Rain streamed down all afternoon. It began when I reached the misty ridge and continued all afternoon.
There are no photographs of today's ride. There was no point in taking any. We all know what rain looks like, the light was appalling, and why soak a good camera?
I rode three hours through the rain, warm and dry thanks to a stockman's coat. All was was quiet, the only sounds the hiss and patter of rain falling onto dank vegetation and sodden turf. No-one else was out. The tranquility of an ancient landscape was all mine to enjoy. The worse the weather, the more space and time one has to enjoy it. And, in the pouring rain, I could imagine one of Thomas Hardy's characters trudging into view. Jude perhaps: he hailed from nearby North Fawley whose fields I crossed.
Once it was my job to ride. Back then, in the high mountains, there were colder, wetter days than this during August. I encountered snow and ice during September. A day's ride back then comprised six hours, not a mere three.
I could ride six hours now. I have the stamina still. But not the destination to ride to. Nor the groups to accompany. Three hours is enough most days, and a warm welcoming home appreciated.
I'm relieved not to have to care for a herd of horses in sub-zero temperatures. Here they were going out in the grey first light to be fed. There was hay piled on the field beyond the ridge.
I'm reflecting on nostalgia. I'm entranced by Gin's descriptions of high mountain life. I feel an analogous pride in having survived a harsh environment. I sense poignancy too at that which is now gone beyond reach. I regret the loss of that which might have been.
Memory cleanses itself. Mountain life was difficult in itself, but made worse by two successive partners who each seemed to have a death-wish for the business. Tourism is a hard way to make money, not made any easier by a corrupt and inefficient country. Riding was a wonderful occupation, but increasingly hindered by a worn and damaged body. So that which is good dominates: self sufficiency, skill, success and happiness come to the fore.
And yet: I have just received surgery in a Western hospital and not in the Balkans. A skilled chiropractor looks after my back, not a village bone-setter. I have a good wife instead of a stubborn narrow-minded peasant. My friends don't regard me as a source of loans and bribes. And so on.
There was a fierce beauty in those horses going out to forage hay on a frozen field. There was a raw pride in surviving another harsh trail in the unforgiving mountains. And there came a point where it would have been stupid to try to continue doing these things.
In fact I reached that point: a final season of riding thirty to forty hours a week supported by opiates to mask lower back pain.
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