The pretty way home.

Since I first got up this morning, I was writing this blog in my head. Oh, it was going to be a dilly. It had fire in it, and passion, and irony, and jokes. Then life took over. There were errands, book, red mare, HorseBack work, even some mild domestic activity. The brilliant words ebbed away. Damn, they were good. But they’ve gone. I think they got bored, and could not be fagged to hang around. They may even have thrown a slight strop. Well, they said, if you’re not going to write us down, we’ll take a ferry west. I expect they have arrived at Colonsay by now, and are just going down to Kiloran beach to watch the sunset. The little tinkers.

Here are some photographs instead. I had to go up to the kind farmer who delivers our hay, the sweetest hay in Scotland, adored by the two good mares, and give him wads of cash. I’ve been so pinned to my desk, I thought I’d take the chance to drive the pretty way home. Round here, it’s all pretty way, but some ways are more magnificent than others. This is when I catch my breath and count my luck. I miss my old friends. I hate having to say no to so many enchanting invitations, because the time and money it costs to get south is so often too much for me. But I have these hills, and they are my great love affair, and I would not swap them for anything.

Talking of pretty, here is Stan the Man and his best girl. They adore each other and are cut from the same cloth. They race and wrangle and wrestle and suddenly put their bellies to the ground and gallop flat out across the field. I could watch them all day:

The duchess is pleased because her foot is healed, the weather has taken a turn for the better, and she’s out again in her beloved set-aside: