The summer solstice is just around the corner. Each day should be long and bright. The air ought to be warm and fragrant. The landscape should be clear to the detail of a far horizon.
But it is not so. Rain falls, wind blows, and I can see clearly about as far as the trees across a couple of fields. I should be living in Tuscany, not on a storm-wracked island.
I wonder how Brena feels. She did live in Tuscany. In fact she does not seem to mind. I am told that she didn't thrive in the heat. Well she won't be troubled overly by heat in her new home.
As for me, I'm being sent away by my employer for a week on a training course. So there will be no summer solstice ride this year, not on the correct date anyway. I'll have to fit in a long, long evening ride when I am back.
It's true that I don't live in a Pre-Raphaelite dream landscape, warm, light and subtly detailed at every turn. This place has more of Tolkien, where the traveller does stumble through storm and darkness to reach - after sufficient trials - some welcoming hearth with simple food, ale and good company.
To enjoy this place truly the outer and inner worlds must meet. Myth must tramp the path alongside me that a fresh layer of detail may be added to vivify familiar places. Then one enters a timeless place ripe for population by story and idea. Then one is walking with the invisible spirit friend and guide who encourages and from whom one learns.
So perhaps my frustration at the bad weather is that it deters me from going out into the open spaces and travelling in timelessness with good companions, equine and spirit. The lesson, I think, is to be a bit less lazy when the weather is imperfect.
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