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The majority of what I did on my holidays involved copious amounts of mud - both of the Northumbrian and Scottish varieties.
My week off started with a smile when the Grey Mare delighted me with her dressage. The competiton had been forced inside because the field where it was due to be held was wet, boggy and muddy.
My mud-free moment occurred when I bade farewell to my old Corsa and swapped him for a green machine. My new car is diesel, which I hope will cut the fuel bills. I had emptied the Corsa the night before going to the garage. The garage man still said: "Horsey girl are you?" I don't know if it was the Grey Mare hairs clinging valiantly to the upholstery or the pervading pong of eau d'cheval. I have been ordered not to turn the new car into a horse equipment depositary.
More mud was in order when I accompanied a friend who was showing two ponies at a big horse event in Scotland. We were towed onto the lorry park by tractor and towed off again the next morning. The lorry park henceforth became known as 'the swamp'. My friend did marvellously well and not only won her class but won the championship against the first and second-placed ponies in three classes.
And today, I returned to the muddy showground of Glendale. This year, I was under cover, serving tea and coffee to horsey folk for a couple of hours.
My holiday is over, the summer - such as it was - is drifting on towards autumn and it's back to work tomorrow.
I love getting the new season’s horsy catalogues through the post. Ride Away, Robinson’s and Derby House all bring a smile to my face and a sense of anticipation as I study the sweet, new-smelling pages. The Internet’s all well and good, but there’s nothing like getting to grips with a shiny new catalogue stuffed to the gunwales with things I think I want but can’t afford.
The people who stride across these pages have lives that bear little resemblance to mine. They can wear lemon, lilac and pale blue shirts with alacrity; they can don beige jodhs and breeches on a daily basis without fear. They, it would seem, are never troubled by mud, muck, or dribble.
Take today, for example: a beautiful warm spring day with a hint of breeze. I have arena dust in my ears and my hair; I have white horse hairs on my socks and my sleeve; I have green horse saliva on my jodhpurs. In the winter, I return home caked in mud and often have hay in my hair.
My beige breeches only come out for ‘good’ along with my long leather boots. Even then, I wear a pair of trousers over the top of them until just before I mount. It’s only wise when you have a horse that likes to use you as a scratching post.
Sometimes, I wish I were a Joules girl. Joules girls are never dirty, their hair is artfully tousled, their eyes sparkle and their skin glows. But then I console myself with the thought that life’s no fun unless you’re getting your hands dirty.
Now that the ground is hard and dry as a bone, and the season of squelchy mud appears to be over, my thoughts have turned to my fingernails. The aforementioned mud is no longer lodged under my nails, staining the skin with a blackened crescent that no amount of prodding, poking, lotions or potions will shift. Cutting down the nail and peeling off the offending skin is the only effective way I’ve found of dealing with it.
Now, though, it’s gone. My nails are long and strong, if very unkempt. It’s a myth that horsy gals don’t have good fingernails; I think delving in all that muck fertilises them and makes them grow like prize roses.
My sister’s nails are currently a gothic purple-black, but I lean more towards the blues. I went to see Marianne Faithfull once and she had the most marvellous blue fingernails. She used them wisely, gesticulating as she sang standards from The Threepenny Opera. As a teenager, I was also influenced by Flo Jo’s nails. I was never an athletics fan, and her nails were a little claw-like for me, but I’d never seen anything like them before. I dug out my myriad-coloured nail polishes and painted my own rather smudged rainbows, hearts and flowers.
Like well-plucked eyebrows, I think well-tended fingernails make all the difference. After all, it’s the little things that count.
I don’t know why mud-coloured jodhpurs aren’t more popular. They would hide a multitude of sins. They wouldn’t show that the wearer had been crouching down while wearing muddy wellies, which then smeared mud onto the bottom and back of the thighs.
I was crouching down to battle with the mud welded on to my horse’s legs, so I could put her boots on. I might be better off following her example by wading barefoot through the oozing mass that is occupying the field gateway: then the mud wouldn’t seize my wellies and threaten to hang on until I lose my balance and fall over.
To be fair, it hasn’t been a bad winter; the ‘proper’ mud didn’t start until after Christmas, and there have been some stunning days. Take yesterday, for example, when the warmth promised spring and dropped hints about drying up the ground. I turned the moulting grey mare out for a few hours to have a roll without her rug. She came back looking like a piebald.
Yesterday was a false dawn, though. Today, the March winds have been blowing and the grey clouds have thrown down hard little rods of rain angled like clock hands at 20-to-the hour. The saturated earth lapped it up and became even muddier.Horses suffer from mud fever. I have mud fatigue. I wonder if I can get a sick note for that?
The majority of what I did on my holidays involved copious amounts of mud - both of the Northumbrian and Scottish varieties.
