Finally I have managed partially to negotiate the morass of incompatibility in which Internet Explorer 9 and Typepad flounder. At last it seems possible, sometimes, to post photos.
Yesterday Caroline visited again with her gelding Kevin. I arranged a ride down near Lambourn in racehorse country.
The hills are swept by the broad straights and curves of myriad racehorse gallops with their deep, springy and quite exclusive turf.
But the sparse sweep of the hills are dotted by Neolithic burial mounds and the concentric earthen ramparts of ancient forts. Indeed modern man calls these structures 'forts' however no-one alive knows what they were used for.
This landscape is a palimsest of journeys through the ages, most of them involving horses. Neolithic dwellers left the great drove route along the chalky crest. Romans added a few routes. Farmers from the Dark Ages onward added trackways. These all still exist, though most are now used differently.
Around Lambourn the gallops are the most obvious feature of the landscape after the hills themselves. Together with Newmarket, this is the core of the national racing industry. In each valley there is a racing stable, perhaps several, and the vast spaces needed to exercise the horses. Everywhere is grass - turf for exercise, grazing where fine calcium-bearing grass springs from the chalky soil, pastures for good hay.
The first photo shows the view as we rode uphill alongside an all-weather exercise track. This one must be at least a mile long, gently rising all the way.
The second photo shows a little-used trail, probably an old farm track, heading towards the concentric ramparts of Uffington Castle. The fort is huge but has quite a shallow profile viewed on the level.
The Neolithic Ridgeway runs from left to right immediately in front of the fort. This is the trail that we took, heading west with the wind on our faces and the sun on our left cheeks.
Here the Ridgeway is a narrow track of beaten chalk, quite unlike the wide turf way of the eastern sections that I know better.
There was a long distance walk in progress and a good hundred people passed us in the opposite direction. They were walking forty miles in the day, and a number did enquire in jest whether a horse may be hired.
We were walking on the right as there we found a wider grassy verge. It was natural, too, for Brena to walk on the right as she is a continental horse. I do have to remind her sometime that in this country we use the left side of the road.
Hedgerows are crowded with the frothy white of Cow Parsley, a snack beloved of horses (and, presumably, cattle). This is a lovely time of year. As T S Eliot wrote:
If you came this way in May time,
You would find the hedges
White again, in May,
With voluptuary sweetness.
So it is here in this season of rebirth. The land is white and green. Hedgerows are white with Hawthorn and Cow Parsley. The remainder is clad in green of various hues. It's a land of green and white dancing in the breeze.
The next stretch took us straight across a broad bright field, for here the farmer had not cleared the trail with herbicide. (They are supposed to do so across open fields such as this.) Here the old farm track has completely disappeared, now existing only in a legal sense and available to walkers, riders and cyclists. I trusted intuition to find the way, backed up by a map, and also found to my pleasure that Brena is happy for me to half-open a map whilst mounted.
It was an odd experience to ride across an open field such as this. Not much riding in southern England has this spacious character. Suddenly all references are far away. Plodding specks in a vast expanse, we could see for miles. It was like being on a small boat in the sea - freedom, exhilaration and loneliness all wrapped up together.
We were alone in a long, shallow valley where not a thing stirred - an agricultural wilderness. It was a little eerie, and I thought of the people and horses that must once have laboured here. What a bustling place this must once have been, in certain seasons anyway.
After the expanse of grass, we turned east again towards our parking place. There was one final ridge to climb, and here we "opened the taps". We must have cantered for the best part of a mile, enough to tire both horses.
A little experimentation showed me a good position with quite a forward seat, all my weight in the stirrups, giving Brena the freedom that she needed to use her body most efficiently. I had been looking forward to a good long canter for just this reason.
Then it was just a short mile's walk downhill to our vehicles, parked on a grassy square surrounded by gallops and the white railings peculiar to racing establishments.
The horses got the chance to graze on tethers, appreciating grass rich after an overnight rain storm. Indeed a good dousing has rejuvenated turf and crops alike.
Such are the rides that we enjoy in a landscape that inspired Tolkien's Barrow Downs.