This morning
was so gorgeous. Sunshine, blue skies, frost. I didn’t take my camera when I
went out early with the dog, then wished I had. These are the photos I would
have taken.
- Looking down
from the fields, and the valley is full of mist like a huge white serpent
coiling out of Hebden Bridge into Mytholm and on towards Todmorden.
- Then looking
up the field towards Old Town and the grass is golden with sunshine, glittering
with frost. A huge tree at the top against the blue sky.
- A single
bird flying across the perfect blue of the sky, like a cursor across a blank
screen.
- Brown cows
munching in a field, half in sunshine half in shade.
Johnny has
gone running up to Shackleton, Horodiddle and Blake Dean. I’m jealous. It will
be utterly beautiful up there this morning. But today has other treats in store
for me.
Two weeks
into the Walk and Ride Festival and at last I’ve been riding. Izzy and I took
two buses and a taxi over the border into Lancashire and went pony trekking.
These are the lovely fell ponies we rode on, Danny and Target.
It’s years
since I used to ride horses, and it was strange to begin with. But two hours in
and the rhythm felt completely right. The horse was moving and I was moving
with it in a way that was familiar. They were very well trained
well-behaved ponies. They went forward when we told them, and stopped on
command. No frisking or pushing our legs into fences and gate posts. By the end
I wanted to trot, and so did Target. But we were very good and kept to the
sedate pace we were meant to.
I could
imagine myself on a long journey, across the country, in the days when horses
were the main type of transport. Distance seemed achieveable and desirable, I wanted to stay on the horse for a long time. But
it was only a two hour ride, and we had to dismount, feed the ponies some
carrots, and return to Yorkshire.
Oh, and here
are some pictures I took when I went out with Bet later this morning and
remembered the camera.