White Horse Pilgrim

Icons and images

Further unpacking has revealed a number of equestrian items, each of them a welcome discovery.

First are three icons with equestrian themes. In the centre is Stephen, Saint and Prince of Moldavia, who helped keep the Ottoman Empire out of Europe between 1457 and 1504 as well as building several dozen churches and monasteries (including Putna which is depicted). I am not entirely sure which figure is depicted to the left (perhaps the Archangel Michael?) and would welcome clarification if any reader knows. To the right are two patron saints of horses, Lorus and Florus (I may not have spelled these correctly).

When I have time, these three icons will be mounted on the wall. The dreadful wallpaper will go in due course too - for now I shall submerge it beneath pictures, icons, wallhangings, saddlery, and anything else handy.

The second image represents a bronze commemorative medal that I acquired in Poland sometime around 1986. It was struck in 1983 for the 300th anniversary of the battle of Vienna, when John III Sobeiski's Polish army defeated the Ottoman invaders and started the long bloody process that finally rolled the Turks out of Europe (other than a toehold on the near side of the Bosphorus) by 1918. It was a welcome victory, for Sobeiski's was perhaps the last credible army in Europe. Defeat might eventually have led inexorably to the crescent flag flying over more European cities, even to the muezzin's cries floating from imagined minarets flanking St. Paul's at the top of Ludgate Hill.

The image is curious, depicting a Winged Huzzar, that mysterious, extravagent mounted warrior so peculiar to the history of Polish arms. Apparently those fierce men did strap tall feathered wings to their backs, whether simply to appear larger or (as some said) to terrify their enemies' horses by the sight or by the sound of the wind through the appendages we do not know. The Polish cavalry seems unusually plagued by myth. There were no cavalry charges against German tanks in 1939 - those suicidal dashes were an invention of Nazi propaganda. More than once, Polish cavalry did defeat invading German units.

Meanwhile, a horse of other equestrian items remain to be discovered - sleigh bells and red tassels, pictures and books. The final boxes beckon.

Bare feet, cluttered office

Here is another shot of D's left front foot. The different colour from walking across the stable floor indicates the lowest parts of D's foot. As expected, this is the large callus at the toe and the heel buttresses.

The odd-looking light object to the left of his foot and above my arm is the chestnut inside his right front leg. It does look large in the picture, but is quite normal in real life.

I remember reading somewhere that foals are born without chestnuts, so I looked carefully at our last foal, Luke. Of course he had chestnuts, so that is another "old wives tale" proven wrong.

My office is now equipped with saddle racks. This room is the old second bedroom in the house, and is equipped with my desk, a multitude of books, and much tack. My chair is covered with two sheepskins, which Danielle says smell. Probably they do, as they were once used as saddle cloths (until we realised that they were too hot for the horses in summer weather.) Still, a horsey smell in my office is not all bad.

Now to add another tack box and a harness rack! And hang some pictures on the remaining blank sections of wall.

Autumn evening introspection

The wind roars and the rain lashes noisily against the windows as I sit and ponder. My new office at home is becoming stacked with books and piled with saddlery as I consider how I got here. The turbulence of the weather outside emphasizes the quietness of my life here. The difficulty lies in reconciling the past decade with the present.

Moving to Eastern Europe had a certain analogy with joining the Foreign Legion: to escape the present and forget the past. Now that decade has run full course, and has passed away. It has slipped through my fingers like water, leaving only photographs, memories and the keepsakes that I have been unpacking. Pictures, maps, locomotive number plates, wooden agricultural tools: all things that I might hang on the wall if I wish to remember those days.

Arranging one’s memory is a process of selecting a narrative. One can remember the good things, or indeed the problems. Latterly, as my adopted home degraded into corruption and consumer debt, as more people cheated and stole, my experiences became overwhelmingly negative. The positive narrative which I had constructed about that country came crashing down, as the apologies that I made to visitors for its failings rang hollow. How tempting it is to excise those years from my memory, writing them off as failure and waste.

Reality falls in the middle ground, neither hiding the faults of the troubled land where I resided, nor pretending that I was not there. For those long years have helped make me what I am. The person who emerged is stronger and wiser through striving and struggling. That the venture ended in flight reflects on the near-impossibility of the task, and on those who cheated and betrayed me, as much as on my mistakes. Though I did make mistakes, I also worked hard and imaginatively, indeed more than enough to have deserved to succeed.

Now perhaps some success will come in my new career, based on the skills that I developed in that far-off place? Based also on that new feature in my life, a stable marriage to a good partner? We shall see.

Meanwhile there is a narrative to weave. Traveller, horseman, explorer; each fits in. Wanderer in the wilderness, that was a feature of the past too. As storyteller and historian, the past fascinates me. As engineer and entrepreneur, I have created objects and fulfilled dreams - even part of my own dream. I can tell a rich narrative then, and a worthwhile story, if not a tale that was rewarded materially.

I just know not to gaze too often on the mountains, even in pictures, for I miss them and know that yearning unduly breeds only dissatisfaction with an artificially pedestrian life. It reminds me of Tolkien's elf Legolas who was cautioned that, after hearing the gulls cry, he would forever be restless and long for the sea. I think of that when, driven inland by storms, gulls swoop over our hills here. Thus also for me who has seen the mountains and the open spaces, smelled the fragrant meadow flowers, watched the breeze ruffle an upland tarn. Yet this time here is but temporary, and this landscape with which I am blessed here does afford glimpses through the veil to a fresher, brighter world.

So life moves on. I try to find good, believing that good will emerge on top, for this is not the finely balanced and ultimately hopeless world imagined by that plague on spirituality, the Manichaeans. I try to look through the veil, understand that not everyone else is enlightened by such insights (such understanding helps me to cope with certain colleagues...), and see this life as an adventure as well as a challenge. Though on a bleak evening, sometimes it is best to imagine a smaller world the size of a cozy room or a warm bed. To the latter I am headed now.

End of Autumn

The long two months have begun where daylight emerges weakly approaching eight in the morning and willingly surrenders around four in the afternoon. It is a grim time, enlivened only by weekends and by the occasional walk between buildings on a sunny day. Even a clear evening is a pleasure. Looking from the barn this evening, I traced an imaginary line from the Plough to the Pole Star. It would have been an easy night for navigation.

These are long days, leaving home at 7.30am and returning at 6.30pm. It is the extra two hours afterwards at the barn, and travelling there and back, after work that are nearly the final straws. 

Evenings working at the barn are pleasant enough in themselves. It is quiet, without the raucous radio that the owner insists must blare during working hours. Without the people and the barn politics and gossip that they bring. Only me and the horses.

But I could so without the extra hours of work each evening, and the drive when I can hardly keep my eyes open. The day job is hard work mentally, juggling a dozen tasks, each demanding care and responsibility. Therefore it is exhausting, indeed it tires me as much as a long day out riding. I am still tired when I approach the final task of the day, when I don't need to think, just shovel muck, rake bedding, fill buckets and hay nets.

So I think that the next target is to try to earn a little more, so that I can pay the barn help to feed and muck out on three or four evenings weekly. Who knows, I might even get to ride in the school on an evening or two a week?

Back again

Three weeks after moving house, I have internet access again. Finally, after days spun out into frustrating weeks, and cable connection seemed no nearer, I bought a 3G card. It's slow, however I have a connection again.

As well as suffering three weeks without internet access, we don't have a television, so access to the news has been limited. Sometimes I received news via the internet at work, which has outside access enabled at lunchtimes, though most often I am working or at meetings then too.

So I just about got to hear about the American election. And largely I was spared the outpourings of certain bloggers. Please accept some hints from a mature democracy: racism isn't sophisticated, nor is attacking democracy because "the lower orders" don't vote for the candidates who would further elevate "us" over "them". And, no, your President Elect is neither a communist (how many of you have experienced the awfulness of a real communist regime, as I have?) nor "like Hitler". For those who weren't attentive during history classes, after receiving funding by Henry Ford amongst others, Hitler launched a World War and ordered the extermination of twelve million people (half of them Jews, the other half Slavs and "liberals"). I was going to comment that the American election isn't really my business, then I thought of Fairford just northwest of here where B52s are based, and Welford just south where American nuclear weapons are stored. So I do have a stake in the outcome - and, like many throughout the world, now I feel a little bit safer.

Anyway, interesting as politics can be, I shall concentrate on writing about the horses and the hills. In due course (principally when I manage to take some photos), I have some thoughts on the two horses' feet. A discussion with the trimmer on the occasion of their previous trim revealed an interesting issue concerning heel height and the technique of a self-styled "natural balance" hoof care practitioner whom I encountered a while back.

Changing place and time

We have moved fairly smoothly to our new house. We are, however, waiting for the telephone and internet to be connected: hence a lack of posts for the past few days. I have managed to post this from work.

Meanwhile we are getting the house in order. We look forward to the dogs returning next weekend, and the cats a few days after that.

Autumn is upon us, and the clocks have changed. Evening visits to the stable are now seasonably nocturnal. D, P and I have become denizens of a dark world of dripping trees and blowing leaves, scudding clouds and occasional moonbeams.

On weeknights I get to work in a barn without human sound: no voices, no radio. I hear just the peaceful sounds of two dozen horses that eat, stamp, rub and snore. It is a reliable antidote to a busy office, that stable and the walk up the quiet lane beneath a silent dark sky.

Strangely after nine years of outdoor work, I enjoy my office employment. Before I was vegetating, and now I am not. Rather than do the same old things time and again, I am helping create something new and bold. Watching chill rain lash the windows, I am glad to be indoors. More seriously, my body had taken enough pounding, and there had ceased to be any point to it. I had needlessly been cold too many times (for our house was hard to heat, whilst firewood was in short supply), and my back had suffered almost a lifetime's worth of jarring. There comes a point in life when one accepts one’s fragility and, indeed, mortality. Now I have surrendered the romance of a life with horses, though retaining the memories and the lessons.

The road goes on and on

My new world of commuting and work has its curiosities, rich and varied.

The last few mornings, a lady with an accent from the Deep South of the U.S. has boarded the train, talking to her friend. Her voice does carry. Yesterday she was telling her friend about a new car, asserting that a car "is no use unless large and comfortable enough to have sex in." This news no doubt edified the other passengers on the 07.54.

This morning's "announcements" were more prosaic and less like a David Sedaris sketch. However my journey (well, the few minutes of it when I wasn't dozing) this morning was enlivened by "little miss corporate" sitting next to me, hurriedly highlighting phrases in a textbook on "branding" as if her life depended on it. Corporate branding, not the sort of branding that happens to cattle. Naive believer in a corporate world spiralling down into recession, I left her in peace to enjoy her delusions.   

Several of the portlier engineers at work were gleeful. They have worked out that, as they collect their fried breakfasts in the canteen, they can hide items one beneath another and pay the cashier less. Rashers of bacon are easily hidden beneath baked beans, they explained, However, this morning produced a coup - one of the greedier managed to hide a whole hash brown. These are desperate measures - maybe the recession is worse than we thought?

 

Yet I have my compensations, my means of escape.

Yesterday evening I slipped off to the stable and took D up onto the hill. It was like entering a different world. From up there, the land below looks like a different place, quieter and less populous, older and more mysterious. The south wind flattened the grass, westward the sun slipped down towards the grey misty horizon, northward a great cloud rampart fled. Eastward, the great tree canopy topping the Saxon mound of Scutchamer Knob bent and twisted in the wind. The fringes of the day are the best time to see the world differently, timelessly, less like - to use the Prophet Isaiah's phrase - a worn out garment. It was refreshing up there, and not just because of the cool wild wind which pulled at my hair and tugged at D's mane.

That great wild world up there, and a big roan stallion, together they make this life all the richer and more meaningful.

They give me something that neither the right car nor all the corporate self help books, and certainly not scrounged extra helpings of breakfast, can ever yield.

Views: diverse

Here D is pictured grazing the thick downland turf during our break from riding on Sunday afternoon. I like to take a break in the midst of a longer ride, for D's benefit and for mine. He isn't wasting a moment.

Thinking about the ride later on, I was struck by the similarity in colour between D's roan coat and the newly ploughed fields (one of which can be seen just above his back). The chalk is but thinly covered by soil, and the plough invariably mixes the two, creating a curious washed-out watercolour texture. (Perhaps it was not so historically when horses ploughed the fields, however modern tractor ploughs dig deep.)

The second view gives a better view of a milky chalk field shortly after ploughing. It lacks the definition and harshness of a regular ploughed field, soft instead like the rounded hills from which it is fashioned.

The trackway is an old road, once used to drove sheep to the great fair at East Ilsley (just over the hill beyond) which itself ceased in the 1930's. Was it that long ago that mass shepherding died out on these hills? (I have referred before to their dryness, and to the loss of sheep to drought. Perhaps the railways and growing transport by truck simply brought sheep from richer pastures to more convenient markets?) The bright green on the right is the private turf of a racehorse gallop.

The third view is from my new office, which overlooks Paddington station in London. So, for now, I have a good commute. The 53 miles to London takes just over 40 minutes, and then I have a two minute walk to my office.

The great train shed was built by Isembard Brunel in 1854, and had recently been renovated.

Naturally the engineers grabbed the window seats, and get to watch the trains. To be fair, they get quite a lot of work done too. Theytold me today that I talk too loudly. Working in wide open spaces does have that effect. I knew shepherds who spoke with the volume of a foghorn, even in an enclosed space. One gets used to communicating over distances, and sometimes forgets that one is indoors.

Feet and faces

Yesterday marked the horses' third barefoot trim. Both have generally good hooves, especially P, the smaller of the two. D is still a little sensitive on stony ground, however - after only eight weeks barefoot - he still has time to develop tougher soles. New horn needs to grow right down his hooves too. So far, it reaches about a third of the way down. D is a heavy fellow too. Application of a hoof tester to sole and frog yielded little response, so sensitivity may just be down to a combination of the harshness of the flintier stretches of ground and his weight.

I also acquired a pair of Old Mac G2 hoof boots for D. He takes the largest size, although he isn't an especially tall or massive horse. It was comical to see him trying them out, walking with an exaggerated action and lifting each foot up high - even hind feet that had no hoof boots. However he soon settled down to a normal walk.

My first week at the new job has passed by. I do appreciate the kind and helpful words sent by readers. The job is going to be demanding, appearing as I have at the beginning of a major project. The bewildering initial days are over, and the nature of what I have to do has become clear. Fortunately I have decent, competent colleagues. Still, it has been tiring, and the need for stamina remains a challenge. Drinking coffee to stay awake, I seem to have a permanent headache. The other challenge stems from the fact that I have a very poor memory for faces. There is a term for this condition, prosopagnosia. (Lawrence of Arabia suffered from it. That may explain his fascination with styles of dress, dialects, habits and the like. Not being good with faces, one must fall back on all manner of clues to have a chance of recognising a person whose appearance is not exceptional.) It is a strange problem to explain to someone who is not a sufferer, and a condition about which it is far too easy to be skeptical. I suppose that it counts as a disability, albeit less serious than many. It does interfere with one's ability to work and to have social relationships, and it can be an impediment to success. It makes following the plot of a film difficult if there are several leading actors of the same gender and general appearance. (So at least Dark Knight was easy to follow.)

I could never put names to faces for even half a dozen guests on a riding trip, or separate out similar people one from another. I acquired horses in as many colours as possible (black, bay, chesnut, red roan, blue roan, grey, etc) as well as different sizes and types, making it quite easy to recognise each one within the herd. Admittedly one pair (half brother and sister out of the same stallion) were impossible to separate without a glance at the obvious place. Sometimes guests had to make do with being called by their horses' names when they were mounted. Not everyone was keen on this. At times, this condition made living as a hermit seem like an attractive option.

Usually prosopagnosia occurs as a result of head trauma, however it can be hereditary. Presumably mine is the latter,, as I've never been knocked unconscious. However, being adopted, I cannot confirm this. Anyway, I remember the condition as a child, though it confused me at the time. Unconsciously I used other cues to help me, wondering why others simply were better in social situations. My parents observed the results of the condition but, not being the sort of people to grab the bull by the horns, hoped that it would be dispelled through a mixture of ignoring the problem and ridiculing it. (They adopted a similar approach to depression within the family. We are still paying the price for that.)

In contrast, I can navigate well and, without difficulty, follow a complicated trail that I took once, perhaps years before. I can keep track of changes of direction through the interior of a complex subway station, and find the right platform almost without refering to the signs. I can "read" topography and sense intuitively which way to go. Perhaps this has come through adapting to use a wide range of visual cues other than the obvious "face" of a feature?

Today's ride began with rain, which started the moment that I left the barn. Fortunately I have a good collection of effective rain gear. However D seemed rather displeased by the stinging rain, even though it was coming from behind. Don't horses turn their back ends into inclement weather? There were some bright moments between storms, after which I returned to the barn in the rain. This is what the weatherman calls "changeable weather".

Far away

In these days of transition, the horses and hills seem far away.

It is good to know that they exist and endure, though for days I have seen but little of them. The poppy field stands in silence, the crimson flowers swaying in the breeze. Sometimes it reminds me of that conundrum: does the wind make a noise when there is no-one present to hear it? I hope that it does. Better that nature doesn't depend on an audience to verify her beauty and virility.

Am I alone in finding office work utterly exhausting? I wonder whether the other people are as tired as me, but practiced at camouflaging it? Or is there some trick to being alert throughout the day? Coffee is not the trick, though I drink a lot of it, whether in an office or liberated. Maybe time in this environment increases mental stamina? I hope so.

Anyway, D was glad to see me this evening, for the first time in several days. The big fellow even broke off grazing (quite a wrench for such an ever-hungry horse), whinneyed, and cantered down the paddock.

It was amusing to see him fooling around like a foal, cantering with his back arched, his head alternately between his knees and being thrown around.

I took him into the barn and fed him. Strange how, I though as I watched him eat, a year ago I earned my living riding this big roan stallion. Now I work to support him.