Sailing the broad green sea

Arrival back at the trailer from an afternoon ride transported me much further back, in fact all the way to the "old days" in Transylvania.

It was a very hot day, and I returned happy and thirsty. I needed to drink rather than just wanting to. But only after gulping down some water did I realise that hunger was present almost as much as thirst, the welcome liquid making me aware of another inner need. Arrival after hours on the mountain used to be like that, thirst slaked quickly giving way to hunger after a long trail on a warm day.

 
Brena, however, did not want to drink. She played a little with a bucket of water, but drank neither from that nor from puddles en-route. I do know that Brena will head for even a muddy puddle if she is thirsty, which is a useful sign.

The hills west of here are broad and green. I have used the metaphor of a vast petrified sea more than once before. Indeed there is some combination of the oceanic and the organic about that land.

 
Fields sweep boldly, some delineated by hedges, trees or belts of thorn bushes. Indeed it is the hawthorn that is the default growth here, for it is to these that abandoned hill land tumbles back to. Were these hills covered in thorn bushes before man cleared vast spaces for crop and pasture?

In the midst of these chalk billows lies an old farm, still used for livestock and storage though no-one lives there anymore. It is a silent, poignant complex of corrugated iron, the default material up here in the lean years after the Second World War. Indeed the rounded building is a recycled wartime military hut.

 
On a quiet stretch of trail we came across a multicoloured hippie bus around which chickens and geese foraged. Looking suspiciously at the geese, Brena walked past quietly if a little on edge. The geese, of course, retreated for such are noisy but not courageous.

And it was hot! A few clouds sprang up at the horizon, but only the few hedges and trees through shade upon our path. As usual I covered up rather than applying chemicals to my skin, wearing a very useful thin roll-neck pullover with long sleeves. That way is more comfortable than it sounds - better than sunburn anyway - though I suspect that the garment would stand up by itself after absorbing so much sweat.

 
Perhaps because of the heat there were few people about, and I saw no other riders all afternoon. It had rained the night before last, so the ground was not yet like iron in the heat. So we had a couple of good canters on gently rising and quite empty stretches of trail. As usual Brena drops her head when transitioning to canter. I've seen her do the same thing in the field so this isn't something that I'm causing. Now that I am not surprised and give her a long rein to balance herself there is no drama in transitions.

After all that, and just like the end of a trail ride in the "old days", I slipped off to listen to some traditional music. A group of fiddlers was performing in the town, and that made a fine and lively end to a great day out of doors.

Comments

[Shirley]

Idyllic...

[funder]

What a view!