Another week is almost over: the summer solstice week. Riding is taking place, of course. It simply has to.
It's all so different to life a decade ago, even five years ago. These past few weeks, rather than take guests riding, I've been organising a conference for several hundred people who work on a major engineering programme. The conference went very well, I'm pleased to say. A big hotel is very different to the wild woods and high peaks. But at least the conference concluded with some welcome drinks with new friends. That part wasn't so very different to the old.
In a way I'm still a guide, only now I'm leading travellers through a major technical programme rather than a broad forested wilderness.
This evening a friend and I got out with our horses for a couple of hours. Embracing us, the thick warm air suggested that a storm is due: maybe tonight or tomorrow? But we rode comfortably, gazing upon a landscape receding through soft layers of summer haze to a vague horizon. Briefly, wonderfully, the modern world scarcely existed.
Sometimes life - mine at least - seems to require a suspension of reality in order to drift into a benign, wonderful land of tranquility and dreams. It's a lovely place to wander, and its goodness enriches me.