A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play...

...his labour and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation.

He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing.

To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

From L.P. Jacks, English philosopher, died the year I was born.

I'm going to give it a go!

I had such fun last week, so now I'm going to bring the same to my work, my writing, my life. I think that would be...courage...

...cheerfulness

and...determination.

Welcome to my desk, one and all!

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

I must encourage Poppy to read more Andre Gide...

On our ride this morning we met SO MANY monsters. We had to arch our neck, point our ears, dance sideways and go backwards before tiptoeing past on the other side of the road. We were really very brave.

The monsters we saw:

(You can see what she means)

 (Monsters have been known to lurk in puddles. Didn't you know?)

(Well, it looks pretty suspicious to me)

(See, it's got legs!)


Most of my monsters are like that.

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.

Whoohoo! I was looking for a quote about courage, to apply to my riding today and look what John Wayne once said!

I wasn't actually scared to death. I was just feeling like a bit of a wimp. It was very windy and cold and all the horses were galloping round and round the fields - probably to keep warm.

My early morning plan of a nice peaceful ride on Poppy didn't look as though it was going to happen. Peaceful? You're joking! 

I sat there at breakfast and persuaded myself it would be foolhardy to take her out on the forest in these conditions. Then I imagined what the rest of my day would be like if I DIDN'T...

(I think that picture is of grasping nettles)

So I DID...

Poppy only fly-bucked twice

...and only threatened to bolt once but she pulled up when asked (eventually)

We both had fun! I feel good.

RESULT!