PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT You'd think it would be unconscious. I've been sitting on my bum for years. Except, despite the evidence of the architecture, as it were, there are about ten million different ways to sit on one's bum. Right now I'm a little bit forward, as I tap away on the laptop, and I'm …
How Much Do I Love this?
A LOT Undertaking my twenty minute walk to the bus after my forty minute lesson, I looked around, at the blossoming trees, the burgeoning furze, and I was suddenly awash with how much I love doing this horseriding thing. Most Thursdays, my legs feel broken not so much from the lesson— although it's a contributory …
Using Yer Head
AND NOT TO BREAK A FALL, EITHER It looked to be one of those days that would find us all lashed into the indoor— low, low cloud, high, high winds. Somehow, by the time we'd gotten up the mountain, all seemed, if not calm, then contained. Only three of us in the lesson. Outstanding. We …
Anybody Know How…
... to get the stank out of a hat? Mine's getting rather aromatic; I love it, and don't want to replace yet... That is all.
Triggers
BUT NOT ROY ROGERS' HORSES It was a day. One of those days. Busy enough at work, managing demands, steadily producing. Underneath it though, was a feeling of being triggered the whole live long. In the main, it was an anniversary that is, let us say, without active currency, but one that exists nevertheless. Hopefully, …
It Is So Funny…
... when a horse farts. It just is. It is the funniest thing ever. There we all may be, trotting large, a horse lets one rip, and all of us grown-up women snort and giggle like eight-year-old boys. It's the insouciance of it, I think, the fact that they fart while moving, and care even …
‘YEAH!’
WHO KNEW? It didn't look to be an especially exciting hour. Late arrivals and a general feeling of chaos as untried riders joined the lesson, and some n00bs were mounted on unfamiliar horses. We trotted and trotted, and I reckoned, well, a good sweat is a good thing. I cannot sing the praises of the …
Utterly Changed
It's only 43 inches of flexible plastic covered in a polyester weave, but let me tell you something, sistuhs, this long stick has effected an utter transformation. I think I now understand that Rebel doesn't recognise a rider without one of these babies. Everything that happened when I had the AMSW is now consistently happening— …
Native Speech
THE FLYING CHANGES BOOK CLUB I've just read National Velvet for the first time, and I confess to being slightly wigged out. It's dark, and I wasn't expecting that. I was flummoxed by it from the start, felt the claustrophobia of the Brown's dour house, the sharpness of their discourse— the impenetrable quality of their …
Water of Life
I haven't mentioned Uisce, have I. Fiona was walking a horse into the barn, oh, weeks ago. I had thought she'd sold the horse she was bringing on, a chestnut mare, 14hh. She had. This was a different creature altogether. Another horse she was working, another horse that was for sale. Her name is Uisce, …
MANY BRAVE FOOLS 