Tania Kindersley's Blog, page 72

In which I did not intend to write about the news.

The day goes:

Red the Mare, breakfast with The Mother, where Stanley the Dog and Edward the Puppy wrestle and play and fall more in love by the moment, HorseBack work, sweet interlude with the Younger Niece. Goodness, she does make me laugh. 1245 words of book. One small bet at Worcester. (It won.) Rather amazingly, LOBSTER for lunch. The local fishmonger has it on special offer and it’s cheap as chips, fresh off their own boat, and so delicious I don’t know what my name is. Lobster here normally is shipped off to Spain and France: they are eating our crustaceans in the Alfonso XIII and the George V. Rather a lot of Mozart. (Good for the thinking parts of the brain.) The usual amount of procrastination. I have two horrid pieces of admin which my recalcitrant brain absolutely refuses to deal with.

I think about the news. It is dark and fraught. When I started this blog, I had a lot to say about the events of the day. I liked to think of myself as an engaged and concerned citizen. Now, there is hardly time for the news: the work at HorseBack, the day job, the mare, the family, the dear canine take all my hours.

But I sometimes think that is a bit of an excuse. I catch fleeting glimpses of the horrors in Syria and turn my head away. I can’t really deal with it. The opinionated people all have their stern opinions; they are very sure of the things they are so sure of. I used to be a liberal hawk. How soothing that was. Of course the West must march in and create happy democracies where women and minorities may be free. What an idiot I was. Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arab Spring showed the labyrinthine impossibilities of any such simple solutions.

I know a lovely man who is employed as a top political operative with responsibility for advising on the Middle East. He is as clever and thoughtful and nuanced as anyone I know. He has fought bravely and well in battle. He has all the credentials one could wish. He said to me, not long ago, quietly, ruefully, a tinge of despair in his voice: ‘there is no solution to the Middle East.’ I’m not sure how many people in Britain can even imagine the tribal complexities and religious convolutions that obtain there. All I know is that innocent people in Syria are dying hideous and needless deaths, and no amount of sabre-rattling or summits or presidential telephone calls or recalling of parliament can make much difference.

Funny, I was really not going to write about that. I was just going to give you a quick canter through my own, tiny day, and put up a dog picture or two. But I caught the news headlines, and it made me think of the vast spaces of impossibility with which the ordinary brain is faced, as the global events are beamed hourly at ordinary citizens from radio sets and television screens and the winding trails of the internet. What can one person do, when the world swings crazily to hell and back?

That is why I cling to the smallest of small things, or I should run mad. It’s not just the love and the trees, although those are important, to quiet a frenzied mind. One individual might not to be able to save the world, but a single human can give and receive love and that’s not nothing. It’s also, perhaps more importantly, the work I do up the road. HorseBack itself is only a small charity, although I suspect it shall grow, and the model may be replicated. At the moment, each year, it takes a limited number of injured servicemen and women, and veterans fighting their lonely battle with PTSD. But it touches actual lives, ones which may have seemed shattered almost beyond repair, and gives hope. So, I can’t solve Syria, any more than the best brains of their generation can, but I can make my own small contribution to that proper cause. Even so, it feels a little paltry. But I think it has to be enough.

 

Today’s pictures, of some of my small things:

Two damn typos yesterday. How polite you were not to point those out, and laugh and mock. I have a horrible feeling there might be more today. Never, ever, enough time, especially not for proper proof-reading. I know I say that imperfection must be embraced, but there are limits. So, usual apologies for potentially flawed prose.

There’s something about mares. Or, one for the girls.

In the horse world, just as in the human one, there is prejudice against the female of the species. Mares are widely supposed to be hormonal, unpredictable, difficult and generally unreliable. My experience is that the complete opposite is true.

I’ve been having a ball with the girls over the last couple of days. On Sunday, a delightful filly called Miss Dashwood, trained by the most excellent James Fanshawe, roared from last to first in the Goodwood sunshine, producing a withering burst of speed in the final yards to catch the long-time leader. According to her yard, the next day when she was taken out for a gentle recuperative walk after her great efforts, she ‘looked very pleased with herself.’ I know that look. Then, yesterday, in the Amateur Derby, run at Epsom over the same distance as the actual Derby, Mr Patrick Mullins was up on another lovely, determined filly called Beacon Lady.

She had won her last two races, and bagging a three-timer is always difficult. Epsom is a famously treacherous course and she had a big field up against her, including a well-backed favourite.

Mullins gave her one of the kindest, cleverest, most sympathetic rides I’ve ever seen on a racecourse. He dropped her out the back door and gave her time and space to find her feet over the crazy cambers and turns. Admittedly, as I saw her five lengths behind the field, and about twenty off the leader, I said, out loud, to Stanley the Dog, ‘not even Dancing Brave could win from there.’ I was wrong, and canny Mr Mullins was right. He knew his girl. He nursed her into the race. (My fanciful brain decided her was surely crooning at her in his Irish accent, telling her what a fine lady she was.) And then, when she was at last vaguely in touch with her field, he took her wide, down the centre of the track, so she could have a good look at everything and not get stuck in traffic. Everything else was motoring, and yet he still did not ask her for her effort. He sat quite still, and kept her balanced, and let her deepen her stride.

Finally, finally, he said go, in the politest possible way, just shaking up the reins a little and crouching lower in the saddle. And perhaps because he had been so courteous and gentlemanly, the bold filly gave him everything she had, and flashed past the post a length in front. I don’t think her jockey even picked up his stick.

I had money on both fillies and I shouted them home.

Today, the Remarkable Trainer pitched up, back from holiday. Red the mare, seeing there was serious groundwork to be done, was at her most spirited, waltzing about and putting in a bronco buck and showing all her thoroughbred blood. For all that she spends most of her time like a dozy old donkey, occasionally she likes to test the boundaries, to remind us that she is descended from a Derby winner, to show that she is not to be taken for granted. At moments like that, a lot of people would shake their heads and say, darkly, ‘mare-ish’, and start digging out all the old stereotypes. I laughed my head off. The Remarkable Trainer said, ‘she’s just being a horse’. (I think sometimes people forget this about equines.)

Once she saw that this sort of Spanish Riding School of Vienna farrago was not going to fly, Red settled into her work. After a while, I got on, and the Remarkable Trainer suddenly got a rush of blood to the head and started dragging silver birch trees across the grass. ‘There,’ she said, looking at her handiwork. ‘Working Hunter fence.’ It was actually a proper jump, at least TWO FEET HIGH.

‘Bugger it,’ I said. ‘We’re going to jump it.’

So we did. I let Red find her own stride, and concentrated on sticking with her and not bothering her. She is still very, very new at this, and I wanted to give her confidence. At first, she was so amazed that she gave the thing about five feet of air; I could feel it whooshing underneath me, and whooped in astonishment and amazement. Then, she grew more sure-footed, and starting popping over like an old pro. Each time, she came back to a gentle halt, and turned her face back to me as if to say: did you see what I did?

At the time, it was just fun, something interesting and experimental to do. I like to amuse her, to keep her interested, not to let her get stale. It’s lovely, teaching her something new. It was only afterwards that I realised that I’d been blasting about a wide open green space on an ex-racing, ex-polo mare, who half an hour earlier had been bucking as if she were in the Calgary stampede. I’d been asking my posh old duchess, who has only just learnt what a jump is, to leap over a fence whilst wearing only a rope halter. She could have charged off into the blue yonder if she’d wanted to, but each time she came kindly back, despite all the excitement.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said to The Remarkable Trainer. ‘Do you realise what she just did?’

It’s not because I am clever or accomplished or a particularly good horsewoman. I am still tremendously rusty and have forgotten more than I probably ever knew. It’s because I trust her. It’s because I don’t believe any of that bullshit about mares. It’s because she fills my heart with gladness and she is as kind and brilliant and willing as any creature I ever met. Just like her two distant relations out there on the racecourse, she will give you everything if you ask politely. Sometimes she shakes her head and throws a little spirit into the mix, but she comes back at once, docile and biddable and absolutely honest. She is different each day, not because she is a slave to her hormones or suffers from the disadvantage of having ovaries, but because she is a sentient creature, and each day is new to her and will bring its own challenges, which she will meet in her own sweet way.

I suppose I’ve been thinking about this because one of the inexplicable UKIP fellows has been going on again about the frailties and incapabilities of women. (Apparently, women are better at ‘finding mustard in the pantry’ than driving cars.) And just now, I heard a woman in Pakistan interviewed on the radio say, without a trace of self-pity, that the fight for equality which happened in the West has not even started in her own country. She made it a simple statement of fact. I thought it was one of the saddest things I ever heard.

I’m a tremendous believer in the sisterhood. I think women are brilliant, not just because of all the things that they are brilliant at, but because most of them put up with this kind of thing with an extraordinary patience and grace. It goes on every day, even in the enlightened West. We ladies may have the vote and the right to own property and the freedom to do jobs, but the hum of low-level bigotry and tired assumptions infects society still. The women could be working to rule and setting their hair on fire and withholding their favours, and yet, mostly, they just get on with it. They laugh, sometimes a little tiredly, and don’t make a fuss. I have a bottomless admiration for that.

So I suppose when I get furious about the prejudice against mares, it’s a proxy for my crossness about the slurs that all females must put up with. When Miss Dashwood and Beacon Lady show such resolution and doughtiness and pure, thrilling speed, when my beloved Red soars over her birch trees, I think, nuttily, that they are striking a blow for females everywhere. I whoop in delirious triumph, because it is one for the girls.

 

Today’s pictures:

A very random selection, because I’ve been going back through the files and trying to winnow them. Despite my soaring adoration for my girl and my manly Stanley, I really probably don’t need three hundred photographs of them. Each. (Conservative estimate.)

HorseBack girls:

My mum’s new little chap:

MY chap:

With his big red friend:

Scotland:

Oh, that handsome face:

More lovely girls, human and equine:

I am not sure anyone ever made me so proud as this person does:

r

Hill:

The funny thing is that I was not going to do a blog today. I was just going to put up some pictures. I’m very tired and it’s been a long day. Then this all just fell out of my fingers. Brain to fogged to tell if ANY of it makes any sense, so please forgive.

The day in pictures.

A lovely, gentle Bank Holiday.

I had a rest, backed three winners, watched Mr Patrick Mullins give the glorious Beacon Lady one of the sweetest and most sympathetic rides I’ve ever seen on a racecourse (tactically astute too), hung out with my mare, played with my dog, and generally did bugger all. The sun shone all day long, and is still dappling golden over the line of beeches outside my window.

This is what it looked like:

Red got a damn good groom this evening. She adores being brushed, and goes into a sort of hazy trance of pleasure. As you can see:

With her small friend:

Love this one, even though it is slightly out of focus:

Stanley was not quite manly enough to go into the burn. Turns out he is not a water dog:

His friends had no such qualms:

One last one of my dozy beloved. When she is like this, I’m not sure I ever saw a horse so at ease with herself and the green world:

This picture is slightly blurry too, but I like the timeless effect it gives, as if it could have been taken some time in the early 1960s.

Hope you all had a very happy Bank Holiday.

No blog

No blog today. Time comprehensively defeats me. I gaze in bafflement as it flashes past my eyes.

Just two pictures for you.

Another of Stanley and his new friend. The whole thing with the stick kills me. They already adore each other and spent the whole of breakfast time this morning playing an antic game of hide and seek. It turns out that Edward the Puppy has a finely developed sense of humour. My mother, who feared that Stanley might be jealous or growly, is beside herself with delight that he has taken so sweetly to her new little chap:

And my best beloved, having a little wander through the shady trees:

Shared experience. Or, a still small moment of calm.

This morning, I woke to a low sky and a light, misty rain. It’s that kind of rain where there is just a sense of water in the air; less falling than swirling, almost like a flying dew.

The Horse Talker and I arrived at the paddock at the exact same moment. At the exact same moment, we saw the exact same thing. All three of the girls were lying down in the paddock, in a delightful collective doze. We made Did You See That faces at each other, and walked in cat-like silence through the gate so as not to disturb the glorious picture.

The little pony decided to get up, and performed some astonishing yoga stretches with her hind legs, which made us double up with laughter. Then we each went to our own horses and sat with them and stroked their dear faces and entered into the circle of calm which they had created.

It’s quite rare that we see them lying down. Autumn the Filly was flat on her side, completely flaked out. Red was resting on her belly, her long legs curled up under her, her chin resting dreamily on the grass. It’s also quite rare that a horse will stay down when a human approaches. Often they get up and shake themselves. Their flight instincts mean that they have to trust you a lot to stay in the vulnerable prone position. That is why it is always very touching when you see pictures of people lying with their equines.

They were both so still it was as if every atom in their bodies was at rest. They were in a low, humming dream state, every part of them existing in peace. The field was very quiet, apart from the lone cry of a circling buzzard. The misty rain had driven away all the flies and brought a sort of suspended animation with it, as if the world was on hold. Nothing existed but these beautiful creatures and these two grateful humans.

We laughed and smiled at each other and invented fanciful scenarios as to why they were so dozy. Rather madly, there is to be a techno concert on Saturday in the cut hayfield, and we decided that the girls had clearly been up all night practising their rave moves. No wonder they were so sleepy.

Eventually, Red got to her feet. Autumn was still dozing. The Horse Talker and I went up to the shed to make breakfast. I let Red out into the set-aside so she could do some free grazing. This bit of the field is where the good grass is, and there is no fence. She could, I suppose, gallop off to Tarland if she really wanted, but she doesn’t. She will usually come when I whistle, or if she is too busy eating, stand quietly when I come to collect her.

As we were mixing up the feeds, the Horse Talker and I suddenly heard a swish of grass and a dash of hooves, and Red arrived at a busy trot and poked her white face into the doorway, urgent enquiry in her eyes, as if to say ‘You are making breakfast and you did not tell me?’ She looked so comical that it made us laugh and laugh.

The whole thing was one of the most enchanted hours I’ve ever spent in my life. But what was particularly lovely about it is that it was shared. The Horse Talker and I are now custodians of that collective memory, and we shall be able to say to each other, when the hard snows come and we are trudging through the winter mud, or when we are having a bad day, or when we wake to a grumpy morning – ‘Do you remember that day?’

I am solitary by nature. I do a lot of things alone. I need quiet and peace; I like the space of my silent room. But sometimes, in life, it’s important to have a witness. I thought this as I came back to my desk to start work. I thought suddenly, that is what this blog is all about. I started it, ruthlessly, blatantly, because I thought I could go viral and everyone would buy my book and I should be rich and retire and buy a boat.

The internet gods laughed at that puny plan, but I continued doing it because I discovered I liked it for its own sake. I love the small, tight band of Dear Readers. I love that you remember the Duchess and the Pigeon, and that you have taken Mr Stanley to your hearts. I love the little messages which wing their way from as far as New Zealand and Sri Lanka and California.

People tend to be quite sneery about blogs and social networks. It’s all ghastly self-indulgence, absurd show-boating, awful narcissism. The tired old joke about Twitter is: who cares what you had for breakfast? (Although absolutely nobody I know tweets about bacon and eggs.)

In fact, although these grouchy criticisms have a tiny acorn of truth in them, I think there is something quite profound going on. I think it is to do with having a witness. I think, at its best, this new medium offers something wonderfully collective. Here are our small lives; they are seen.

Of course lives are seen by the real people in the real world; the family and friends and best beloveds. But there is nothing wrong with virtual seeing in the virtual world. It’s not all trick cyclists and Look Ma, no hands. It can be a simple, good-hearted offering of some of the lovely moments.

When the news is dark and the world seems crazed and the big things are so big and bad that the battered brain can hardly take them in, the small, ordinary pleasures in small, ordinary lives can be an anchor to sanity. As much as there is flimsy and nonsense and pointless shouting and idiot arguments in the virtual world, there is also a lot of kindness of strangers. There are shards of wisdom and moments of glad grace. You get a glimpse into lives of which you would otherwise know nothing. I think there is something rather marvellous in that.

 

Today’s pictures:

One from the morning field:

The day was too gloomy for pictures, so here are some of the Beloveds from the last few sunnier days:

The focus is hysterically wrong in this picture, but I love it, because it gives a sense of the happiness of the dear little band:

Free grazing. Two things make me smile: Stanley the Dog channelling his inner horse, and the most excellent colour coordination:

Perfectly synchronised eating:

Is it time for breakfast face:

And a few more of my Hebridean pictures:

I love this one because it could have been taken in 1953:

Happy holiday faces:

The sun shines on the Knavesmire

It’s YORK.

I am beside myself with excitement. I get up early and race around like a sprinter getting all my work done so that I may now sit and watch the racing. The Ebor meeting is one of my favourites of the year. I adore the mighty green sweep of the Knavesmire. And, as Sir Henry Cecil and Tom Queally said last year, when I was there to watch Frankel write another glorious page in racing history, there is nothing like the Yorkshire crowd.

Today, two of my favourite horses go up against each other. I feel almost disloyal having to pick between Toronado and Al Kazeem. Even though most of the time I attempt to resist magical thinking, the lunatic part of my brain is convinced that if I bet against one of my old faithfuls, they will know. Of course, if I were a sensible person, I would not have a bet, and just watch for pleasure. But I am too much of my father’s daughter for that to be possible. Mr William Hill and I shall be on most intimate terms in the next few days.

In the end, I stick with Al Kazeem. I love his toughness and his talent. I love that he came back from injury and has been imperious ever since. I love that he gallops and fights and sticks out his brave neck. I love that his latest form figures read a perfect 1111.

What will now happen is that Hillstar will turn out to be the great improver and thrash both of them.

However the magnificent contest plays out, it will be one of the great races of the summer and I feel lucky to be able to watch it. It is going to be a perfect afternoon.

 

Some quick pictures for you, of HorseBack and my herd and a flower or two and Edward the Puppy and Stan the Man:

o

An ordinary day. An extraordinary man.

A lovely cool clear still morning. Red the Mare was all tickled up and filled with the joys of spring, even though it is August. We cantered and did tight figures of eight at a quick trot, flinging round the field as if we were barrel racing, and then we jumped and jumped. Now she’s getting the hang of it, she has an increasingly huge jump and I had to concentrate hard not to get left behind. I whooped and yelled and covered her with congratulations. She was very, very pleased with herself.

As I went up to HorseBack UK for my morning’s work there, and watched them school their own clever Quarter Horses, I thought how odd my own schooling programme is. I do have some good over-arching aims, but I am about as far from those stern articles in the horse magazines as it is possible to be. I leap on and think – what mood am I in? What mood is Red in? What will be fun for her today? And then we do it.

I watched the much more proper schooling in the arena and took some pictures and then I met a remarkable man. People come in and out of HorseBack all the time, and all of them have pretty extraordinary stories. There are the veterans, and some who are still serving. Then there are the visitors, who come for a myriad of different reasons, and most of them have their own fine stories too. Many of them have connections to the services. There was a woman today who used to be in the navy; she came with her son, who is now in the navy himself. They accompanied the Remarkable Man. He was in the army, and then his life went into a downward spiral, and one morning he woke up and thought he could pretty much finish it all, or he could walk around Britain. He chose to walk. He chose to walk 6500 miles, around the coastline of our little island nation.

He’s been going for a year. He’s about half way there. Nothing will stop him. The other day, he crashed down a cliff at Balmedie and thinks he would have fallen to his death had he not had an umbrella in his backpack, which lodged in the earth and broke his fall. He sleeps rough, because he was on the verge of homelessness and he wants to make people aware of how many of those who have served do not have a bed to call their own. He’s raised over a hundred thousand pounds for Help for Heroes, and he’s not nearly finished.

I started doing this voluntary work for HorseBack because they are nearby, because I love what they do, because they inspired me, because I think those who have fought in hot wars deserve all the support we can give them, and because, in the corny old phrase, I felt it was time to give something back. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of luck in my life. I’ve always had a bed to call my own. I have a crazy brindle dog and a glorious red horse and a brain which works and opposable thumbs. The least I can do is offer something in return.

But the irony is that I get more out of this work than I can ever give. Because, on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday, I have the good fortune to meet an extraordinary man. And that would never have happened if I had not made that whimsical mid-life decision.

 

Today’s pictures:

My most adored and brilliant girl. Who knew she would turn out to love to jump?:

The ridiculously tiny obstacle over which I am teaching her to leap. From the amount of air she gives it, you would have thought we were at Badminton:

The crazy brindle dog has a new friend:

Because The Mother GOT A PUPPY. Did I mention that there is a PUPPY?:

His name is Edward and he arrived yesterday and I’m not generally nuts for small dogs, but he is absolutely and completely adorable. Stanley loves him so much already that he almost refused to leave my mum’s house after breakfast this morning. Yearning looks back at the door.

The proper schooling up at HorseBack:

The Remarkable Man:

His name is Christian Nock, and you can read more about his visit to HorseBack here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151816695385568&set=a.269393705567.184638.197483570567&type=1&theater

Return

And...we are back.

The holiday was very heaven. Stanley the Dog went on a ferry for the first time (immaculate), saw the sea for the first time (slightly baffled levels of excitement), made human and canine friends (extremely friendly and polite), and generally had more fun than he could shake a stick at. And that is a lot of fun.

I read a whole book, sniffed the salty air, felt the wild island wind on my face, caught up with old friends, and walked on Hebridean beaches as white and gleaming as those of the Caribbean.

And now it is back to work. I wrote 1278 words of book, ran up to HorseBack and did my daily tasks for them, and rode the mare. Not only rode. JUMPED. We did a JUMP.

I woke furious this morning, because my break was over and I was grumpy and grouchy and even contemplated extending my holiday into a week’s staycation (horrible but rather effective word). It is the last Ashes test coming up, after all, and the great York festival of racing, one of my favourite meetings of the year. I would say bugger everything and just do nothing for a further seven days. But I could not justify it. I may, if I am very, very good and efficient, allow myself the odd afternoon off to watch the lovely horses, but the word count must be up first. So I began the thankless task of pummelling my recalcitrant brain into action.

Sod it, I thought, as I clambered crossly onto Red. I was so cross that I could not be bothered with what we are supposed to be working on, which is my correct position and her stretching out her neck in extended walk. (This is all part of a programme to recalibrate her old working muscles from racing and polo. They are tight and short and bunched, and I want to get them long and lean and low.) Let’s just zoom about, I thought, recklessly, even though I had not been on her for a week and she is, after all, a thoroughbred whom I appear to be riding about in the long grass in nothing more than a rope halter.

She seemed delighted with this programme. Despite my hurling caution to the winds, she gave me the most lovely collected canter. It had an ebbing, rolling aspect, so it was like being on a ship at sea going over a mild swell. She could have caught my mood and buggered off. I always wonder why she doesn’t. She has been bred and trained for speed, after all. I am still rusty as buggery, and my puny muscles would not be enough to stop half a ton of determined horse. And yet, there she is, with all her high blood and great breeding, rolling around the set aside with kindness and politesse and ease.

And over the jump we went and I whooped out into the clean Scottish morning, startling the swifts. Even Myfanwy the Pony raised her head to watch.

We have done a little jump before, but that was a slender fallen silver birch, which was about four inches high. This was an actual jump jump. Admittedly, not much more than fifteen inches high, but still. I’ve been teaching her to do it on the ground, and sometimes she leaps and sometimes she just stops, stares at it, looks at me as if saying ‘You want me to do what?’ and then steps over the thing, one foot at a time, with duchessy disdain.

So I was taking a slight risk. It could have gone horribly wrong. She is ten years old and she raced on the flat. Jumping is really quite odd and alien to her. But over we flew, and I dream now of dragging every fallen tree on the entire compound into cunning positions and making a little cross country course for her. She is so clever and good.

So, as always, Red the mare came to the rescue, surprised and delighted me, blew the grumbly glooms away, gave me her daily existential gift. And that was how I sat down at my desk and wrote 1278 words.

 

Some quick holiday pictures for you:

Gone fishing

Dear Readers: I am on the island of Colonsay. I am ON HOLIDAY. I sort of forgot to tell you. As you can see, there is actually internet, even here on a tiny island in the Hebrides. I could do a blog. I could tell you of sea birds and wide skies and fierce sheep and beaches as white as the Caribbean. I could tell you of Stanley the Dog's first ferry boat ride.

I COULD.

But I won't.

Because this is my five precious days of holiday this summer and even though of course the puritan voice in my head says that there should be no such thing as holiday, not when the world is so fraught with all the things it is fraught with, and not when I have to write a book, and not when there is all the HorseBack stuff to do, and not and not and not, I am in fact going to close down the computer now and not write another word.

I am going to read Scoop, which I suddenly realise I have not read for twenty years. Can't really think of a finer treat.

The only, only use of the internet I shall make is to listen to Test Match Special tomorrow, via the miracle of the BBC iPlayer. Somehow, they can send wi-fi all the way across the sea from Oban, but they cannot send radio waves for the old school kind of wireless. The people in this nice place shall think me very odd as I sit with an earpiece in, muttering 'my dear old thing' under my breath.

The angels of the world wide web even align and make me forget my email password. I am going to live for a moment, in this rushing world of technology, away from internet, away from email, away from all. And when I get home, I shall take the weekend off too, and watch a bit of racing and sit very still in my room, and come back to you on Monday week, restored and renewed. I shall tell you what it is like to exist happily with only boots and elements and a dog and a good old papery book.

PS. I'm not actually fishing, despite the title of this blog. I just like that expression. It's the kind of thing old-timers used to write on a sign, and hang on the door of their shacks, when they were taking a step out of the world. It will do for me now.

The Tarland Show

The Tarland Show was absolutely, gloriously marvellous. I went up, thinking I would stay for an hour or so, and ended up being there all day. It took me back to my showing childhood. Stanley the Dog behaved very well and was widely complimented. I made friends with complete strangers, and admired everything from Aberdeen Angus cows to heavy horses to some excessively splendid goats. (Stanley was very excited by the goats.) The HorseBack team did a demonstration and looked fabulous in their Western kit, and everything was as enchanting as human wit could devise.

Too tired now for more words, although I might tell you about it tomorrow. A small, highland show, with the gleam of the mountains in the distance, and some of the finest livestock in the county – I could write a sonnet about it. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Here are some quick pictures for you:

I know this Shetland very well. He finished in the money, despite being mildly unimpressed with the proceedings:

Don’t you love the whole Little and Large thing going on here?:

THE GOATS. Stan the Man was beside himself. I don’t think he’s ever seen a goat before:

This was my favourite of the ridden ponies, an utterly splendid Connemara called Vince. Vince! What a great name for a pony. His rider, a rather brilliant and very articulate young gentleman of eleven, smiled widely as he got his red rosette, and said, without any shadow of shyness, for all the show to hear: ‘Oh, I love this pony.’ A fellow traveller, I thought:

The HorseBack UK demonstration:

I have to say, I could feel my competitive spirit rising. I went down to the field afterwards and took the red mare out for a quick canter (and, madly, a JUMP), and promised her that next year I should enter her for Best Ridden Horse. Surely she has Supreme Champion written all over her?:

Although she will have to go up against this very beautiful mare, who was in fact today’s Supreme Champion:

We may have a little way to go. But as I told Red, if there were a class for sweetest wibbly lip, she would win every day and twice on Sundays. She looked at me very seriously as I told her this, and then gave me her duchessy whicker, to let me know it was time for her tea.

And Mr Stanley must of course go for the Pet Parade:

Ha. We’ll have some black type beside their names before we are done.