Transylvanian horseman

The end.....heralding a new beginning

This may be my last post from Transylvania. After nine years, I shall be leaving, hopefully crossing the border next Friday. It has been an often interesting and sometimes rewarding time, however I am glad to be moving on.

The equestrian business is a hard way to make money. My health has suffered during the past few years, including chronic lower back pain. I haven't slept a full night in the past couple of years, in a country where there isn't a single registered chiropractor. The best that the Romanian health service can do is prescribe opium and ketamin-based medications, which are potentially addictive and compromise one's balance and alertness. Meanwhile, I have been working 8am to 10pm virtually every day, with all the stress of running a business, whilst making about as much money as someone on welfare in Britain.

It is also desperately difficult to sell holidays in a country that shoots itself in the foot again and again. A deeply corrupt government craves industrialisation, announcing that "the only tourist zones" are the polluted mafia-owned Danube Delta, the low-class ski resort of Poiana Brasov (also mafia-owned)  and the chaotically developed Bucovina region (whose only real attraction is several Painted Monasteries).

I cannot sell a destination that looks like Europe's garbage dump. Almost every river in Romania looks like this, and so do many roadsides and railway linesides. It wasn't like this when I came here.

I cannot sell a country where the "tourist facilities" so often are a complete mess, like the "picnic site and mineral water spring" shown here. The bushes on the right are the "public lavatory" too.

I cannot sell trips in the mountains when the forests are becoming ravaged by an excessive volume of logging and where logging tractors churn the trails into knee-deep muddy swamps. This log pile has just appeared, so a hill somewhere has been clear felled.

I cannot sell a nation whose government, aided and abetted by most of the urban population, is set on destroying sustainable rural life. All the activities shown in the picture are now illegal, despite the rather obvious lack of traffic (and the frequent clusters of pot-holes that keep the limited traffic going slow). Hardly anyone stands up for family farmers, not even the so-called ecotourism industry.

Then there are the ugly new houses that litter the landscape. Where else in Europe will monolithic pink and bright blue villas appear scattered across a National Park (facilitated by some well directed bribes) or climbing a once beautiful hillside? Pictured are some of the smaller new houses in my relatively less affluent village. In what lurid shade will they be painted? These people are building more square feet per occupant even that well off families would expect in the West. And it is heated by wood, meaning even more forest cut.

It is difficult and costly to run a business when the basic infrastructure is run-down and broken, despite the vast sums that the EU is pouring into Romania (largely, it seems, to benefit the capital city Bucuresti - now rated as "Europe's most polluted city" - and provide new villas and cars for the ruling elite). The picture shows the "main road" to my village and its neighbour, the only road linking some eight thousand people to the outside world. The concrete mining structure has stood derelict for nearly two decades, and will probably remain there until it falls into the road.

I could mention too the supposedly good restaurants where "hot" meals arrive cold more often than not, and where a simple order can take an hour to arrive. I could ask why an average hotel offering indifferent service in an ugly communist-era district of Bucuresti costs appreciably more than a pleasant friendly hotel in a leafy street in Budapest, Hungary? I could complain about the slow, dirty, ill maintained trains with third-world lavatories. Then there are the omnipresent beggars, who are becoming more assertive as poverty bites. I might note that, within 24 hours of announcing my departure, a group of gypsies drove into my yard with a truck and tried to steal several agricultural implements for scrap metal. I feel as if I live in a country where hardly anyone seems to care about anything other than their immediate gratification.

Meanwhile, heritage is going to wrack and ruin. Did I mention that the state railway is trying to auction off its preserved steam locomotives to raise money because it can't afford to pay the electricity bill for its electrified main lines? Meanwhile, this old narrow gauge steam train has stood derelict on the edge of Cluj-Napoca for many years.

There are still some wonderfully beautiful areas within Transylvania, such as the Szekelyfold where part of Romania's extensive Hungarian minority lives. They have more pride, work harder, and have a relatively Western outlook. The Hungarian minority generally are proud of their traditions. It is there, to Count Kalnoky's Estate, where many of my horses are going. Count Kalnoky will be taking over my trail riding business and website, with the first trail ride starting on 11 May 2008. He has an excellent, well respected tourist business (patronised by HRH Prince Charles, amongst others), and I am sure that he will offer some excellent trail rides in his enclave.

My Hutul horses are going to a Hungarian breeder near Lake Balaton. Isn't it curious how it is left to Hungarian enthusiasts to keep alive a Romanian breed whilst over here the stud books aren't even maintained up to date? The old mare Kaluga has gained a little extra strength and is retired to a farm near Targu Mures, where a horse-loving travel agent is allowing her to live her last months in peace. Luciana and colt Luke are going with Tudor and Gelu to the Ratiu Family Foundation's site near Turda, south of Cluj-Napoca, where Cornel will also be employed. Doru and Pintea will travel to Britain with Pintea and I.

The three dogs will remain six months before they are allowed to enter Britain in October, along with the cats Tiger, Zgomotilla and Lucky. The remaining cats will find new homes with some of the horses at the Ratiu Family Foundation.

Yes, I expect that I shall raise a howl of protest from some Romanians. Perhaps I shall hear from the professor who harangued me a while ago, informing me that "there was no Jewish Holocaust"? Perhaps I shall hear from the lady who demanded an assurance that, when I return to Britain, I will tell everyone to go on holiday in Romania? Or maybe the Ministry of Tourism, which had my phone tapped a few years ago to find whether I was opposed to their awful Dracula Theme Park project, will attack me? After all, it is easier and less challenging to shoot the messenger than to deal with the problem.

Nevertheless, I have seen a potentially good country turn sour over the past few years, and I don't want to be corrupted with it. I cannot change a country for the better, nor seemingly even my neighbours. I am deeply sad about this. I have fought the long defeat, and now is time to escape whilst I can.

I have enjoyed the doings with horses and carts and peasant farming in this shrinking enclave. I am fortunate to have experienced a dying way of life whilst, superficially at least, it appeared vibrant. I have enjoyed the remote mountains in silence, and the wide open skies. Now, at least, I shall be spared the sight of this community in its death throes. My horses have good homes, the cats and dogs too. Doru and Pintea, good Transylvanian horses that they are, will accompany me on the next stage in the journey of my life with Danielle.

Anyway, soon we shall be living at the foot of the chalk downlands that sweep across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, including the Vale of the White Horse. It is a scenic area with, by English standards, a lot of open space and many places to ride including the Ridgeway. There are lots of historical references, from the prehistoric through Alfred the Great. I used to live around there so, in a way, I am going back home. After these nine years here, I am going back considerably more capable than when I left. These long years have not been wasted.

I hope that I shall find a job as an engineer on the railway, even on the restarted Crossrail project that I helped design in the 1990's before it was shelved for a decade. I miss the railway, where at least four generation of my family worked.

I shall, of course, continue posting from Britain. There will be a gap of a few weeks until Danielle and I get established. However, there will be plenty to write about, with news about the horses, riding, and equestrian matters generally. It has been a pleasure writing for you, and receiving your comments. Please do keep on visiting my blog.

The Right Stuff?

It has been a frantic few days here. Danielle and I have been very busy with a variety of things, which will become common knowledge within a few weeks.

We have had a variety of visitors over the past few years. Pictured here is a journalist who arrived on a government-funded trip to Transylvania. (Funded by the Romanian government, in case you wondered whether your taxes were paying for this kind of thing.)

I suggested that she went into the house to change, and thought that she was joking when she said no, she could ride as she was because her skirt was made of stretchy material. And then she jumped up onto Puiu, stretchy fabric riding up indecently.

She didn't want to get down, so off we went for a quick hour riding slowly around. She did know how to ride, which was a good thing since those nylons didn't look grippy. Not surprisingly, she prefered to sit to the trot.

The resulting New York Post article didn't bring us any trade. I am not surprised. But it did make us realise what a good idea jodhpurs were.

How and why?

Anne asked why I am here, and how I got here. Those are good questions. I haven't written much on this subject until now, so I hope that what follows is interesting.

I visited Romania first in early 1990, just after the “so-called revolution”. (“So-called” because the post-revolutionary political leadership was composed of hard-core communists rather than reformers. In due course they became “oligarchs”, though less successfully than their Russian counterparts.) I was driving a truck delivering “aid” on behalf of a Baptist congregation in southern England. Several things quickly became clear. Romania is a scenic, culturally diverse country that merited further exploration. The people due to receive “aid” were not necessarily poor. Many of those whose circumstances were difficult (for instance, families with over ten children) had got into that situation voluntarily, misguided by dubious quasi-theology. (Some pastors taught that women “must have as many children as possible”, for instance.) Very often the “aid” was used to facilitate one small congregation increasing at the expense of another.

It became clear that, amongst these Baptists (and their bitter rivals, the Pentecostals), not only was I seeing merely a tiny sliver of Romanian society, but these sects were keen to ensure that foreign visitors did not meet ordinary Romanians or find out what the majority of society was like. They did not want us to see that over 90% of the population comprised Orthodox Christians. Until one thrust one’s head outside of these man-made confines, it was hard to imagine that these insular neo-protestant sects comprised barely a couple of percent of the population, concentrated mainly in a few areas.

Back in those days, I was becoming disillusioned with my job in London. Supposedly engaged in public service, the Thatcher years had blunted the altruism of public bodies, and brought a flood of snake-oil salemen touting public-private partnerships designed (as it turned out) to transfer public money to private balance sheets. I was looking for a cause, and “aid work” in a foreign country seemed like a good cause. Perhaps some parts of it really helped people who were in need. Mainly, it seemed to encourage a mentality of dependence. After all, why did foreign people need to paint orphanages when the Romanian state had a bored, under-used army of a hundred thousand? Why were truck loads of clothes sent to the country with Europe’s biggest textile industry?

Frustrated by sectarianism, anti-intellectualism and inadequate theology, I left the neo-protestant sects behind, and spent some years engaged in a spiritual search. It was a long road, via Francis Schaeffer, a Benedictine monastery, and the Anglican high church. At the end, I emerged as a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.

When I did meet ordinary people, first on a bicycle journey around Romania, then on a 500 mile horseback trip, it was like fresh air. Regular people were poorer than members of the aid-enriched sects. They were hospitable, hard-working rural people, members of a class that barely exists in the West nowadays: peasants. It was a wonderful countryside to travel across: fresh, green, natural.

My old London job became increasingly frustrating. It became clear that the Subway, an organization that had served the capital for sixty years, would be dismembered for a private sector feeding frenzy. My last task involved looking at ways to save money on construction contracts. My team and I reckoned that we could save ₤130 million (something like $200 million) over a decade. Our results were unwelcome, and our reports were withdrawn and locked away. Our director was, so it seemed, working behind our backs with a private sector corporation that wanted to buy a slice of the Subway. Knowing that the subway could be more profitable would increase its sale price. Put another way, the new buyer could pocket that ₤130 million. That was the way of privatization in Thatcher’s Britain. So, I was fast-tracked out of the organization, given a not over-generous severance payment, and left to do whatever I wanted.

[One of the private sector consortia running a large slice of the dismembered Subway has just, spectacularly, gone bankrupt. They never did implement the measures to save that ₤130 million either. On a relatively short franchise - the infrastructure wasn't sold in the end - why bother about the long-term?]

I'd been riding since my 20's, and this provided a welcome escape from city life and a stressful job. I had been thinking of starting a horse riding holiday business, and I had maintained links with Romania. So it made sense to move out here and try to establish a riding centre. I scouted around for a good riding area, having a fair knowledge of the country. Eventually I chose a place far enough from major towns and cities that it wouldn’t become over-run with holiday homes or traffic, where there is an abundance of beautiful scenery and quiet trails. The village here has a main-line railway station, digital telephones (at a time when most of Romania used manual exchanges), a doctor, and a few shops. It seemed like quite a well administered place, as Romanian villages go.

The first horses came from a state-owned stud farm. I arrived when the stud was having financial difficulties, so the director was keen to sell horses. Other horses came from the village, where there is a steady trade in livestock. We tried out horses under saddle and pulling a cart, took advice from the blacksmith (who knows practically every horse in the village), and bought generally good horses. Most of those original horses from 1999 and 2000 are still with us. Six of those first mares proved to be in foal, so the herd grew rapidly, and now we aim to breed all our replacement stock as far as possible. To date, eleven of our thirty horses were foaled on the premises.

I needed to find how the local economy functioned. For instance, hay is bought from individual farmers. Usually the buyer collects the hay too, which means owning draught horses and employing horsemen. Operating a tractor was never an option since many farm tracks are too narrow and steep for tractor access. Firewood is bought from the forestry bureau of the town hall. Again, the buyer collects the timber, which means going into the forest and felling trees. Now I keep three pairs of draught horses, all of which can also be ridden in the summer. In winter, they are busy with hay and firewood.

An urgent task was hiring staff. My neighbour Cornel was an early employee, and is the only original staff member still with me. I employed a string of young men over the first few years, all of whom were tempted by work in Spain, back when Romanians provided black market farm labour for cash wages. It was lucrative work back then, and no Romanian firm could match what the Spanish farms paid tax-free in Euros. Nowadays, Romanians work legally in Spain, but are taxed, and the “gold rush” is over. There is little well-paid work abroad now for unskilled young men. Now I have a solid group of four employees - three horsemen and a farrier - plus seasonal guesthouse staff.

Standards of farriery were not great when I arrived. After various false starts, typically farriers moving to Spain, I have an English-trained farrier on the staff. I had to import the farriery tools, and I import horseshoes and nails. Whereas, in the West, one hires a tradesman to do a job, here one may have to bring the tools and materials and train a man if one wants a quality of work that approaches Western standards.

Operating a riding centre is one thing; making money from selling riding holidays is another. I made links to agents who sold riding holidays, first in the UK and later in North America, Ireland and continental Europe. This was the prime way to sell trips. Later, a good website was added, and proved to be a valuable marketing tool. This blog is a very recent addition. The next step is to diversify: beyond international travel into a local market of expats and richer Romanians; beyond holidays into rider training; beyond equestrianism into cultural, sightseeing and photographic trips.

Little English is spoken in the village, so all communication with staff and neighbours necessarily uses the Romanian language. I’m not much of a linguist, however it isn’t especially hard to learn a foreign language when immersed in a foreign culture. Besides, the great majority of rural Romanians are helpful and supportive of anyone who attempts to communicate in their language.

There have been other upsets along the way, divorce being one of them. This is a place for hardy people, and not everyone can enjoy (or necessarily cope with) life on the Transylvanian frontier.

Overall, life here is interesting, hard work, occasionally frustrating, often rewarding. I enjoy showing people around our wonderful little enclave. This is a special place. It might even be a visionary place, as "peak oil" approaches (or has passed?) and humanity has to learn to live with less energy and a more local economy. igallopon might get to work draught horses yet.

Escape to deepest Transylvania

The name Transylvania springs from the Latin for beyond the forest. To get here from almost any direction, one travels through the great Carpathian forest. To this day, a quarter of the surface area of this country is wooded. Even where woodland has been cleared, relics remain in the form of timber trees on the field boundaries, copses and isolated woods.

Olga is standing on an old field boundary, marked by a line of trees. The forest begins shorly afterwards, just visible on the skyline. Olga is a solitary mare, more sociable with people than with other horses. On the ridge she has a good view of the spot where we are feeding the horses day, the yard where we feed maize to select horses (including Olga), and the drinking place in the stream. She can see the road and railway too, and very likely enjoys watching carts and trains go by. Olga is that sort of inquisitive, rather eccentric horse.

We have been transporting a stockpile of hay to a place just behind the hill field, from where we can fork rations over the fence twice a day. It isn't windy, so the horses are not excessively exposed up there. Besides, they can come down to the valley amongst the trees if they need shelter. If it were to sleet or rain, I can let them into the yard where they have a roofed shelter. This particular load was sold to us by the village policeman. We're hauling about 1,200-1,500kg (3,000-4,000lbs) of hay daily, spread over two loads. The fence has two good strands of electric tape, so the horses do not try and barge their way through. Our electric fence is a powerful system, advertised for agricultural use to contain "wild and stubborn animals". So it is just about adequate for native ponies.

I am interested in Sue's idea about "escaping" to Transylvania. I am an escapee of sorts, and I have a refuge to share with those who will appreciate it. Visualising my village and its surrounds in a new way, as a place of refuge, helps provide me with inspiration and vision to promote anew holidays here. It's such a long time since I lived in the West, nearly a decade, that I am beginning to forget how stressful and busy life there really was. And my recollections are 1990's Britain. As for what it is like now, I have to rely on secondhand accounts. For the most part, they don't make edifying reading or listening. I am glad to have got out when I did.

How I can promote these "escapes"? Sometimes I wonder whether there is a magic key to tourism marketing? We have yet to hit upon a truly rich seam of trade. Our business seems more like an aggregation of niches. Not that a good spread across diverse niches is necessarily a bad thing, as that way we can survive the loss of a niche or two without major upset. There is always the risk of volatility in tourism. An air crash or terrorist attack can practically wipe out some markets. Still, British and American guests are the mainstay of our business. I would like to make more people aware of what a wonderful place we have here, how relaxing a visit can be, and what a unique set of experiences guests can enjoy.

Horses and "responsible tourism"

I have been reading Responsible Tourism News, a blog by responsibletravel.com, an innovative British travel firm with whom I collaborate. I have been thinking for a while about how horse riding holidays can benefit the communities across whose land they travel. In a peasant society such as the one in which I live, this is a very valid question. We know that African safari holidays, for example, often contribute next to nothing to the people living on the land. Instead, the airlines, travel agents and hotels get the bulk of the money.

Looking through my management information database, I see that some three-quarters of the centre's running costs go straight into the local economy through salaries, buying hay, and so on. Of the net cost of a holiday here (that is, the sum that I receive from the agent in Britain or the US who books the trip), an estimated 85% enters the local economy. In my opinion, that is quite impressive.

Admittedly, after allowing for commission to the agent who sells the trip, flights, airport transfers, taxes, etc, only around 40% of the total holiday cost enters the local economy here. Still, that is far more than some other holidays where the local people hardly benefit. Moreover, it is a figure that other rural riding holiday centres ought to be able to achieve (and probably do achieve) in a country like Romania.

The things that make a difference include employing local people (I include myself since I am permanently resident and pay my taxes here!), buying a lot of locally-grown hay and horse feed, and sourcing as many other services as possible locally. All the accommodations that we use are owned by local people. The horses are key to this, because it is they that need the hay and the staff to care for them, and they that carry guests to remote villages. Using draught horses for local transport, rather than a tractor, also helps keep money circulating in the local community.

Visitors sometimes ask why I use guesthouses and small hotels rather than traditional homestays. Basically, homestays were the first generation of private accommodation that grew up in post-communist Romania. (Under the communist regime, private accommodation was illegal.) One rented a room in an ordinary house, shared the bathroom with the family, and usually received basic meals. Some homestays developed through experience and investment into fully-fledged guesthouses, even small hotels, and it is these accommodations that we use now. Their owners have some grasp of the concept that one must invest and move forward in order to stay in business. Owners of the remaining homestays seem to regard their premises as cash cows, yielding income without the hassle of investment. Consequently, they have fallen behind, often quite incorrigibly. Few tourists nowadays want to sleep on an old lumpy mattress and share a bathroom with eight other people. I have tried, and failed, to convince several homestay owners to modernise. They simply didn't want to believe that most foreign tourists value privacy and modern plumbing. Once a supplier stops listening, it is time to move on.

I hope that contributing to the local rural economy will become a marketing strength. Just as the so-called voluntourism is helping some Third World communities, I hope that locally-based responsible tourism will benefit traditional communities in less developed places that nevertheless are not poor enough to require aid programmes. Equestrian tourism can be excellent at putting money into a traditional rural economy since keeping horses is labour intensive and a great deal of hay and hard feed are needed. As a rural activity, participants tends to be directed away from the larger hotels and into smaller, locally-owned Establishments.

Presented in the right way, responsible riding holidays ought to appear attractive to anyone who is keen to see their holiday dollars (or euros, pounds, etc) help support the communities where they ride.

Admittedly, there is more to responsibility than just helping support the local economy. Animal welfare, safety, quality, value for money and so on all play their important parts. 

Leisure riding in general ought to make quite a favourable impact on rural areas, where farmers sell hay and rent out barn space and pastures, people are employed to look after horses and riders, breeders raise horses, and so on. I wonder if anyone has seen any figures? Ireland came out with some impressive estimates back in the 1990's.

Today's photos show the bleak scene of hay delivery this afternoon. It was windy. There was a roar like a distant freight train as the wind rushed through the trees on the hill behind. Observant readers will notice that the horses were without bridles, which we removed once the teams arrived in our field. Oprea is standing on the pole of the second cart to position blankets on his two horses, Doru and Pintea, not entirely desirable practice however the horses are accustomed to seeing people there. (Some horsemen will climb on a draught horse's back as a step up onto a tall load of hay. One has to trust one's horse to do that.) Tudor and Gelu received their blankets a few moments later. We unloaded about 1,500kg (3,800lbs) of hay.

More about Trail Riding and Training

I do appreciate the numerous helpful and thoughtful comments to my earlier posts regarding training-related issues.

I think that Anne is right that a major project may be brewing. I agree that most people are not going to read a book about riding before coming on a trip here. Nor do I want to make the trip seem off-putting. However I do want to get across the what to expect message in a way that is interesting and informative. People do still come without raincoats even though the printed information is simple to understand. Maybe a photo on a web-based guide will help them understand?

I want to explain to riders that, when going up a steep hill, they need to lean forwards and stand up out of the saddle. To take their weight out of the saddle when cantering. To ride on a loose rein. Things like that. This horsemanship-related material is going to be shown to all guests before they ride, whether or not they see it on-line. Since trail riding skills differ in important ways from arena riding skills, I will be giving guests information that may be new to them. Optimistically, I think that many will listen, partly because this isn't a dude ranch or a place set up to handle novice riders.

I can see that video clips are going to come in handy. They will help make the trip look like great fun, a message that I do want to get across to potential visitors. After all, the trips are great fun, it just helps to be equipped with the right techniques as well as the right clothes and equipment.

However, since I am in the midst of winter, I am going to have to be patient. I cannot start filming anything right now. What with preparing the horses, repairing the fences, checking the trails, and filming, Spring will be busy.

Luckily, whilst the terrain is mountainous, it isn't terrifyingly abrupt like, say, the Grand Canyon ride. For me, pictures of that trail are quite enough. I could not ride it. Knowing that I have limits helps me to appreciate other people's limits.

I think that the experience element may be quite marketable. A ride in a different environment like this can make a guest into a more experienced, knowledgeable, rounded rider. Just as a ride on a cattle ranch might, or in Mongolia. Presumably a great deal comes down to presentation. I think that I still have some way to go presenting these rides as experiential, both in an equestrian sense and culturally. This shift in presentation remains an overall objective.

Looking like we are experienced, that we actually try to pass on useful information, is a point in our favour. Especially if we are trying to cultivate a good quality clientele. Again, this may give us a marketing advantage if it is done well. However I don't want to make this look like an overly-regimented establishment where there is no fun to be had.

Anne's advice on being wary about interaction makes sense. At the least, comments will need to be moderated. I'm not especially concerned about competitors trying to sabotage my work, and then only by other expatriates. Copying would be more likely. There is very little trust between the handful of riding centres receiving international guests in this country. Poaching ideas and clients is not unknown. Disinformation has happened before, one rival travel agent putting the idea around that there are no medical services in this part of the country. (Rumours about the plumbing and outhouses might have been really damaging!) I haven't made my competitors or their friends aware of this blog, and I doubt whether any of them would think to look for it. I do try to avoid letting slip to anything that could be used against me. (Since few of my competitors are licensed guides or have tour operator's licenses, I doubt whether anyone would provoke me too far.)

The whole lack of trust between people in the same business does trouble me. Romania has an image problem right across Europe, meaning that tourism companies need to work harder than ever to attract clients, yet the local equestrian industry lacks the trust to combine forces to promote this country as a riding destination. I don't see a solution right now. Any ideas?

I've posted a photo of Doru, who came in damp from draught work on a grey day of intermittent sleet, wearing his sleigh bells. Whilst these bells are not as pretty as the exquisite sleigh bells that igallopon posted about recently, they do the job. Who knows, I could even sell them on Ebay for extra because they have been carried by a real Transylvanian horse.

Trail riding and training

igallopon raised the idea of my publishing training material in a recent comment. It is a good idea, if I can distill something relevant that doesn't just duplicate other material already in print.

A few years ago, I was involved in organising a training course to equestrian guides. At the time, I thought that I knew a fair amount. Now I see more clearly, as BarnGoddess commented, that we learn lifelong when we are around horses. So I don't feel quite so certain that I have something definitive to publish.

So I think that I will restrict myself to passing on things that I have learnt or observed with my horses, including good advice passed on by others.

One thing that did come out of those training courses was a realisation that some people think that they can become guides in a week. This may be a particularly Romanian misconception, but maybe not? The British system, where one needs a certain amount of practical experience before one can take the assistant guide or guide examination, seems like a good idea. However, the "take a course and be qualified" mentality probably is quite widespread. I find this disturbing.

I am turning over in my mind the idea of posting a gallery with information of potential guests, who need to know more about what to expect when trail riding, what to bring with them, and what techniques they will need whilst riding on the trail. Or perhaps a whole new blog with the information contained in posts as well as a gallery? This would be interactive, in that friends and guests will be able to post comments, and I will be able to update the information online.

Much of the information that trail riders need has already been published. My favourite source of wisdom is the 1941 edition of the US Cavalry Manual of Horsemanship. There is some interesting information in the Tellington-Jones Endurance and Competitive Trail Riding book. (I have an early edition, signed by Linda.) There are plenty of other books besides, we all have our favourites. There is even good advice in Xenophon's The Art of Horsemanship, including something that I tell all my guests: it is OK to hang onto the mane when you need to. I'm not sure that I have a whole lot to add to the works of these experts. I can, however, distill out the parts that my guests and I need out here and present them clearly.

There are also pieces of information that my staff need to heed. Keeping the horses and their tack clean is the most critical. It seems like the Cavalry faced an identical issue with its enlisted men. Just with their horses on campaign, as with ours on the trail, they need to be properly groomed before tack is fitted. Saddle blankets need to be clean, which is why we use blankets that can be refolded in numerous ways.

It is hard work making trail rides operate successfully week after week, and there are many details to attend to.

The photo shows a cart prepared to go out after hay. The long pole and chains are used to hold the load of loose hay down.

Clutter

The yard is cluttered with horse carts. Where there is space, objects multiply to fill it, and these carts - lying where their horses were unhitched - are no exception. The cart on the right contains sufficient 50mm (2") planks to resurface a 4m x 2.5m (13' x 8') section of barn floor. The old floor has lasted seven years, however some of the planks have deteriorated, so it is time to make repairs. We have a steady trickle of repairs to complete, especially with the older timber buildings that are around fifty years old.

It is a grey day, the wood smoke drifting from chimney blending into the overcast. Occasional snow flurries drift down. The lane outside is covered by a layer of pressed ice, and neighbours have begun to travel by sleigh. The air is hazy, and more snow seems likely. This anyway is a relief after the clear skies of the night before, when the temperature plummeted. It isn't as cold when snow falls as when the air is sharp and clear.

It is a religious holiday again today, so only the basic minimum of work is carried out. The horses are idle on the field, hay having been hauled up there yesterday. For them, it is an easy day. For me, I am busy keeping the fire burning. The rather damp wood that we brought requires frequent prodding in the fire to keep burning well. This wood may have represented a financial economy, however it draws plentifully on my labour to heat the house this way.

Religious holiday or not, business manages to intrude. I have completed a tedious conversation with a British tour operator that sends schoolchildren on hiking holidays. That sounds like a worthy enough objective. However the British firm, to whom I had provided accommodation, has proved itself interested in nothing except for the bottom line. Until now, improving the bottom line has required the feelgood-factor of "aid projects". I have struggled to produce any sort of useful project when each group has three days available, is unwilling to plan in advance, and wants to spend next to nothing, whilst poverty is thin on the ground around here. Last year ago a British school built a climbing frame in the village school playground, however the structure was so rickety that it had to be demolished within months. This year a British school wanted to paint "murals" on our village primary school, whose director reasonably declined since his school was newly renovated. (The schools in my village are all smartly decorated, centrally heated and fitted with double glazed windows. Is every British school so fortunate?) Instead the children got to make some kind of large board games that no-one in the village had asked for or really wanted. The whole attitude was so colonial, telling the "natives" what is good for them. Now finally the message has sunk in that we are not poor, we don't need our schools disfigured by badly executed "murals", in fact we are healthier than the feeble flabby visiting British children. We don't need worthless "aid projects". These people should look inside Britain when planning "aid projects", there is certainly enough needless poverty within those shores. However it isn't picturesque poverty.

The odd thing is, those flabby British children (or, rather, their parents) pay appreciably more for a week hiking and camping than I charge my guests for a week riding with hotel and guesthouse accommodation. Their trip costs are miniscule, the tour operator pays its guides badly, is even so curmudgeonly as to restrict the children's rations to save money. Someone has a very high profit margin. I expect that the children return home thinking that Romania is a "poor country" because there "isn't enough to eat". Well, I suppose that many of them would benefit from losing a few pounds.

Anyway, it's time to go downstairs to prod the fire, to coax that batch of damp wood into yielding some calories. I'm annoyed by that tour operator, and the therapy of poking at flaming timber will do me some good.

Late autumn view

It is warm out, and the snow is melting from south-facing slopes. Shady north-facing slopes remain snowy. Shaded by buildings, my yard remains frozen, keeping mud and slush at bay.

At the moment I am working on my reserve computer, since my main office computer has crashed and won't restart. Tomorrow morning will see it taken to town for data recovery and repair. I wish that I could go more than  year without the office computer malfunctioning. However computer problems seem to be the norm.

I'll be off line anyway for a couple of days, as I have the misfortune to be obliged to visit the capital city, Bucuresti. It's a twelve hour journey each way by overnight train. More ramifications of incompetent former accountants' mistakes have come to light, and need to be resolved through meetings. I doubt whether they will be pleasant meetings.

I am now employing my sixth accountant in eight years. The first could not turn in accounts on time to save her life. The second worked for a city firm, charged too much, and submitted data on discs that few seemed able to open. Not long after the third had emigrated, I found that she consistently had mis-filed my VAT accounts over a couple of years. Fortunately the state had signed off the accounts, meaning that I could not be prosecuted. I had police charges filed against my fourth accountant after discovering signs of embezzlement. It turned out also that she too had mis-filed the VAT. By this time I had been for medical tests, suspecting that I had suffered a minor heart attack. Fortunately it proved only to be severe anxiety-related symptoms. In those days I was working on my own, without the expertise and sanity that Danielle was to bring. The fifth and last to be fired presented me with a string of misleading financial data, made mistakes that increased my tax liability, and drove suppliers nearly crazy through refusing to pay bills over technicalities. That one man managed to raise my stress level higher than it had been even when I had a demanding job in London. All of this is a lesson to anyone who might consider investing in Romania. The low calibre and not-infrequent dishonesty of accountants is one of the biggest problems faced by foreign investors.

There are moments when I feel as if I were, as J R R Tolkein put it, fighting the long defeat. Fortunately these moments pass.

An important lesson has been to deny my new accountant the right to deposit any papers without my signature, and ensure that she has no access to the company finances, even though Danielle or I have to drive two hours to town at least once a week as a result. Now Danielle is doing our own management accounting in parallel. I have developed sophisticated financial planning tools that enable me to calculate income, expenditure and taxes in a variety of scenarios. We have been extremely busy cementing our control of our company's financial transactions and ensuring that we understand how our business is evolving.

All this work and stress is in addition to managing the horses, marketing, operating the trails, or any of the many other tasks involved in running a riding centre. I mention that just in case any of you contemplate changing sky and shire (as A E Housman put it) to run a riding centre as an easy alternative to office work.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hill,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

I do think of those far-off days when this was all about going out and riding, about a simpler life freer from concerns and worries. Those times seem like the distant past now. Days on the chalk downlands of England, days on the bald ridges here. Days on high vantage points, the surrounding land splendidly arrayed to the far horizon. I wish that I knew how to recapture freedom. I am sure that many wonder how.

Not for the fainthearted

Life can be rough here if one is a pig! Here Cornel (my Chief Horseman) and his father singe the bristles off a freshly slaughtered pig using a homemade flamethrower. (I cannot readily think of a better name for this impressive device, which burns wood and is powered by an electric fan.) The singed bristles are easily scraped off with a knife, leaving a smooth pig carcase.

A little later, everyone was gathered around the pig eating the skin, which pulls off readily like latex. It is considered quite a delicacy, and a variety of relatives appeared at the right moment to claim their share.

I have been thinking about my post from a couple of days ago, regarding departure of a guide. It wasn't a matter of laziness so much as a lack of the toughness to survive in what visitors still describe as pioneer territory. Most problems stemmed from her lacking the assertiveness to hold her own in the rough and ready peasant society of a mountain village. I think that most of my regular female readers will understand my point: tough gun-carrying truck drivers, outback cowgirls, horse trainers or outdoor youngsters with cast-iron livers that many of you are. (Though I am sure that comments will appear.) This kind of place, and this kind of job, just aren't right for what some people call "girly-girls". This is a place where a certain degree of toughness is called for. It's a place where one can enjoy the raw reality of life, make friends, eat healthy food, experience living history. But it's not for the fainthearted.

This isn't a place where anyone can live. If it were, it would be boring, sanitised, and pork would come from the supermarket. And it wouldn't taste as good as home killed pork either.