Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.

I wonder if Sinclair Lewis (American novelist) had horses?

The very same thought about winter was running through my head this morning as I broke the ice on no fewer than seven water tanks across the fields and wondered why I'd chosen to wear fingerless gloves.

The ice was the result of a very heavy overnight frost, not even any snow.

(Please note, I am not AT ALL complaining. With two of my boys living in Canada, the cold season in Sussex is just a pathetic excuse for winter.)

I know how lucky I am.

Beautiful animals. Beautiful scenery.

And beautiful weather!

As Robert Byrne says “Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours.”

Good old nature.

A swift blow to the head

We all need one sometimes, me more than most.

Yukito Shikoro

Mine wasn't from a mutant woman, however, but from a horse.

Horses are (occasionally) very good at reminding you they are actually wild animals and not cuddly-wuddly ickle pets.

After several years of carrying out the same job in the same way every morning - which is to say, leading Alfie behind me, having brought him in from the field, and then putting Star's bucket of feed over her stable door for her...today it all went pear-shaped.

Perhaps Alfie looked too interested? Perhaps he just got too close? Perhaps I simply wasn't concentrating? I don't know. Whatever the case, I was putting the bucket over and Star suddenly landed a hefty side-swipe on my head and either bit, or caught her teeth on my left ear. (That ear! The one with the persistent ache in it. The one that is now bright pink and slightly swollen with a worse ache in it than before!)

ENTIRELY MY RESPONSIBILITY.

Thank you, Star!

I speak two languages, Body and English.

Listen, I don't know who said it first! In years to come, because I've used it as a blog title, it could be attributed to me. Think of that!

Anyway - your choices today are:

Mae West, actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol - died 1980, and Jarod Kintz, author -  born1982 in Salt Lake City. I favour Mae West - because Jarod Kintz altered his version to 'I know two languages...' (sneaky!)

Back to body language.

I was riding Poppy in the field today. She didn't want to go forward. I wanted her to go forward but I didn't want her to go forward too much because then she gets over-excited and bucks and bolts. And that's quite scary. And I don't want to die.

I was CONVINCED my body language wasn't transmitting to Poppy that I was telling her to go (but not really)

Poppy's ears were like this:

My ears aren't that expressive.

I was CONVINCED that I was saying to Poppy 'No, I'm NOT scared. You go forward as fast as you like and I'll be able to cope.' Then I became aware that I wasn't actually breathing very often...

I'm thinking that I'm like this with a project - urging it on when it seems reluctant, but, in reality (and in denial about it) scared to death that it really will take off.

I'll have to get a few lessons in Body from Poppy, that's all...

Horses lend us the wings we lack

Some of them do, anyway.

The wonderful Valegro, winning the gold medal yesterday with Charlotte Dujardin. Incredible...

So I had a word with Alfie this morning and said 'How about it?'

He said, 'Easy-peasy!'

'I can stick my front legs out too. Look! Elevated trot? Pah!'

'Just as long as you don't make the mistake of getting on my back. It's rather hot, I had my flu jab yesterday and I'd much rather be out in the fields with my mates.'

After our lesson, I thought I might get some carrying handles for him...

That would make it so much easier for me to get him over the jumps...

Still, we have four whole years until the next Olympics...

...and Alfie's not for sale, like Valegro, by the way.

And if he were, it would be for slightly less than £20,000,000...

But Alfie's worth MUCH more than that to me.

Day 9 Update
Zero and total confidence

About priorities - "Things which matter most...

must never be at the mercy of things which matter least," said Goethe.

(only I bet he didn't. I bet he said 'Dinge, die am wichtigsten darf nie zum Spielball von Dingen, die zumindest Matter sein,' or similar)


Look! It's 7 o'clock in the evening and I'm only just writing my blog. I considered my priorities today, on an extraordinarily long To Do List. Here they are:


1. Clear Poppy's fields of the dreaded Ragwort.

Quite pretty but it causes a slow and painful death for horses if they eat it. I've said on another blog that I hate Ground Elder. That's just annoying. Ragwort is a killer. 


2. Get ready for my friends to came round for a garden party.
3. Party! ...without for a second thinking about all the other things I 'should' have been doing. (Success!)

4. Watch Andy Murray losing to Federer. Sigh...


NOW I can write my blog, safe in the knowledge that today, for a change, my priorities were well sorted - protecting my horses, entertaining and enjoying the company of some very dear friends and family, watching the tennis with them (much more fun than watching it on my own) 

And NOW I can get on with my work (deadline tomorrow) - which, in the grand scheme of things, matters least (especially on a Sunday) only perhaps don't mention this to my clients. 

The job will be done and done well, just not FIRST!

Happiness is a very small desk and a very big wastebasket

A magician said this. A magician, comedian and speechwriter for Gerald Ford, which seems a strange marriage of talents...

...but maybe not. A little worrying, perhaps, to think that a president of the US.etc. etc.

I don't particularly agree with Robert Orben's definition of happiness.  Too small a desk and I wouldn't be able to fit my Very Important Objects on it.

Difficult to see clearly but may I introduce them? From L to R.

Hmmmm, there's my To Do List on a whiteboard. (More of a To Do Scrawl, really.)

Then there's my Inukshuk. It reminds me of my two boys, Jamie and Laurie, and their girlfriends, Breanna and Irene, living in Canada. It also symbolises "You are on the right path." I live in hope...

Next, my hare. If I had a daemon, it would be a hare. Then there's a little card...

 ...because I never think I am.

Under that, a beautiful golden horse...

...Christmas present all the way from Bombay, from my dear writing friend, Rusty, which of course reminds me of Poppy and Alfie as well.

Then there's Bad Bunny for when I'm feeling wicked and Black Dog who gets shut in a drawer if I'm feeling miserable, as a sort of symbolic gesture for banishing depression.

Finally,  there's Eck - from a Meg Rosoff story, There is No Dog - reminder of someone who's an inspiration to me, and Ecks are very nearly extinct so I am his guardian.

My life, in eight objects. Ooooh dear! Rather telling.

I HAVE got a very big wastebasket, but I so very rarely throw anything away...

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow...

 ...and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed in a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes, people of the world - only a pathetic 5 or 6 inches, but that's a lot for us, honest. Enough for the whole country to grind to a standstill. Except for those of us who think, with stiff British upper lip, of Scott of the Antarctic and especially Captain Oates.

"I am just going outside and may be some time."

I love it. The horses love it.

Olive Oyl performed magnificently - her first venture out in the snow. Memories of years of sliding about in a front-wheel-drive Vauxhall Omega evaporated in an instant.

And now I'm back, safe and warm and considering myself to be very lucky, haunted by the thought of homeless people. 

I could DO something, not just THINK something.

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

...especially if you have horses. By the way, I'm not complaining because I love it - but it IS hard work sometimes. Perhaps Sinclair Lewis was complaining? He'd be complaining all the more if he knew I hadn't heard of him AND he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930...

Back to the horses. Lately we've had all the weather winter could throw at us except heavy snow (which I won't write too loudly. You never know who might be listening.)

For a start, at 7 a.m. when I arrive at the yard - it's dark.

We've had howling gales and slashing rain. This translates into...the sand school's a lake, there's lots of mud, and frisky horses with sodden rugs to change. And riding's not much fun.

Storm horse by Zeelis Tech of Android Zoom

 We've had icy conditions - which means frozen windscreen, frozen fingers and toes, head collars with rigor mortis, frozen drinking troughs, treacherous roads. And riding's not much fun.

Ice horse by Cisco of Queeky

And today...we have sunshine.

And riding was a great deal of fun.