and their hidden agenda. (I am convinced there is something the ramblers are not telling.) They were also, shall we say, of a certain age. Not quite old enough to have been in the SOE, like the ones yesterday, but not in the first flaming flush of youth. What would the red mare do with her new terror of the oldsters?

Answer: give them a courteous, faintly dismissive nod of her duchessy head, and walk past without so much as a blink.

This makes her three act opera of yesterday even more mysterious. Perhaps it is part of her mission to keep me from falling into complacency. Perhaps I got it quite wrong, and she was not alarmed at all, but merely acting out the vicissitudes of modern life through the medium of interpretive dance.

Anyway, since I have no time for words, I’m going to hand over to a Dear Reader. The comments that come here make me smile, astonish me with their generosity, and often cause me to laugh out loud. I love them all. Sometimes I get one that flies through the ether like an arrow to my bashed old heart. I get one that makes me feel keenly the kindness of strangers, and makes me realise that all this wandering about on equine tangents does actually have a point. As you know, I often wonder what the point of this whole shooting match is, and why I do it. I have no good answers to those questions. But sometimes, the Dear Readers reassure me that perhaps there is a point.

Yesterday, I got this:

‘Five in the morning here and I am belly laughing so hard one of my baby cats came running to see if I was having a seizure. These wonderful, magical creatures provide the best therapy. I mean the horses, not the baby cats. My trainer and I have worked mostly on desensitising, too, this past year - the mare needed the kitchen sink kind of stuff and I had to learn how to overcome my fear of horses in general and this thoroughbred in particular. We are at a nice place now; I trust her enough to get on her back and she has learned that I will not spook so bad so as to cause her a heart attack! In fact last week, she even decided I was ready to try to hang on while she jumped an exercise pole. Smart mare! I did not leave the saddle. So we are making progress. Plus, those feel- good hormones all the baby books promised would flood my system when presented with my newborn which never materialised, are now making an appearance every time I show up at the barn and she runs toward me. This mare could be the greatest love of my life. She has taught this 47 year old woman with an acute fight or flight response to chill the shizz out, as the kids would say. Heading into open heart surgery in the next week or so to fix a congenital heart condition so my riding will have to be put on hold for a couple of months, but sure would appreciate the link to the decent forum of which you speak. I have noticed during my short time as a horse owner that there are a lot of crazies out there and figure I actually don't need to add to my own particular brand. Thank you, Tania. I found your blog last September and you have been my inspiration in all things equine.’

There are several things I love about this, not least the baby cats. I love that someone else of my exact age, many miles away, is going through the same sort of journey. I love that the story is so sweetly shared. I love that across an ocean, someone else, of whom I would have known nothing if it were not for the miracle of the internet, also has a mare who is the love of her life. I love that suddenly, almost shockingly, there is the shining note of stoicism, as open-heart surgery is glossed over as if it is nothing more than going to the shops.

Thank you Elyse. You made my day.

I assume you are across an ocean, because you use the word barn, and smart to mean clever. I’d love to know more about you and your mare and where you both live, and I hope your operation goes well and you are back in the saddle soon.

And while I’m on the subject: thank you all, Dear Readers, for coming back, for being kind, and for so graciously putting up with all my nonsense.

 

Today’s pictures:

After our perfect ride, quite pleased with herself:

Waiting politely outside the shed, as I made breakfast. Raincoat on, as the mercury has plunged to a paltry eight degrees and it is going to rain all day and all night:

Having a little doze, as I appear to be taking my time:

Is it ready yet?:

Please say it’s ready:

YES!!!! BREAKFAST!!!!!:

The sweet Paint:

In other news, the lilac is out:

And finally, one of my HorseBack pictures. I was quite pleased with them today:

PS. Back with the PEN today. The smart loaned Nikon is smart, and the quality of pictures is probably better and sharper. But the dear, battered old PEN does do something magical with colours, and I’m quite tempted to stay loyal to it.

PPS. Whilst I am on the subject of pictures: Blogger has started doing something peculiar with my photographs. It seems to do a sort of auto-enhance as it publishes, like Google Plus does. I hate this, as I edit my pictures very carefully, and get the exact right mix of light and shade. Also, the enhanced pictures sometimes end up having far too much grain in them, which drives me nuts. I can’t find a relevant settings button, and wondered if there were any fellow bloggers out there who know about this oddity.

Ha. Turns out there were quite a lot of words, after all. Same old, same old.

A very shaggy horse story.

You know when the telegrams have to be sent to the Smugpot address? Yesterday was in danger of being one of those days.

I’d worked out some knotty writing conundrums, done some good HorseBack work, snapped some photographs I was quite proud of, and taken my mare out for a rather dreamy ride. There was hardly any head-shaking and a lot of long, swinging, athletic walking on a lovely loose rein. She then stood perfectly for fifteen minutes when I went down to talk to my mother. Finally, to put the smug cherry on the smug cake, she did not blink as a socking great dustbin lorry shuddered and groaned past her.

There is a very lovely thoroughbred forum to which I belong. It is one of the very few horse places on the internet where people do not shout at each other about rugging decisions. Or about anything, in fact. It is mostly a festival of love, for the ex-racing horses who give so much joy. It is a celebration of others’ triumphs, as someone takes their mare across country for the first time, or sends their kind gelding through an immaculate dressage test. At the same time, it is rather a brave place, as people admit to sudden catastrophic loss of nerve, or riding disasters, or an inability to strike off on the right lead. Then everyone gathers round, with sage advice and generosity of heart. Don’t worry, they all say (I often say) it’s happened to us too; you will get through it.

The smugpot came because of the pincer action of the dustbin lorry, in life, and some lines on the road, on the internet.

One of the thoroughbred forum ladies had posted a very comical picture of her mare, unmounted, looking absolutely horrified. The horror had come because the council had, overnight, painted bright red lines on the road. The mare said: MOUNTAIN LIONS AHEAD. The lady had to get off and lead her shaking girl past. Everyone thought it hysterical, and posted their own road line stories, which were legion. There were the usual jokes about a horse deciding that one daisy was the most frightening thing in the world. (I do find these equine jokes very funny.) I remembered the days when the red mare used to reverse, downhill, at top speed, because she had spotted a shaft of sunlight glinting on water.

But the idiot hubris came because I thought: we don’t do that any more. We can ride past honking dustbin lorries without flicking an ear. It’s because of all the desensitising. Last summer, the Remarkable Trainer, the Horse Talker and I set up a perfect carnival of terrifying objects, from flags to pilates balls to hula hoops to shower curtains to those silvery capes that marathon runners drape themselves in after a race. We threw everything but the kitchen sink at the red mare, and she learnt that mountain lions were not, in fact, hiding behind every tree. The idea of desensitising is not to teach horses never to be frightened, but to teach them that fear does not kill them. In this way, they grow in confidence and sense of self, and the spooking becomes a thing of the past.

Yes, I thought, bullishly, my brave girl can deal with anything now. We still have our rank failures, but leaping four feet in the air at the sight of a whirring pheasant is no longer on the list of shame.

Then, this morning, just as we were doing some dandelion dressage, changing direction with steering so accurate and light that I thought she had been hanging out with the dressage squirrels again, she found something that still terrified her out of her duchessy wits.

It was – old people.

The old people were quite a long way away. They were really very old. I could imagine them in the war. She would have been at Bletchley, and he was surely on some hush-hush military liaison job in the back streets of Cairo. They were smartly dressed, with none of the garish lycra of which the duchess disapproves. They seemed entirely innocuous.

But it turned out that they were more scary than Scary McScary of the Clan Fear.

Up went the red head, the neck braced. She did her thing of growing a hand under me. Her ears were hard forward, locked in on the petrifying geriatrics. The snorting could be heard three counties away. All her good concentration fled, as she focused in profound alarm on the threat.

‘They are just old people,’ I said, out loud.

Oh, no, she said. Are you mad? They are clearly part of a plot, undercover operatives for Al Quaida or Horse and Hound. They may not be people at all. They may have been kidnapped by space aliens and replaced by pods.

I turned her in a few circles, to get her mind back on the job.

BUT THE OLD PEOPLE, she shouted.

Let’s do a nice figure of eight, I said. Let’s do some lateral flexion.

Flexion, schmexion, she yelled.

I had almost persuaded her that in fact we were not about to be invaded by ancients bent on destruction, when the old people, who were clearly very cunning, did an abrupt turn and changed direction.

OH MY GOD, hollered the red mare.

By this time I was laughing so much that I practically fell off.

It took me about five minutes to settle her, and then she abruptly forgot the whole thing and walked kindly back on the buckle. I like to think I’m getting pretty good at the whole horse psychology lark, but I still have absolutely no idea what all that was about. If I did not know better, I’d say that she had been up all night reading the internet and had decided to have a little joke with me.

Still, what she did do, which she always does, is send the smugs running for the border. And she made me laugh and laugh. You can’t ask for much more than that.

 

Today’s pictures:

Are not in fact from today, as I forgot to put the memory card in.

 

Writing and life.

I suddenly remember about editing. It is thinking.

One of the odder things about writing for a living is that so much of the good work goes on away from the desk. I like to be sitting and typing and staring at my screen. This makes me feel as if I am doing something real and proper.

But so much of writing is dreaming. I had forgotten, oddly, about that.

Yesterday, I was hunched forward over the computer, trying to dig the bones out of this messy book. I went back and forth and could not see what needed to be done. I even tried reading the hard copy, which brings a slightly different perspective, but there was nothing doing. I spun my wheels and felt useless.

This morning, I had to run errands. Halfway to Banchory, I suddenly got it. It was the mother.

Then I got on the mare and took her out for one of our old lady ambles. I’ve worked out that I think she has a pollen allergy, which is where her resistance and the sometime head-shake comes from. If I take her out in a slow walk she is fine. It’s the faster paces which bother her. So our summer schooling programme is gone, and we are just going to mooch around, as if we are home on the range. It’s rather lovely, actually. I sit happily in the saddle and listen to her soft hoofbeats and let her stretch out her aristocratic neck and watch the blue hills go by.

Because I don’t have to think about riding her in this slow state, I can let my mind go free. More serious editing decisions came tumbling into my mind. It will not be easy, but I can at last see a way through. The dawning Eureka moments both came when I was nowhere near my desk. This feels like some kind of good life lesson.

Then I went back to HorseBack, after two weeks away. Two of my favourite veterans were there, their smiles as dazzling as the Scottish sunshine. A brilliant cowgirl from Colorado was there. Two Royal Marines were there. All the good horses were in, getting ready for a course, dozing sweetly in the bright light. I thought then only of the stories of that place which I must tell, and went home and spent far too many hours writing them. It’s a different kind of writing, and a different kind of thinking. The hours are worth it, because the veterans and servicemen and women I see there are so remarkable that I must do them justice.

One of the things that struck me, as I drove home, is how easy it is to forget what they have been through. When I first went to HorseBack, I was afraid of physical injury. I was horribly British and embarrassed. I did not know where to look, when I met someone with bits missing. I kept hearing the old Fawlty Towers line in my head: don’t mention the war. I am now so used to being around people with lost legs or disappeared fingers or a nose that has gone that I don’t even notice it. I see the person, not the injury. The person is transfigured by war; the scars are there. But at the same time, that person is still whole and capable and funny and brilliant and goofy and complex. Yet, I think, I must not tumble into an error on the other side. Just because I no longer see the wounds, it does not mean they did not happen. These veterans make it all look easy, because they are so stoical and sunny and they keep up a constant stream of jokes. It is not easy. They still have hard battles to fight. They fight them with astonishing grace.

I silently take off my hat.

 

Today’s pictures:

After the sweet ride.

Goofy face:

Now I’m going to eat the shed face:

Pretty face:

Even prettier face:

The cowgirl from Colorado:

The nobility that is Stanley the Dog:

This new camera is interesting. The colours come out completely differently. Both Stanley and the mare are much redder in life than in these pictures. I quite like the muted effect, although I’m not certain why it should be so.

A hard edit.

Back into harness I go. The notes on the book are in and I must do the hard edit. I wrote a ridiculous number of words, and many of them must be slaughtered. Usually, I get around this horror by creating a dead darlings file, where all the slashed paragraphs may go. This eases the pain. But today I find that every damn line appears to be a darling and I cling onto them all with crabbed fingers. I see the thing is far too baggy and self-indulgent, but I can’t see where to put the knife in. I must summon my ruthless self. That muscle is flaccid, and I must stretch and bend until it is hard and taut again.

Oddly enough, my physical muscles are in pretty good shape. This is most unusual for me, since for years I eschewed any kind of exercise as the height of vulgarity. (That was my excuse and I was sticking to it.) The mare got me fit without even meaning to. It’s not just the riding, it’s the daily moving about, the carrying and the lifting, all the ordinary work that goes into caring for a horse in all weathers. At the age of forty-seven, I have a body that works again. I went for a delightful Sunday ride yesterday, and I was suddenly aware of the luxury of physical efficiency. It is the only area in my life where I am efficient. This leg knows where to go, that arm understands what it must do, this back instinctively goes the right way. When I am on a horse, I feel at home, as if my ligaments and sinews had been designed with an equine in mind. I am not a brilliant rider, but when I am in the saddle I am at ease, as if it is where I belong.

Now I need to cudgel my mind into the same state for editing. Writing a first draft is a wild gallop. The most important thing is to let yourself go. Throw the reins at the thing, and kick on. Editing is like dressage, a matter of fierce control and discipline. I feel like a brumby who has suddenly been sent to Carl Hester. I want to buck and bronc, but I must learn flying changes. I suspect it may take a day or two. And a great deal of iron tonic.

 

Some quick pictures from the last few days:

In which the kick has gone.

A bit despairing today. I am like my mare: I can bear one thing, I can bear two things; it is the third thing which tips me over.

Despair is an interesting word, but it is the one I want. It indicates a kind of melancholy infected with hopelessness. It is most unlike me. It makes me realise how lucky I am, because generally I am cheerful and hopeful. I am always a bit bashed and battered around the edges, but the hopefulness keeps my engine chugging along.

There is hope, every day. There is hope that I shall write a singing sentence. There is hope that I shall do something joyful with my red girl. (This hope is, every day, fulfilled. Just think of that for a moment. I think of it. I think of it with awe.) There is hope that I shall make my mother laugh, which is important, because most of her body hurts. (Eat your calcium, I want to say to the young, banting girls. Or your poor old bones will break in a distant future you cannot imagine.) There is hope that the sun might shine, that Stanley the Dog will at last find that mouse in the feed shed, that I shall back the winner of the 2.15 at York. There is hope that I may finally, finally, answer the question of the Universal Why.

Today, there is no hope. Someone came in the night and stole it away.

Today, I am useless and pointless and feckless and there is no good in me.

Even as I write that, the voice of the older generation comes into my head, the voices of my old gentlemen, my Dear Departed. They would not say so, because they are too polite, but they would regard this as sheer self-indulgence. I can feel their stoicism, that finest of virtues, flying out of the ether. Press on, they would say. Kick on, they would say. Worse things happen in Chad.

I am usually so good at kicking on. I am slightly ashamed to say I quite pride myself on it.

Today, there is no kick. My kick has gone, galloped off over the horizon to join the circus.

Ah well. I expect it shall come back tomorrow. The circus is, it will learn, a load of buggery bollocks. It will return, slinking back with its tail between its legs.

It’s just life, I tell myself.

I tell myself, ruefully, that I am human. There is no defeat in that. Sometimes, oddly, paradoxically, bafflingly, it feels like a defeat.

 

Today’s pictures:

At least there are pictures. There is my one true thing, my many true things – the growing things, the beloved things.

This photograph is blurry and all out of kilter, but I love it because it shows Stan the Man in all his quiddity:

These are of the garden. The garden is a mess. It is one of my despairs. In my frantic work drive, something had to give, and one of those things was the garden. It is where the wild things are. Yet it still has these beauties in it:

My girl: