My lungs are screaming at me this morning. Begging for mercy.
I blame Alfie. And the biting chill in the air. And the fact that I'm SO determined that Alfie should move forward during our lesson in the sand-school even when all he really, really wants to do is stand in the middle in a semi-coma, watching everyone else.
So - I over-exert myself. It might be less effort to give Alfie a piggy-back.
I've developed a peculiar high-pitched whooping sound to psych him up. That and the flinging my shoulders left-right, left-right in an energetic fashion to set him in motion. It's not pretty...but it works. (Tessa's comment was that if she ever felt the desire to promote her skills as a riding teacher, she wouldn't be choosing Friday mornings for her demonstration...)
Oh - the quote about oxygen and hope belongs to Emil Brunner, 20th century Swiss theologian.
I expect he had a horse like Alfie.
I must say that if I made half as much effort with hope as I do with oxygen, I'd be positively galloping round the sand-school of life.
