I am sat at home reflecting on a really lovely day. Not to many people's taste maybe, cycling to town in the rain with a puncture to catch the 8.15am coach to Ringwood. Getting there just in time and then a cup of over-priced tea in the cafe at Bournemouth Travel Interchange while the other passengers are loaded.
Another cycle ride through the outskirts of Ringwood to the yard to find Steve with hay loaded all ready to go and the horses gathered around the gate, impatient for their feed.
We waited a few minutes to see if Jo would arrive and caught up a little on the last few days while I have been doing the annual accounts, returns and the last of the grant returns.
Steve often finds my haphazard and somewhat clumsy approach amusing, that is OK, it is part of me and what we share and today, I had left my cycling gloves on, instead of changing them, so putting the shackle around the tractor bucket, I was more than usually hamfisted!
We got there eventually, my new hat doing a grand job of keeping my usually raggedy head dry in the heavy rain.
Jo had arrived by the time we got back to the gate so we stopped for a cup of tea and discussed how we were going to scrape the shelter and lay the tarmac planings, our chosen task for the day.
Part of the great pleasure I feel in how I spend my time is how we three interact. Such diverse people,
Jo, 35 I think, an athletic, attractive, leggy blonde who swims every day to maintain her sanity, with two young ginger boys and a fireman husband. Embroiled in the life of a mother of young children, running a business too, to provide products to parents that they can't get anywhere else. Enough you would think for anyone, but no, Jo, like both Steve and I, I think, finds peace and sanctuary in the horses, the company and the work we do at the yard.
Then there is Steve himself. a complex man, an unfashionable thing, but to me, something special and important. It is never boring being around him! He shares the yard and the horses so generously with Jo and I and anyone else who has a mind to join in, carries on despite the constant pain and discomfort of his various difficulties, never hiding or pretending, yet achieving more than many others would in any circumstance.
And me, a wannabe. Between Jo & Steve, my children nearly grown, planning the next stage of my life, learning what needs to be done to keep heavy horses, to live in Ringwood, making friends and learning skills alongside Steve. Helping out in return for learning and company.
Somehow we mesh and bring out the best in one another it seems to me. So, back to the day.
It has been a bit of a rough and nothing week. Steve is waiting for a gall bladder op, I have been ensconsed on my computer doing essential stuff and the weather has been very variable but yesterday, as he so often does, Steve pulled a blinder and arranged for planings to arrive today. How can I express it as I blather on?
Both of us are ambitious people (we all three are actually), we want to move the business and the yard forward, but it is difficult. We fight our weaknesses, all of us, and doing nothing is so much easier most of the time. What drives us on is that we manage to motivate one another somehow, and things happen.
So we spent the morning, as I said so many words ago, spreading planings in the shelter to make a dry place for the horses to stand in this oh-so-often foul weather.
As soon as we had finished, they showed their appreciation and came and stood on our handywork, messing up the perfect surface. c'est la vie. It was good to have their seal of approval.
As the floor in the shelter has deteriorated, and the puddles have become bigger, they have spent less time in it. Something had to be done and Steve and I have been persuing the options for weeks to try and find a workable one that can be achieved in the current weather, and with the current finances.
That was the morning.
Quite often recently, we have called it a day at lunctime, the wet, cold and wind make it impractical to do more than the bare minimum at the yard and this learning experience is about being real, learning about the seasons and what can be achieved, how to work with the weather and the land, not to fight it more than is strictly necessary.
Today though, none of us really wanted it to end, it had been a good morning, was warm and the rain showers had stopped for a while. Jo asked when we could go and see Robert's new stallion and Steve piped up "now". Off we went and spent a lovely couple of hours meeting Eric (aka Qualois) and sharing a cup of tea with Robert, his son George and his wife Barbara.
I love the spontenaity of how things happen. My life doesn't run on rails, it came off the rails I had put in place about 10 years ago and I havent found a set yet that work. I am not sure now that I ever will or want to. I have talked before of my patchwork life, I cant remember whether it has come up on here, but this is an indulgent blog at the beginning of a new year talking about how much joy and pleasure I find in this life,
Tuesday 8th January 2008 - Indulgence...