The way of the day begins

Cool, grey-blue light; birds chirrup. I get up, excited, creep down the stairs. The dawn has not yet broken above Eggardon Hill as the kettle boils for my mother’s flask of coffee.
I tiptoe through the darkened rooms and into her bedroom; her breath rasps but she does not wake. I place the flask on her bedside trolley avoiding her glasses and other, abandoned, paraphernalia.
‘Oh! It’s you…’ she mumbles, still asleep.
‘It’s early – don’t wake,’ I reply as I leave the room; the last thing I want is for her to get up now and start wandering around – far too early for her day to begin. I switch on R4 and hope she will drift back to sleep.
I walk to the yard, carrying my day-luggage, and wrestle open the caravan door with one over-full hand on the key and pull the handle with my teeth.

Rufus whinnies and is trotting over as I make it inside and drop the laptop, clean clothes, handbag and other sundries, on what passes for a sofa in 27 – our ‘mobile’ home.

Back outside I walk to the ‘Village Hall’ ( AKA our hay store) and segment out three wads of hay; the other horses, Flax and Buddy have joined Rufus at the fence. I call the stray cat we feed and put food in its bowl. Then, I deliver the hay and, at last, make my own coffee and cook breakfast eggs.

My heart is pounding as the sun pops up and the first rays make it through the orchard trees. Eat my food trying not to make myself burp and then it is on with the johds and boots and extricate Rufe’s saddle from the spare room and hang it on the wall outside with his bridle. He has finished his hay.

An Ainscough crane, on the move, grunts as it makes the top of this hill and then roars off up the A35 behind our yard. I hear it for a long time as it heads towards its day’s work. It is not 5.35 and time to ride while the day is young, and I can pretend, that, so am I.

The world is ours, briefly. Deer play, oblivious of us riding, out in the glare of the sun. The neighbourhood’ livestock are waking making the place sound like a rendition of Old MacDonald’s Farm. We ride on silently observing. Down the lacy cuffed lane, thick with cow parsley and pink campion with the odd waft of purple vetch. Past the vets with it’s sleeping palomino foal; its mother standing guard. Inhaling deeply at the garden honeysuckle; a check on the bridge of the girth and we are into trot.

All legs sound and we hit the dew-soaked grass cantering. Down the incline, and then burst into gallop, to take us up the wide sweep of field ahead. At the top, we stop on one thought, turn and look across the sleeping valley; some of it still waiting for the sun’s rays to touch. We breathe in the clean, crisp, air and then we walk on, absorbed, threading our way into the tapestry and weaving a pattern of steps, a darker green, along the grass trail into the living view.

We return and see the first dog walker and we hand the, now golden-hued, threads of the path over to them; with a smile and a wave, we return to the land of the living and lost with brisk clip clops. And so our day begins; him to return to the fields, with his friends, and me to write for you.

Rufus heading home