Mortification.

Interestingly, in the light of yesterday’s post, this morning I discovered I had a done a properly bad thing.

It was not one of the usual mistakes I make – not a little bit of goofiness or muddle or poor time management. It was not letting the piles of paper grow up like mushrooms in the office, or the refusal to clear out the cupboard of doom, or the inability to reply to emails. These are regrettable, but you can make a joke about them, see them as almost charming, because diamond-sharp perfection is a sad, repelling ambition.

It was bad because it caused actual pain to someone I love more than almost anyone in the world.

I had taken the red mare up to work with Robert Gonzales again. She was coming on in leaps and bounds, and everything was improving, and I felt happy and proud. But she was still holding something back. That softness that Robert looks for was not quite there. She would blink and soften her eyes, ruminate with her mouth, let her ears fall into the relaxed quarter to three position, but she would not quite release that neck and shoulder. That’s where a lot of anxious emotion gets stored in horses, and if you don’t let it out you have no foundation to build on.

Robert said: ‘I really think you need to get her teeth checked.’

I said: ‘Oh, I have been meaning to do that for weeks, but I’ve been a bit hopeless about it.’

This is one of my less desirable defaults: I admit, with that humorous British ironical twist, to hopelessness, as if the rueful, faintly comical admission makes it all fine.

It does not make it fine.

The vet happened to be there, watching the horsemanship in action, and he very kindly said he could do her teeth on the spot. I had no need to book an appointment and take her up to his surgery. There he was, with all his state of the art tools.

He frowned as he felt in the mare’s mouth. She groaned a little. He exclaimed, in horror. The teeth at the back had grown needle-sharp, and were chafing against her cheek.

It took him twenty minutes to set her straight. He needed to do so much deep work in the back of her jaw that he gave her a sedative in order that his work could be quick and uninterrupted, and so that it would cause her no distress. My poor, stoned girl dropped her head in relief as he finished and I felt as guilty as I’ve ever felt about anything.

There are absolutely no excuses. I’d had the teeth in the back of my mind, in my mental To Do list, but I had not made the call.

I thought of all the work we’d been doing over the last few weeks. I’ve asked her so many questions, and she has answered kindly and willingly. She was in some pain and discomfort the whole time, but she did not buck me off or bolt with me or plant her feet and refuse to move, as she had every right to do. She went on trying, offering, with her good heart.

I write on this blog every week of my love for this horse. I am afraid to say that I sometimes boast on Facebook of the things I do with her. Occasionally, I cannot resist the childish desire to say: look at me, Ma, no hands. Literally and metaphorically. And all the time I was thinking I took such great care of her, I had, through arrant carelessness, allowed her to live with a sore mouth.

I feel ashamed too because I’ve sometimes said that she is not the bravest horse in the world. She is not one of those swaggery, sanguine sorts who deals with everything that is thrown at her. She is sensitive to stimuli, and needs strong boundaries and a profound sense of safety to function well. In fact, I see now, she is a very, very brave person indeed, because never once did she complain, but went on trying her best, with a gentle, doughty courage.

Often, when I feel angst, I talk myself carefully off the ceiling, use the good, rational side of my brain to restore perspective, forgive myself for perceived faults, and generally make myself comfortable again. In this case, I am not going to do that. I should feel some mortification, and I am going to feel it. I am not going to lash myself into shatters, but I am going to sit with the sensation of having made an egregious error. I have given hurt, and I should hurt too.

Then I shall move on, and make it up to her in every way I can think of, and learn this lesson well. I quite often write about the little things, in the context of quiet, daily joys. Notice the small things – the moss, the lichen, the tree bark, the light on a dry stone wall – and every day the heart will lift. I have noticed, watching Robert Gonzales work this week, that he too is a man of the small things. Nothing escapes his eye. He will see from the most minute flare of a nostril that something is happening with a horse; he can divine tension in a hock or tightness in the tail or tautness in the neck from thirty paces. Nothing is too small to be beneath his notice.

Teeth are not a small thing, but I had thought of them as an ordinary chore, something that got put on the list but did not have flashing lights and wailing sirens. In my mind, they should have had dancing girls and pyrotechnic displays and a Welsh male voice choir. I thought I was observant, but I was careless. It shall not happen again.

 

Today’s pictures:

Just one today, of my poor, brave girl, still a little dopey but comfortable again, with the dear old Scottish sun on her kind back:

Stupidity.

I have done something amazingly stupid and wrong. I have caused upset to people close to me. It was not anything said, but things done, or rather not done. (The story is too boring to relate.)

It is the most beautiful still, clear Scottish day. There is glorious racing coming up from Fairyhouse. I had a ride on the red mare this morning such as dreams are made on, cantering about on the springing grass as if we had no care in the wide world. Her ears were pricked and her stride was easy and all was harmony and joy.

She even developed her own small fan club as we stopped to talk to a family out for a Sunday walk. ‘Hello,’ said a very charming small girl. ‘I am five and this is my cute little brother. He is three.’

The cute little brother stared at me for a moment, contemplating. He suddenly pointed. ‘That’s a horse,’ he said. I think he thought I might not have noticed.

They duly admired Herself, which of course makes every inch of my spirit sing and dance. She stood kindly, immaculately still, and let herself be admired, taking it as her due. I told them she was a very special kind of horse, a thoroughbred. I heroically restrained myself from telling them that her grandfather won the Triple Crown. I did not tell them the story of the day he won the Leger in a canter, with Lester cheekily easing up at the line. (I’m afraid I rather admired myself, for such titanic self-restraint.)

So it could not have been lovelier. But the moment I got off my good doctor, the one who cures all ills when I am on her dear back, the mortification returned. I feel it now, pulling at my body, sitting in my stomach like a squatting toad. It presses furiously on my head. I shall write a grovelling letter of apology, but still, the thing was done, through my own thoughtlessness and carelessness. I know I’m always banging on about people being human, and how one should make allowances for the flaws and frailties of mere mortals. But still, I am mired in shame, lashing myself with angst. I have been stupid stupid stupid.

It is not the worst thing in the world. Nobody died. The headlines of the papers today are all about the fatal helicopter crash in Glasgow. That is perspective of the most brutal kind. My own puny problems are barely visible to the naked eye by comparison. I must stiffen my sinews and kick on and not give way to self-indulgence. Lashing oneself is a sort of self-indulgence. The grown-up thing to do is to acknowledge mistakes, put right what can be put right, take responsibility, and learn from the error, not fall into a swooning pit of mortification, which comforts no-one and achieves nothing. But still, I wish, as hard as I wish for anything, that I were not quite such an idiot.

 

No pictures today. My angst seems to have paralysed my shutter finger. Just this wonderful sight, from a few days ago, the only thing at the moment which can soothe me at all. It’s not that she is particularly beautiful in this shot. She’s all hairy and a bit muddy and, whisper it, slightly portly. (I am putting condition on her for the winter to come.) It’s that she is so much a horse, at home with herself and at home with the world. Every inch of her great body speaks of authenticity and calm.

In which it turns out I have angst. Or, an awful lot of nonsense.

I had a very long and very serious blog for you, all ready to go, and then I suddenly thought: oh, for goodness’ sake, they don’t want all that nonsense. I was up very late last night, writing many words of book. I am keeping student hours at the moment. This often happens when deadlines bear down on me like rattling freight trains. I get wild adrenaline bursts into the quiet midnight hours and think, oh sod it. This is not very responsible or grown-up or professional and I always feeling faintly guilty about it (there is a proper way to do things).

So I had a horrible suspicion that the long and serious blog might be misspelled and filled with ghastly grammatical errors and also mazily tangential. I admit that I often indulge myself here in the luxury of tangents, but there are limits.

So instead, my plan is: to give you get some soothing photographs.

Oh, actually, scratch that plan. A real-life thing has just happened and I shall share it with the group. Since that is obviously what the Dear Readers are there for.

I try at almost all times to be polite and kind and tactful. I’m very papery in the skin department, so I am keenly aware of the tender feelings of others. Just now, I said something stupid and it came out all wrong and the tone was just horrid. I could blame tiredness I suppose, or stress of work, or any old thing. It’s always lovely having something to blame. Except I have this other thing about trying to take responsibility for my actions. So I can’t really cast about for any helpful cause except for my own idiot, thoughtless self. And now I think the person is actually quite cross, but I dare not ask, so there shall be an atmosphere.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

You know how I wrote that long book about The Impossible Art of Being Female? In that book, I may have given the impression that I knew something about that art. Turns out there are days when I know absolute bugger all. I lose all idea how to conduct myself in a rational or adult manner and become confounded by the tiniest set-back. Angst squirrels about in my head as if it is storing nuts for winter. I get that awful curling feeling in my stomach and my shoulders go up about my ears and I can’t unscrew my face.

Ah well, I suppose that at least I am not presenting the shiny magazine self which some people do, and which makes me so doleful as I ruefully examine my own un-shiny life in comparison. I suppose at least there is some warts and all, which is very important for everyone’s peace of mind. (It’s not a competition, says my cross voice.) I find the Look at me with my perfect self and my perfect life and my perfectly calibrated emotional reactions rather lowering. On the other hand, an endless stream of wailing is equally tiring in the other direction.

I suppose everyone says stupid things and does not always live up to their best self. One of the things I like about my horse is that she brings out my best self. I actually said this to her last night in the field, even though she does not speak English and has no idea what I am on about. She is very polite about standing and listening when I am rambling on. (She, at least, is one member of the family with perfect manners, as would be expected from someone who clearly takes the Duchess of Devonshire as her model.) I actually thanked her for bringing out my best self. Now I just have to work on doing that with actual humans.

Report card says: could do better.

Really, really could do so much better.

After all that sharing, there is now only time for one picture, of my glorious beauty, who always thinks I say the right thing, with her dear friend Stanley the Dog, who only cares about chasing sticks and pigeons and has no time for angst.

In which I apologise to Clare Balding. Or, a small cautionary tale.

Yesterday, I found myself in a little Twitter storm which is so illustrative of the perils of the internet that I am going to tell you the whole story.

It does not start well. I fear that I may have hurt the feelings of one of Britain’s most beloved broadcasters. Yes, even I, always banging on about good manners and kindness, may have not lived up to the standards I set myself.

Here is how it happened.

Channel 4 were showing the racing. I tweet a lot when the racing is on, partly out of excitement, partly to deal with big race nerves, and partly because I am still unsettled with the new coverage. Because the adrenaline is running, I type fast, and sometimes press send before I have thought carefully what it is I say.

As I was making my usual complaint that we do not get to see enough of the horses themselves, particularly in the paddock, two other Twitterers joined in. They were not people I know, but they shared my sense of loss for the old Channel 4 team, and soon we were in an orgy of regret for the departure of John Francome and Alistair Down.

One of them objected, in quite personal terms, to the choice of Clare Balding as the new front-woman for the show. I said that I like her as a broadcaster, which is absolutely true, but think that she is a generalist. By this I mean that she has a wide knowledge of all different kinds of sport, and works in a range of different mediums. (On a very personal level, what I crave from Channel 4 is a tight focus on specialist racing knowledge.)

However, in context, the whole Twitter chat came across as an ad hominem objection to Balding herself. I spend days twisting myself up like a pretzel to avoid ad hominem. So I was already started to feel uncomfortable, when Balding herself entered the conversation. I work hard, she said, and try to get people interested in racing.

Oh God, I thought. This is what happens when the internet flies too fast and tempers get heated. It can be forgotten that there are real people out there, with real feelings, who are only doing their jobs. I imagine that anyone in public life gets more slings and arrows than any human deserves, now that the green ink brigade has gone viral.

I was overcome with crushing angst. I sent Balding what I hoped was a polite tweet saying that all I too wanted was for more people to be interested in racing, and emphasised that really what I was crying out for was a view of the horses in the paddock. (This is an editorial decision, and absolutely not her fault.)

And here is the amazing thing. She tweeted back at once, saying that she would mention it, and that it might be possible once they were covering fewer races. I am a complete stranger, howling and yowling out on the prairies of the internet, and yet she took the time and trouble to reply.

How is that for grace?

The problem is that she was so generous and well-mannered that my angst only grew. I was now convinced that I had behaved badly and unfairly. I could not get the thing out of my head. I woke up this morning worrying about it.

So here is my own question for the day. It is: how may one object, without being objectionable?

I love racing with an unbridled passion. I loved the old Channel 4 team, and spent so much time with them that they felt like family. It’s a slightly peculiar thing to say, but it’s true. I loved that Alistair Down could recall every single Cheltenham since he was a boy. I loved that John Francome could tell you that an ordinary horse down the handicap had run a blinder on a wet Wednesday at Wetherby. Francome in particular wore his knowledge so lightly that it was easy to overlook how profound it was.

I am still a bit raw from the sudden change, and in danger of taking it personally. Channel 4 Racing, after all, does not exist just to serve me. Not everyone is a racing geek, and perhaps not everyone does need to know what happened in a mid-week card at Wetherby.

Where Clare Balding is brilliant is in her ability to translate the language of racing for a wider audience. She knows the world inside out, having grown up in it, and she knows the people. She is also an ultimately professional and accomplished broadcaster, who can take anything that a live programme throws at her.

It’s all very well, my yelping like a scalded dog, every time the programme does something I do not like. But this small episode reminded me that there is a danger, in this rushing internet age, of developing a nasty sense of entitlement. It is too easy for me to throw my toys out of the pram, and take to Twitter to shout and scream and set my hair on fire. Perhaps it is not a very edifying thing to do. My new resolution is to think before I tweet. Because, much as I hate to admit it, it really is not all about me.

Clare Balding is far too busy to read an obscure blog like this. But just today, I really wish she were one of the Dear Readers. Because I would like to say sorry. And to thank her for reminding me of a valuable lesson in manners.
 
Today’s pictures:

Too dull and snowy today to take out the camera. So here is a random selection from the last few days:















Autumn the Filly:



Myfanwy the Pony:



Can’t resist the free-schooling pictures:





Red the Mare, living up to her name in the winter sun:





Stanley the Dog enjoying some top ball action:





The hill, from a sunnier day:

Angst; or, sometimes I really think I should not be let out of the house

WARNING: this is all about me.

I’m generally a little leery of writing too much about myself. Heavy use of the first person singular can fall into narcissism and solipsism and other unattractive isms. On the other hand, a bit of personal revelation can be good, because of the Me Too factor. I sometimes think that Me Too are the happiest words in the English language. You are not alone; you are not the only freak or fool or goofball. Your flaws may come out in public, without having to wear the hat of shame.

It’s a fine line though, and I walk it warily. Balance must be struck.

All this started because I was thinking of human contradiction. It is a subject that fascinates me, mostly because it is so common and yet always seems slightly unexpected. There is a desire for people to be consistent. There is also the giving of labels. Sometimes it seems that the world wants you just to be one thing; into your neatly marked box you go. You may be the brain or the beauty, the jock or the geek, the loner or the life of the party. People often appear confused or even cross if you are more than one thing at once.

Generally, I like to think of myself as fairly strong-minded. (This may be a polite way of saying: stubborn as a mule.) It is partly because this is a muscle I had to build up, on account of not doing the expected thing. I am a forty-five year old female with no desire for husband or children; I live alone, from happy choice. This is, even now, considered very strange indeed. A highly educated man once said to me, in blank astonishment: ‘But you have a womb; you must use it.’ We are still in family viewing time, so I’m not going to mention the filthy rejoinder that went through my head.

It is quite difficult for women to buck social expectations. One is either sad, or bad. Women who refuse to breed are variously selfish, unnatural, misguided (poor pretty pink things who do not know their own mind) or just plain bats. A hundred years after the Pankhursts fought for autonomy and the vote, a lady without a gentleman is seen as a pitiful creature. I always think of Jennifer Aniston in this regard. There she is, lovely, highly successful, with her own production company and one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time, but her life is reduced to the tired headline of Sad Jen and Her Search for Love. (This narrative is being interrupted at the moment, as she appears to have become engaged, but the yellow papers seem convinced that it will not take, and soon she shall be Sad Jen again.)

Since I took the road less travelled, I had to learn to shrug off the epithets. I had to teach myself not to mind, to understand that people will think what they will and that is their business, not mine. Each to each, I chant to myself, in the echoing halls of my cussed mind.

Then, every so often, I tumble into a craven state of caring horribly what people think, and it never ends well. This happened last night. I went for a dinner with some of the HorseBack people. I am used to seeing them in working conditions. There, I am easy as a fish in water. I wander about with my notebook, fall in and out of happy conversation, make jokes, am my utter self. But suddenly, there was a social gathering, and I lost my rhythm completely. I became unaccountably shy; talk came out in fits and starts. I heard myself mouthing platitudes, and being faintly dull. (Dull; one of my absolute terrors.) At one point, I even did an innuendo. I never do innuendo. What was I thinking? I wanted to be Dorothy Parker and instead I was channelling Terry Thomas. Now they are going to think that I am a sort of low rent Leslie Phillips.

I had angst about it for two hours afterwards. I said out loud, in the kitchen, to the dog: ‘Why did I say that?’ I felt like hiding under the bed.

There are several things about this. One is, almost certainly no one noticed, and I have created a drama in my own head, out of whole cloth. The second is that it always astonishes me that I mind so much. These moments of angst litter my entire adult life; I can almost list them for you.

I suppose it makes sense that these are people I admire and I would like them to think well of me. But how is it that I can take on an entire social construct, the one that says all those horrid things about women who do not have families, and yet fall down the rabbit hole of panic if a bad joke comes out wrong?

I start to think that I am actually very poor in social situations generally. I had another moment of crassness at dinner last Saturday night. It was with a group of people I had not met before. I felt the same constraint; I opened my mouth and something idiotic came out. I longed to be suave and charming and instead was awkward and faintly vulgar.

I realise that what I really like is seeing people in an informal way. A quick cup of coffee, a dropping in, a chance encounter; these are the easy ones. Put me in my best bib and tucker, make me sit up straight and put my lipstick on, and it’s a fifty-fifty chance that I shall screw up. Either I get over-excited and talk too much and too loudly (I have a fatal tendency to yell), or I am suddenly seized with bashfulness and can hardly form a sentence.

I especially like seeing people when there is some form of doing. The Beloved Cousin and I have easily our best conversations when we are cooking supper. The Sister and I do our finest talk when we are walking the dogs. If I am working with my horse, I appear to be able to do seamless chat at the same time.

I suppose there is something entirely unnatural in sitting round a dinner table, or standing at a cocktail party (my absolute number one worst social gathering). Humans were not really evolved to be Oscar Wilde; it takes a lot of work and concentration to acquire epigrammatic social polish.

The angst slowly subsides. Quite soon, it shall go back into its box. Happily, I am diverted by it being Frankel week over at the Racing Post. They somehow managed to get an entire troop of Household Cavalry to ride out this morning in Frankel’s colours. It is one of the funniest and loveliest and most unexpected things I’ve ever seen. There are delightful photographs of the fine sight all over the internet. Lucky Frankel, I think: there is a fellow who does not know the meaning of the word angst, nor needs to.

Vaguely, I wonder if I shall ever achieve a decent public deportment, or if I can train myself not to care. There really are more important things to worry about, like the polar bears and the national debt. How lovely it would be to reach the stage of accepting that sometimes I am an idiot, and that people may just take that as they will. Perhaps that shall be my next project. Because, as every fule no, we single ladies must have a project.

 

Today’s photographs:

Weather too beastly for the camera. The dour brown rain falls and falls. Instead, here is a quick selection from the archive:

A Dear Reader asked about this next view, and I rudely neglected to answer. (More low-level angst.) It is the sight I see when driving home over the Cairn O’Mount. I used to think it was the cairn itself, but in fact it is a granite tor called Clachnaben, which is Gaelic for Mountain of Stones. Even though it is still a twenty minute drive from this point to my front door, I can see this in the distance if I walk up the rise behind my house:

 

Important chicken picture for the Dear Reader who loves the chickens:

My happy herd:

Herself is a bit grumpy today, because of this weather. The raindrops gather in points at the end of her mane and drip onto her delicate skin and annoy her. I give her extra breakfast and love to compensate. The little Welsh pony, on the other hand, is merry as a grig, on account of her tough mountain blood, which allows her to laugh at the elements. The American Paint, in her laid back way, just puts her head down and gets on with it.

And the glorious Miss Pigeon, who has had good news from the vet. One more check on Friday, but I think we may bash on together for a while yet:

Bit of a non-blog blog

Sometimes a blog comes out easy and obvious; the fingers have a life of their own; a moment’s thought and the thing is done. Sometimes, the perfect post writes itself in my head as I clean my teeth, and by the time I get to my desk it has blown away like thistledown. Two nights ago, I wrote something so violently brilliant in my mind that I went to sleep delightfully convinced of my own cleverness. By the morning, no trace of it remained.

Then, sometimes, I lose my nerve. I know I insist that this is my goofy old scrapbook, and I shall write of what I please, and no one has to read it, but sometimes I cannot but think of the Dear Readers, and all they have to put up with. Not that, not again, not today, my strict monitor tells me, disapprovingly.

And after all that I stare out of the window at the low green trees, and the blank sky, and think: I HAVE NOT ONE SINGLE SENTENCE LEFT.

Also, every so often, I get myself in a fury about not being funny. All Britons want to be funny; it’s written in the national DNA. (Except, oddly, one of our most famous prime ministers, Mrs Thatcher, who appeared to think humour was for idiots. ‘Monty Python,’ she once asked, serious as stones; ‘Is he one of us?’) I can provoke laughter in life, although one can never tell if that is funny ha ha or funny peculiar. But on the page: can’t do it.

The occasional mild drollery may be cranked out, or a little light wryness, but not that true, dancing, funny funniness. Craig Brown is properly hysterical, week after week, year after year. Hugo Rifkind always makes me laugh. Caitlin Moran is routinely funny. I insist that I am never envious of writers, because it’s an undignified and mildly revolting emotion, and we really are all in it together, only a paragraph away from rank failure. But sometimes when I read the funny ones, I get a little shift of melancholy at my own shortcomings.

Then, there are all the other pitfalls, which may lurk even in such a small and benign arena as a tiny blog post. I have a horrid tendency to earnestness. Also: tangents, striving for effect, becoming intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity. And then of course there is the beastly, critical voice that goes all the way back to childhood, the one that says: really, who is interested in you?

You can see I am officially having an Insecure Monday. I loathe admitting to insecurity, because it is quite dull, and also sounds like begging for reassurance, which then feels bogus. It’s not that one wants to be all swaggery and filled with bombast and certainty; that is possibly even more repelling. But endless apologies for perceived flaws are very monotonous indeed.

So, there we are. Not really a blog at all. I am glitchy and cranky and crabby. I have no wonderful new theory to blind you with; no shining story to relate. Better tomorrow, better tomorrow, goes my mantra, like a mad old hippy who won’t stop smelling the flowers. I wish I could pick up a glittering handful of words and scatter them all over you like stardust, but if wishes were horses, we would all be Lady Godiva.

 

Today’s pictures:

The last daisies:

Rowan berries:

Cotinus:

Sedum:

Red’s View:

We have a new member of the herd:

She is a three-year-old American Paint filly. The American Paint is a fascinating breed, going back to the Spanish explorers who arrived in American in the 16th century. They can include Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred bloodlines, but all have the distinctive markings. (In Britain, animals with this kind of coat are generally referred to as coloured horses, and can include skewbald, piebald, spotted or roan.)

She belongs to the Horse Talker, whose young daughter is pondering what her blog name shall be. She herself is cool as a cucumber, although she has caused some intense prancing and pecking order antics from Red the Mare, whilst Myfanwy the Pony sticks with the one who brung her, as if to say This is my boss and don’t you forget it. The field gate is now like the royal box at the theatre, as we all watch the new dynamic unfold.

M the P:

Red, with her every good girl deserves a treat face on:

The new girl tried to herd the Pigeon yesterday evening. This, as you may guess, was not greeted with rapture:

The return of the hill: