White Horse Pilgrim

My street

Here's the view from my front window earlier this evening. Once in a while someone does ride along our suburban street, which is quiet and carries little traffic. We live close to the edge of the town and nearby there are a some paddocks where a number of horses and ponies are kept. Other than the streets, there are a couple of rural trails along lanes and an old railway route converted to a non-motor trail.

Meanwhile I'm just a few days away from taking Brena on holiday. We'll be going to Wales, around a hundred miles away, to ride in the mountains. They aren't big mountains, just a couple of thousand feet, but quiet and scenic. I'm looking forward to it.

Leaves that are green

Leaves that are green will turn brown, Paul Simon wrote. But not if Brena can eat them first. These leaves were being devoured at quite a rate. Beech leaves seem especially palatable to horses, though Doru was also partial to Horse Chestnut leaves. Yes, this is a fine time for horses: vegetation flourishing in the sunshine after all that rain. And a time for the rider of such a horse as mine to remain vigilant. That mare can drop her head with lightning speed. 

Life circles around laying to rest harmful myths. A small one was the belief that Brena would buck when transitioning to a canter. For a while there was a nagging fear in the back of my mind that she would put in a respectable buck and remove me. It happened once in the arena, a place that I tend to avoid. But in the end I needed to go out and canter her. There was a little high-spiritedness at times that might have been taken for a small buck. But nothing mean or unsafe. Cantering became fun again. 

A much older and deeper myth came from school. Back then music was a compulsory subject up to around the age of fourteen. A number of us were told by our music teacher that we were devoid of talent. We were ordered to mouth the words when the class had to sing, and made to keep our hands away from the school's musical instruments. 

A desire to sing or play isn't just a matter of having some fun with friends. It's also about tearing down the barrier established by a couple of lazy thoughtless teachers. I don't need their blight upon my life. Enough damage has been done. It's not as if that school wrecked my life. Pity the children who left semi-literate or barely numerate because "lack of talent" justified a lack of investment in their growth. But that school sowed a doubt in my mind, locked a door and told me that worthless things lay behind. Now it's time to insert the key, turn and push. I hope that a new teacher will have something encouraging to say. 

The broad plains spread out below, green and soothing, encouraging a foundation of tranquility. That's the true backdrop to my life, more than the office or work or former exile. It's the hills that I return to. A little time up there and I am ready for the next challenge. Looking down on a timeless sea of green, upon an ages-old canopy, I reflect that the big challenge is an ancient one. As a friend put it, to become more of a Renaissance character. (I don't mean dressing up for a Renaissance Fair. Please no!) No, it's about become broad in knowledge, skill and enthusiasm. Being an engineer and having artistic proficiency. Managing processes and being creative. This is a whole new trail to explore. A new land to ride around. It's exciting. Leaves that are brown can turn green. 

Welcome

It is a pleasure when ones clean happy horse trots down the field in energetic welcome. It's not just a carrot that she wants, but attention: her head scratched, her flanks stroked. And soon we'll be riding again. Tomorrow my saddle will be returned, suitably re-stuffed. 

Today I ordered the tickets for my July trip. I'm excited to be making a long train trip, and to be going to a much-anticipated concert. I've not done anything quite that mad for a while. Well, once the tickets are safe in my wallet, I'll have to sit on my hands for a bit. I'm itching to go. 

I've just provided the definitive text of The Riding Holiday Manual to the publisher as a pdf. Of course D found one remaining typo on the one page she looked at. Well, that's why it would have helped if more than one person had proof read the book. But overall it's pretty well checked over. I've just had my eyes tested, only to learn that my eyes have changed so much in a year that I need new glasses.....all that writing and editing! 

Through the ages people looked far, seeking friend and foe, hazard and prey. This close work isn't what we were meant to do. The learning and creating are welcome, of course. But I'm not using my body according to the original operating instructions. 

And the esoteric thread continues. I dreamt last night of receiving news that someone from my past had died, perhaps a little while ago and somewhere foreign. I did not seem to be upset, but was concerned to arrange a memorial upon the earth. It proved difficult to obtain good stone, however eventually two slabs of rough red granite were produced. For some reason these seemed perfect. Was I dreaming about my unknown birth mother having died? A metaphorical death, my unconscious simply telling me that now she is less important. I am creating myself, at last, shrugging off definition by her (or her absence) and by anyone else not of my choice. Dependence is dying, and I am seeking a suitable epitaph to put across her resting place. A good solid stone to walk away from, duty done. A stone that will stay put. It must be a metaphor as I pictured no-one dead nor fresh earth upon a grave. A solid fixed memorial, like the stones and mounds scattered across my familiar hills. Something to remember, but not be bound by. It's a strange but enlightening world where dreams drift. 

 

A walk for music

I travelled an hour and a half by train then walked an hour, all to stay in a medieval building for the enjoyment of an evening of music. I climbed a chalk hill via a narrow track, another part of the great raised-up sea bed that forms our southern uplands.

Upon the crest, a little tired, sweaty and glad that the hardest part was over, I met a glade of bluebells. Fresh and bright after the rain, thickly and confidently they carpeted the forest floor. 

An evening of music and song with friends was welcome, indeed most of the night too. The final few retired for slumber only upon the cool fringe of the silent hour before dawn.

I'd love to be able to sing or play. I've been coming to this cottage, on and off, for a quarter century. There's music here several times a year: it used to be monthly. It's lovely to listen, but I feel as if I've been taking for a very long time. I wonder how difficult it would be to learn to sing or play? Behind that is a simple question: do I have the necessary talent? And the observation that it might be a little selfish to want to be seen writing and making music. (But the last of these might just be the maiming whisper of a troublesome Shadow. Of that voice I am suspicious.) Well, we shall see. Life is there to be grasped. 

The final print of The Riding Holiday Handbook has been produced in the form of a 75Mb pdf. That just needs to be converted to grey-scale and uploaded to the printer's website. It'll take a day, I hope, not more. Then the book can be put on sale, officially and conclusively. Four years of work complete. The marketing falls to my co-author.

One more job out of the way. More time for my live writing projects, the ones that enthuse me and nag when I'm ignoring them, suggest tweaks to plot-lines and new ideas. Characters tug at my sleeve (or shout, some of them) to be included in the next volume. Good: I'm fond of them. 

Progress

Today I got to see my horses unrugged. Not all the mud has gone, but it's warm and dry.

I didn't ride as my saddle is away for maintenance. I attended a music festival instead. 

I've managed to persuade Typepad to post photos again, but only by changing browser.

This has not been the only problem with Typepad. Several readers have had trouble posting, a frustrating matter of comments being deleted and so on. A recent upgrade to that site seems to clash with Internet Explorer. For me it's working adequately on Google Chrome. 

Plans are crystallising for a trip to Nurnberg, Germany in a couple of months to attend a concert and visit some museums. It was to have been Koln sooner however tickets weren't available. That's something to look forward to. It's exciting to engage so energetically with life. 

 

Dreaming

The signs of spring were here. Green grass. Horses not wearing rugs. Horses shedding prolifically. The village cider stand open, and a mug of good dry cider beside my keyboard. Having to mow the lawn. Not having to feed hay. Going out at 7am without wearing long underwear. (Gin will laugh at me for that!) The dogs bathed.

Then the rain came, day after day, varying only in intensity. The ground is muddy again. Horses wear rugs again. They are fed hay again. I wear a raincoat whenever I go out. The dogs are smelly again. At least I'm getting by without the long underwear.

I dream of sun. I think of bright fresh days when a breeze blows Brena's mane about whilst the sun warms me. I imagine emerald-green sward. I live in hope. The sun will come again. One day soon I'll ride beneath a blue sky and look through clear air to the far horizon.

For now the rain redoubles, regrouping its forces and recruiting the wind. Tree branches lie in the road, dustbins are blown over. It's a rough day, a maritime day as if we lived by the shore. An island day. Mention the word island and many people might think of the tropics, sun, fine sand and palm trees. But there are bleak northerly islands too, where the breakers crash and gales tear at the rocks and sodden turf. Today this island approximates to the latter, much as one might dream of the former.

A shocking clarity

As Gin put it nicely, a shocking clarity like evening light on pasture after a heavy rain. I enjoyed that source imagery on the hills (yes, my tiny hills...) this evening, cool wind whistling past invigorating the bright slanting light. Clear as a bell, the evening was, sharp as a newly-honed blade. This is a lovely place and in such moments, feeling wide awake as if that were unusual, I begin to appreciate the depth and breadth of history and beauty arrayed all about me.

After days of rain we needed this beauty, Brena and I. Me to raise my spirits, she so that I took her out on a trip. It was a mere respite, of course, an afternoon dry spell expanded a little. Now, after dark, the familiar sound of rain lashing the roof has returned. Brena is still wearing her rug. I am huddled in a warm office surrounded by books. The ground is still muddy. But there is hope: of dry weather again soon, of a good hay crop, of pleasurable journeys across a beautiful land. Always there is hope.

April showers

We're back to this state again. Wet and windy. Mud everywhere. Like December only slightly less cold. It's strikingly evident that we live on an island as storm after storm sweeps in from the wild grey Atlantic ocean.

Given the wind and rain Brena got her rug back. She got extra hay too. At least she seems to be using the field shelter.

A few days of rain have made the barn into a mess. Fields are awash and tracks swamps, all for want of a little basic drainage. The parking area by the fields is a wet slippery bog for want of some stone, which the landowner doesn't want to put down. Last year I towed out two stuck cars.

New paddocks have been built too close to the roadway leaving hardly anywhere to turn a car. That's why cars get stuck. People have to drive onto the mud because they have no choice.

The lack of basic premises management is enough to make a thoughtful person weep with frustration. Having run a barn quite effectively myself, the mistakes and lack of customer focus are especially frustrating.

In truth, though, the equestrian industry in Britain will exploit boarding customers since there is a shortage of barns. One cannot be too choosy. Besides, it is an industry that pays the legal minimum wage (or less) so most often it won't attract great staff. When a legal minimum wage was introduced (it's about $8 an hour in a country with high living costs - much higher than in the US) two industries squealed like pigs under the knife: equestrian and convenience stores. A muddy messy barn is bearable to most horse owners if the manager is trustworthy (most are not) and keeps a lookout for problems with the horses (again optional in this industry). In this case the manager is honest and takes concern in the welfare of the horses so most people lump the rest. But, overall, the market is failing.

I guess that, more than anything else, I'm frustrated because there is already a huge pile of crushed stone at the barn. Simply the farmer won't put it down to relieve the mud.

Just to depress, here's today's weather map. The forecasters were not wrong.

Oh, well, Saturday promises better. We won't get wet even if we do grope around in the fog.

More weather

Of course I went to work without my camera therefore wasn't able to capture the most majestic clouds over the Thames valley. In the late afternoon splendid formations towered tall and billowing. Yesterday distant clouds glowed pink in the low evening light rosy like far-off mountains bearing the last spring snow. Today they towered massive, brooding like a great range newly covered in snow viewed from near foothills.

But what I captured was atmospheric nonetheless. Lofty clouds, smooth hills, intriguing woods and a neolithic mound. That fragmentary image sums up a part of the essence of this area. Old. Spacious. Mysterious. Only over time may one enter into relationship with such a place.

The land is my lover who often I slip away to see. Brena is the good friend who carries me away into the arms of the hills. Beneath the comfortable covers of woodland we rest. Along hidden valleys we liberate our souls in the ecstasy of galloping.

I lived here before. But only after exile did I begin truly to appreciate this land. It's not high or wild, however it is special. It just took time for my eyes to open, and then my heart.

By her nature my lover invites fantasy. There a grassy glade leads to a hidden valley with a homely cottage. Here an archaic rider accompanies me up the trail. Nearby a curling bank of mist changes those who pass through. This is the material of stories, tales woven from the fabric of these hills. Accounts that I could write were I not busy working or riding. Oh, for more time!

Isn't that always the way! More time! Well, better a little time with open heart and lively imagination liberated from missing what is around me.

Weather marching by

I was pleased to see those dark clouds retreat, liberating a swathe of clear sky for a bright evening ride. All day sweeping sheets of rain had soaked town and country alike. I arrived home to a downpour, welcome too given the prevailing state of drought. And then all of a sudden the sky cleared.

The riding machine swung into action, loading the truck then driving to the barn where efficiently the waiting trailer was hitched. In seconds an eager mare was loaded - I'm sure that she was standing by the gate ready for action. Then a ten minute drive up to the ridge. As I groomed Brena the breeze flung her shedding hair about me, ticking my nose and getting all over my clothes. Then add tack, climb aboard and the ride can begin. A slick system had delivered horse and rider upon the hill ready amidst sunshine. The pessimist within me, whispering that another storm would gallop upon us, was wrong.

Surgically the low sun separated trees with razor-sharp shadow. Clinically the bright tangential rays added texture to the sprouting green crops. Pools of dark spread across dips and valley bottoms as day rushed towards its inky conclusion.

Down in the shadow Brena and I rushed too, a keen gallop back up onto the sunny slopes. We stood in silence, she grazing. There was no sound beyond the breeze: no vehicles, aeroplanes or voices.

Back at the barn rain finally caught me as I parked the trailer. Just a quick dash out into the storm to unhitch and fit the locks, then a drive home in the last grey light of day, wipers busy clearing a space for me to see ahead. Rain teemed down, and the land needs it.