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After riding through the long bright hours of the middle of the day and before returning home we rested on this windswept ridge that is the peak of a great green sea. There was much for horses to eat and it came as a surprise to realise that I had photographed Brena with her head up.
Last week we joked at work that rain would fall on the public holiday today. and rain it did, for most of the day. I was glad for the grass needed it.
Danielle and I took the train to Oxford where we visited the Ashmolean museum of antiquities. One gallery contained Chinese communist posters from the Cultural Revolution. There we obliged a young Chinese tourist by taking her photo flanked by two benevolent renditions of Mao. I wonder what she was thinking?
Then the bookshops claimed us, and lightened our purse. I came away with two works by the prolific Carl Jung, including Four Archetypes. I need to work through these, and more. The clue is in dreaming the pace of which has not slackened.
To me dreaming is a sign of unconscious activity. Lately it seems as if every night has been filled by deep and serious dreams. By serious I mean dreams relating to my past and present life. The themes of leaving exile, of collectings things that matter and of getting rid of those which are irrelevant, all show up frequently. The intensity of dreaming is such that I must sleep longer and awaken mentally tired though physically rested.
Therefore I need to feed my mind more. I need to take in further ideas that will percolate down to my unconscious.
I wonder for how much longer this will continue? This process of growth and development fascinates me, and exhausts me too. But so much of life - true life where we explore, grow and make discoveries - requires courage and stamina.
Riding is an example to me. There have been weeks when the work-ride-sleep cycle has dragged me down into a shadow world of grinding tiredness. Then there has been that hang-up about faster work, which has required courage to overcome. Of course what the relationship needs is greater trust, however courage is needed in order to reach that point of trust. So it is also with the stamina to get through all that dreaming and reading. Thus also with the courage to accept what I read and dream.
The wide world that I ride through and the horses that I relate to, these remind me also to see beauty and simplicity. I may get terribly occupied with reading and thinking, dreams and their analysis. However their is goodness out their ready to be experienced. I can find myself in a place akin to the dark hour before dawn, when there is no light and the birds have not yet begun to sing. At that moment I need to remind myself that the birds and the light will soon appear. So we are back to the need for courage, and this I am granted by the natural created world.
The rain too is a part of the picture. I can control nothing but what I think and do. So I shall choose to be grateful for it. I shall find it beautiful. So I should too, I who love the arid chalk hills and the life that dwells there. That rain is like blood without which there would be no life up there.
So, back to reality. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I shall ride again. The ground will be softer so I'll postpone the trial of hoof boots for another day. But mainly I'll seek to enjoy the ride, communicate with Brena, and draw strength from the beauty that surrounds me.
I'll have a grubby horse to brush too. But that I enjoy, rounding her curves with a brush, noting her form and admiring her power. It's our grooming ritual.
At last I have taken my Italian-Slovenian horse onto a Roman Road. I wonder how many Roman (or Etruscan) trails she travelled in Tuscany? Now she has trodden part of an English Roman Road too.
This one isn't very wide or straight anymore, and the famous Roman pavement has vanished. (But did a Roman Road across the chalk actually need a stone pavement? Perhaps not.) However once it was a major route between the southern ports and the centre of the country that avoided Roman London. It's route 160c, towards the bottom of the map below. The city of Sichester, now just a ruined wall enclosing farmland, must have drawn a fair trade. From the windswept silence of a Sunday afternoon I could imagine this road busy with farmers, merchants and adminstrators. Perhaps soldiers passed this way trudging north to far-off Hadrian's Wall? Some travellers would have been riding just as I rode. The white hawthorn and cow-parsley would have brightened their journeys too. Like me they would have watched relieved as the wind carried a belt of rain past to the north.
Then the Romans left and this road fell into obscurity. Silchester was abandoned. Centuries later King Alfred pursued the Danish invader eastward across this hill. Was the trail weed-grown and quiet then?
In fact it surprises me just how many Roman Roads have been identified. The ones on the map (which is roughly 120 miles east-west by 100 miles north-south) are not the full story either, witness the odd fragments that seem to stop in the middle of nowhere for want of archaeological discovery. Some are modern motor roads, others trackways or paths, and a number have vanished altogether. Not all are quite as straight as the brand image promotes, certainly not the less important roads and those through hill country. Perhaps some sections of older trails were impressed into service where convenient? There are older trails too, typically ridge ways, such as the one that I travelled along today to reach the Roman Road. What an ancient landscape this is, bearing so many traces of human interaction.
Today I dug out Doru's old hoof boots to see whether they fitted Brena.
They did. She isn't a big horse however Old Mac size 10 boots - the largest size - fit her front and hind feet. They are a nice fit without gaiters and perhaops a bit on the snug side with gaiters.
Doru's feet, meanwhile, have grown since the days that he used hoof boots. His heels in particular are much wider. However, being retired, he has no need for hoof boots.
Brena has good solid feet. However they are getting quite chipped now from extensive work over stony ground. I might need to start using hoof boots to protect her feet from unusual wear and tear.
I was curious to see how she would react to these strange things on her feet. There was a bit of scraping feet through the dust and a plaintive raising of a foot as if to ask me what I had done. Then we went for a walk and, apart from the slap of plastic on the hard ground, everything was normal.
I think that next I'll leave the boots on her for an hour or two in the field so that she can begin tio get really used to them. Then we'll make a short ride with them on.
That's Brena's "wear & tear" issue resolved. Mine is my hip joints and lower back. I've just started taking glucosamine suplhate tablets. Perhaps they will help? Well I guess that is to be expected with a young horse and a high-mileage rider.
Well my previous post did attract two good comments: thank you Lytha and Karen. That phrase "the asphyxiation of curiosity" will remain with me.
A long meeting started with indecision as to whether we should eat anything (so much for workig with managers) and rattled on to the conclusion that we should complete a grid where "systems", "processes" and "people" are matched against short, medium and long term.
I suggested that we should look at the "operative myth" of our team. It's pretty mixed, overshooting the mark in some respects (no we do not "all work hard") but unduly pessimistic in others. Yes of course the graduates expect to be "empowered". And what exactly is "empowered"? I am empowered to ride when I get Brena out, however there is still "process" (communicating with her), "environment" (what the ground is like) and "knowledge" (knowing how to ride and having some sense of the broad subject of just what horses are about).
OK, so we should have the right to organise our desks as we wish. We should be allowed to decorate them. Oh, and I want a "myth wall" where we add personal items, trophies of success, indeed anything that defines who were are and what we do. Wish me luck!
I guess that I'd better complete that grid too. Sensibly too if I am really disciplined. For the dull people.
But curiosity has been driven from them. How can I reawaken that curiosity, of which a vestigial trace surely must remain? Writing has been such a therapy for me. Perhaps I should take the group away and get them going on storytelling? That could open their minds to the suppressed potential within.
Ah yes, suppressed potential. We're all growing. Last night I dreamt that I lived in a hut in a wild place and travelled, picking up mementos such as pebbles in places that I passed through. There were flints and others such stones in my bag. Occasionally I collected something that rotted and needed to be throw away. What a metaphor for life! It's good to collect treasures. Some need to be thrown away. The remainder must be valued and enjoyed for their quality and beauty.
So much of life is about realising potential. Working with Brena is about her potential and mine. How closely can I merge with her to work as a team. What performance can she produce? How can I hone my balance to make her task as easy as possible? What courage can I show when the relationship becomes stressed?
Nothing is stationary. Not if one has a thread of curiosity.
So again this falls to that peculiar thing called leadership. Either one leads or one follows. But one can lead in small ways. Because I have been given something I am obliged to use it, as if I possess some special knowledge of the terrain. (Indeed does a part of the terrain belong to me?) New realisation brings fresh challenge, and the realisation of that yields some satisfaction. It can be a virtuous circle. To get started one needs the momentum of a little moral courage, and then one is moving.
It rained, and I was glad. It did not matter that I had to walk from office to station then station to home. I had a coat and hat with me. What mattered was that the fields were receiving a good soaking. However I suspect that not every other commuter was thrilled by the unsettled weather. How perspectives vary.
The horses were damp, and mud on their backs was evidence of rolling. Enthusiastically they nibbled at grass that seemed refreshed already by the downpour.
Out there all seemed simple: man, horse, trees, damp ground, broad sky across which a firm breeze drove dark clouds. No wonder going to the field is such an antidote to work.
Tomorrow morning I need to attend a management discussion on morale, which is perceived to be flagging. Mine isn't, of course. But I can hardly recommend horses and a lively imagination.
Being curious is a good positive approach. But how does one teach curiosity? A hunger for ideas and knowledge is preferable for these are rare free gifts in an expensive world. Well, perhaps not quite free, for time is needed to grow and think, and there is the labour of thought. But one does not need to purchase a license to wonder and think.
I wonder what to say tomorrow? Well not exactly horses and imagination. Perhaps contact with the real world and the challenge to try and understand a little bit of it? But what made me curious? I need to think that one through. It's hard enough to find out what one wants without getting to the matter of why. But now I am intrigued to know the answer. I need a long ride to give me space to think.
I have referred to the small horn in Brena's left ear previously. Well it is no more.
A comment was made that it seemed to be getting longer. So I took the horn very gently between finger and thumb to check. It dropped off without so much as being pulled. Brena did not seem to notice, there was no bleeding, nothing. All that remains is a tiny waxy stub reminiscent of the soft clear material of a new-born foal's frog.
I wonder whether it will grow back? If it is a type of sarcoid then perhaps it will. However it seems quite benign, and certainly isn't spreading elsewhere.
On this evening's windy ride we passed a troop of boy scouts flying kites. Brena was not in the least bit perturbed. I was proud of her.
This evening the hills seemed like a sea of green heaving in great billows, its surface rippled by the clutches of a firm wind. Like foam the white cow-parsley dances and is driven by the breeze.
The chalk tracks along which we ride are like beaches at the edge of the ocean, like causeways through the verdant flood. Firm and definate, they stand out through the soft grass and crops.
The crest of the ridge led us westward into the setting sun and crisp breeze alike. How alive I felt up there amidst a world so vivid.
Meanwhile Brena stepped out and we worked on lessons from the weekend. The new motto is: "forward is fun". The aim is crisp transitions to a steady trot that is maintained readily.
We did well. I am concentrating on making it easy for Brena to hold my desired pace and she is responding with some enthusiasm. There were no problems with snatching at vegetation. Indeed I sense a bit more respect flowing in both directions.
After the ride Brena grazed whilst I drank cofee and ate apples, the cores of which she finished for me. Here she is standing part on the chalk and part on the grass, like a horse with her front feet in a stream - a nice edible stream in this case.
Brena is looking at a horse and rider approaching. A lady rode up on a tall bay gelding who stared intently at my skewbald mare. His rider explained that he is quite nervous of coloured horses and wanted him to take a good look at Brena.
The gelding was brave and stood still. Meanwhile Brena, unabashed - and clearly not so frightening after all, put her head back down to graze.
Looking at the pictures, those splodges of brown really do break up her outline. A cursory glance or, say, looking through slits of nearly closed eyes does not necessarily return the recognition of a horse. (I have commented upon this before in the depths of winter having seen Brena barely recognisable in twilight against a backdrop of dark tree trunks.)
The evening cooled and the sun fled earthwards taking refuge behind the trees. In the shadow I was grateful for hot coffee and a wind break. It took a few moments for the truth to sink in that the hour really was late, around nine o'clock. Truly I have entered the summer cycle of sleep-work-ride-sleep.
As for truth I love this wide open ancient nearly mythical landscape. I am fascinated by a place of which one can say "the Romans used that track" and "the Saxons fought the Vikings there" as if these events happened only just beyond living memory.
Mythical time takes over from pure chronological time. Strong are the times that created the atmosphere and history of this place, that gave it such a powerful aura. On a knoll still visible Saint Birinus converted the local Saxons, and there too are the towers of their thousand year-old churches.
This evening, after an introduction by Michael Palin, I listened to the celebrated author Paul Theroux speak at the Royal Geographical Society.
It was an amusing and thought provoking account by a master story teller and consumate traveller.
Humour emerged through such tales as Bruce Chatwin trying to impress a dinner party guest with an account of the ascent of a British hill in the rain, not realising that he was speaking to Sir John Hunt and Sir Edmund Hillary. Then there was the tale of a fat lady who got stuck on the toilet of an Amtrak train resulting in a special stop to summon assistance. (And this on the day that President Obama's heavily armoured car got stuck in a bumpy Irish car park.)
Serious talk centred on the view that a traveller will, sooner or later, realise his (or her) smallness in a big and complex world. The successful traveller (and writer about travel) will become a nobody, a person who blends into the background, one who listens, compromises and reconciles.
There was talk too about different types of travel books, including those that seek to discover places or people, to uncover history, to tell a tale of endurance, or to make social comment. From that I realised that my writing project has become stretched between two objectives. I have lumped two diverse strands together. The first work was a simple account of travelling across Transylvania and Moldavia on horseback in the 1990s. The second, part-written thread is a journey of self-discovery. The two do not sit together easily. They must be split and worked separately.
The first account is a unique account of exploring a fascinating place just before a torrent of change poured out upon it. Editing with the benefit of hindsight will improve it. It has to be an account of the people that I met and the places that I travelled through. Meanwhile the second and much more complex work is a story of self-discovery. That new awareness is mirrored by my discovery of the character of Transylvanians amongst whom I lived, and self-acceptance by new understanding leading to reconciliation with them.
So I enjoyed the evening and the experience helped me to understand the natures and purposes of my writing projects.
Brena and I have just spent three days away at a riding club camp.
Here's our camp site. We were hosted by a smart and well run equestrian centre about sixty miles to the north. We parked our vehicles and slept in this field whilst the horses were stabled.
I put a bucket of water in Brena's stable however she immediately worked out how to use the auitomatic drinker. I was proud of her.
In the second photo you can see my sleeping accommodation. I'm not fussy about such things. When rain fell on the second night I just pulled up the ramp and lay inside dry and comfortable. The bottles and feed say a thing or two about the nature of the event.
Over three days there were several lessons and a couple of rides out.
Riding out Brena enjoyed the company of eight other horses and fitted very well into the middle of the ride. When we trotted she kept a nice pace and, unlike some others, she didn't slip into a slow canter. We had a couple of good canters and I notices again how Brena really appreciates a little freedom - a forward seat with the weight off her back and a loose rein. When the riders bunched together - those at the front were holding their horses back - Brena showed her displeasure about restraining contact with a little buck. When we all went forward more freely again she settled into her steady lolloping canter with the low head carriage that I remember from my smaller Transylvanian horses.
The arena lessons were about obediance and pleasure. We started at a point of baulking at requests to trot and canter. So I became firmer in my requests whilst trying to make going forward a pleasure for her by being balanced and soft with my hands. Soon we were trotting across poles and even going over some that were raised a foot or so. (Neither she nor I have any experience of jumping.)
On reflection the lessons are simple - to show leadership in what I want of Brena and to make it a pleasure for her to go faster.
