Date: 2009-11-30 22:41 Subject: Gone to a cold home Security: Public Mood: sad Music: Dry the River - History Book Tags: tributes

My favourite book in the world is Mythago Wood and although I loved it when I first read it after reading it's later counterpart Gate Of Ivory, Gate Of Horn that gave context and subtlety to the story, I found even more to it. I have never reached the end of that book with dry eyes, it is simply brilliant. Consequently I was very excited earlier in the year to hear that not only had The Bone Forest, a compendium of short stories set around the fringes of the wildwood, been re-published but there was also a third novel to wrap up the story of the Huxley brothers coming out. Sure enough Avilion came out earlier in the summer and I bought it straight away in hardback. I wouldn't say it equals it's precursors- by commencing within the wildwood it is less of a journey into that mystery than the other Mythago stories, but it is still a very fine read and full of the unique and primordial depth that I love about all those books.

So yes, you can consider me a fan of Robert Holdstock's books - going right back to The Dark Wheel which I read many times when I was young and obsessed with Elite - and I was very sad to hear there will be no more.

Date: 2009-11-23 00:58 Subject: In which some changes are made Security: Public Mood: pleased Tags: photos

Today was another busy one. We've had a problem, the last few times we rode out, where a certain black horse was coming back very sweaty indeed, not because I've been making him run around so much as that we're doing 7-8 miles at a gentle but consistent pace in hilly terrain. That meant Zorro and Small had to be in their stables for the morning so they would stay dry ( they didn't mind this as they had haynets and it was absolutely bucketting down outside ) This afternoon our helpful friend Liz came over with her big clippers and we did some hairdressing.
( A smarter cob, also: Portrait corner )
After that was finished, I put a nice new rug on him and took him back out to his field so he could practice rolling and see if he could trash it. The field has been divided into three for a while, one section belonging to Donk, then Small after Donk started jumping out, one for Zorro and one being rested. Today we thought we could open up the rested side a bit and let the big fellow graze on it, so I rolled back the fence a bit and through he went. This made him happy.

Then, we let someone else out into the field...

Zorro and Small have been separated by at least an electric fence since late July, but with Small feeling much brighter lately we thought we would see how they got on together.

( As a great man once said: LET THE WILD RUMPUS START! )

Date: 2009-11-21 23:12 Subject: An interesting day Security: Public Mood: pleased Tags: horsemanship

Today has been hectic but really good fun. A month or so back life_of_tom and I visited allezbleu's yard on the way back from the Jackals event so I could have a bit of a play with her little cute pony Jess. She seemed quite happy with what I did that day because when one of her friends at the yard was having trouble with her mare allezbleu suggested sleepsy_mouse and I could maybe come over and visit with them to see if we could help. We chose this afternoon as a good time to go over so I've been checking the met office every five minutes for the last few days because I'm always excited to go and meet new horses and I was hoping someone would forecast some not rain for the afternoon.

As we knew we were busy in the afternoon we ended up trying to cram most of a day into the morning, so I did a bit of work with Zorro and we did a bit of riding bareback in the halter. We also did a little bit of playing at liberty, which sleepsy_mouse got on video. It wasn't textbook but with him snapping at me, grabbing at moutfuls of grass on the go and me swinging away with the halter to try and persuade him forward it is pretty funny. I swear I have the most insubordinate horse ever. He's a pleasure to ride though, always a pleasure to ride.

After that we went to fetch our lorry back from the repair place. Oh yes! After only four months the horsebox is back on the road. In a day or two it will be back on eBay. That is enough of that!

Then sleepsy_mouse brought in her Small pony and they did a bit of riding in the school. Just ten minutes, but it's great to see him able to work again and to see the smile on her face when he is.

Then it was off around the M25 to visit a mare.
( There's enough here to justify a cut, I'm sure )

Date: 2009-11-18 23:07 Subject: A quote for you Security: Public

You cannot remain unmoved by the gentleness and conformation of a well-bred and well-trained horse—more than a thousand pounds of big-boned, well-muscled animal, slick of coat and sweet of smell, obedient and mannerly, and yet forever a menace with its innocent power and ineradicable inclination to seek refuge in flight, and always a burden with its need to be fed, wormed and shod, with its liability to cuts and infections, to laming and heaves. But when it greets you with a nicker, nuzzles your chest, and regards you with a large and liquid eye, the question of where you want to be and what you want to do has been answered.

   -- Alan Borgman, "Crossing the Postmodern Divide"

Date: 2009-11-16 01:05 Subject: Another weekend ends Security: Public Mood: pleased Tags: video

I keep coming out with phrases like "only six weeks left in this decade!" For some reason it rarely cheers people up.

Yesterday we had really stormy weather- gales, torrential rain, the whole lot. Not too many trees down, considering, but it was exceptionally blustery. So much so that when we went to bring the ponies in, Donk appeared to have been picked up by the wind, blown clear over Zorro's section of the field and into the end area which is currently being rested. The wind hadn't seemed strong enough to pick up a 16.2 warmblood even with a camp rainsheet.
( This morning Donk solved the mystery )

Most of the rest of the morning I dedicated to the fine art of going out for a ride on my pony while the weather stayed pleasant. It was bright and sunny and generally kind of alright.
( So anyways, you guys coming or not? )

Date: 2009-11-10 23:51 Subject: Ride the line Security: Public

So there I am having problems with my shoulders on a large circle, first they drop in, then they wobble out and as they drop in I pick them up and put them back on the right line and then as they pop out again I sort out our alignment again and still the circles aren't consistently round and most importantly for me, it's not getting better which is usually a pretty good sign I need to change what I'm doing.

And I think about someone saying "ride the line", which is one of those great enigmatic horse trainer phrases that can mean almost whatever you want it to, but at that moment for me it meant "stop thinking about the horse and think about the circle instead." Then I wasn't micromanaging where each foot went or worrying about changing the bend, I was just riding in a circle. And because I was concentrating on where the circle was, I was correcting the moment we started to stray rather than after the event. It wasn't instantly magically perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better.

I think this may mean I'm finally starting to get to the point where I don't need to be thinking about everything - some of the things that I've been trying to do for so long are starting to work better when I don't think about them and just do them.

Date: 2009-11-08 22:31 Subject: Making the most of the weather Security: Public Music: The XX - Shelter Tags: photos

Saturday was a glorious day, blue skies, bright late-autumn colours on the beeches in the valley, more than a little glorious for a walk to the yard.
( witness )
It was also the perfect day to go for a ride, no doubt. sleepsy_mouse brought in Donk to do a little schooling with him, he was his usual self while she did some groundwork so she bridled him up and hopped on. After two steps she jumped off again because he was actually shaking. We took his tack off and put him back into his box where he proceeded to lie down flat out and groan, still shaking ( not quite a shiver or a tremble, but a very clear shake ) from head to toe. It was a bit scary.

By the time the vet arrived ( out of hours call-out time again ) he was back on his feet and we'd been walking him in the school for a while. His head was low and his breathing was rapid but he wasn't as bad as he had been before. He did have an impaction but also his temperature was a little high and she thought there may be an underlying infection as he has no history of colic.

So that rather scuppered our riding plans. He was a lot brighter by the time we left, however, and after an evening at our friend's house, just stepping out for their village's locally famous firework display, he was positively perky.

Today he was pretty much back to normal so he went out - albeit in a more snuggly rug than normal - and seemed quite happy in his field. Small Pony was most unimpressed about sleepsy_mouse giving someone else attention and expressed this with an amazingly dynamic display of airs above the ground interspersed with highly collected trot, passage, spins and circuits of flat out gallop. I think we can be cautiously hopeful that he is beginning to feel a little bit better. It's so great to see him like this having been ill one way or another since June. Two sickly ponies, is perhaps too many to have at once.

Zorro remains, as yet, undaunted by whatever curse afflicts us, so the two of us went out for an adventure this afternoon under a much more grey and gloomy sky.
( A couple of pictures )
It was a pleasant, easygoing kind of a ride, but I misjudged the timing a little so we ended up heading up the lane in rapidly encroaching gloom, by the time we reached the yard it was almost totally dark. Certainly a good time to have a lot of hi-vis on.

Date: 2009-11-01 22:48 Subject: People who like fun, this one is for you! Security: Public

So after seeing it mentioned in a few places ( starting with Penny Arcade, which is one of the few sources on games that I genuinely trust ) I downloaded myself a copy of Torchlight last night.

It really is a lot of fun - anyone who enjoyed Diablo or the Playstation Baldurs Gate games will really enjoy themselves with this. I quite like my storytelling games but this one has managed to make the plot-light ( "there's monsters in the mine!" ) and monster-heavy mechanic really good fun, with a colourful cartoonish aesthetic that reflects Warcraft a bit but also reminds me of The Chaos Engine a little. Either way it takes the best things from a bunch of games of this type and throws them together with a whole lot of fun, a pet who you can transmute by feeding them fish and a fishing sub-game to give some more reflective moments amongst the hacking, slashing and zapping.

Instead of designing for the latest and most up-to-date graphics cards they've gone for making things a bit cartoonish and having it light enough that you can run it on a netbook, which I really like as an approach. It looks pretty lovely on my PC, mind.

This really is what independent games writing should be about, a bunch of people making something relatively simple but really entertaining for people to enjoy.

Now, back to those mines...

Date: 2009-10-31 22:54 Subject: the Tourist Security: Public Music: Blur - He thought of cars

Today was the last day for autumn colours if the weather forecasts are to be trusted- gales and torrential rain starting tonight and through tomorrow should break this warm spell we've had for the last week and we'll be into Autumn proper.

Zorro and I took the opportunity to go for a ride up the punchbowl, ending up at our house. I planned to go a little further but time was running out and I didn't fancy travelling home in total darkness. The worrying statistic from the trip was that we took an hour and ten minutes to get from the yard to our house but we were only moving for thirty five minutes. that means that aside from perhaps ten minutes of faffing on my part, taking photos or talking to people walking by, we spent most of that time with Zorro stopped and me pushing him to move on or getting his feet moving so we could get steering back while he stared off into some blue distance, or watched a family walk past with dogs or somesuch.

The journey home was a lot better, as you might expect. Once we started- when Zorro realised he was in the garden that it's his responsibility to mow he suddenly decided he rather liked it and didn't fancy going anywhere further, thank you very much. That bridge crossed we descended the steep hill into the valley and meandered along the bottom, down an avenue of golden beech trees. At this point I felt pretty smart for not having stayed out any longer because on the western side of the wooded valley the sun had vanished behind the ridge some time ago so it was already quite dark. On the way out I could feel Zorro starting to get anxious at a point where he got a scare last time and somehow I managed to keep him calm by being so calm and relaxed myself that he started to feel a little better about things. Not calm, but not afraid enough to break pace either.

By the time we got back on the trail that leads down to the yard it was maybe 80% dark and I gave Zorro the rein as he can see a lot more than me. Apparently the best route down that path was the one that went under the most low-hanging holly branches.

By the time we got home ( after about five and a half miles on very hilly terrain ) he was a big black sweatball. I think someone is going to need clipping this winter. In fact, noticing how much of my fringe I'm seeing in front of the monitor here, maybe two of us will...

Date: 2009-10-29 23:05 Subject: Side note Security: Public

Donk met Dr Dave yesterday, which was interesting. He was pretty scrunched up from nose to tail and Dr Dave ended up doing a lot of work to free him up in various directions. Dave is a really likeable and interesting guy and it's always interesting to watch him work and hear what he has to say.

Afterwards Donk did seem to be able to move a lot more freely, which is hopeful. He hasn't really come as sound as we would like and he's a rather expensive field ornament so if this doesn't help him come back towards being able to comfortably do regular work he may not stay with us for a lot longer.

Date: 2009-10-29 14:09 Subject: A bit of context Security: Public Tags: politics

Reading this article on Afghan history and the ones that follow it made me very aware of how little I know about the roots of the current situation in Afghanistan and how deep our involvement with it goes. I mean sure, everyone knows about the retreat from Kabul and how the powers of the west provided weapons and training to the noble Mujahideen who later opened the door for the evil Taliban, we all know about that big picture stuff. But there is so much else there and until reading those articles I had not only not known any of it, I hadn't even thought to ask the questions that might have lead me to find out. Well worth reading.

Date: 2009-10-26 08:27 Subject: Year gone by - Riding Video 2009 Security: Public Tags: video

So a year ago I posted a video of Zorro and I ( which has no lost it's music in an argument between Google and Warner ) was a kind of marker for where we were at the time. I figured the way to make that kind of marker useful is to give it points of comparison so on Saturday I got sleepsy_mouse to take some more of our session.

Last year penella22 told me off for doing myself down when posting about video, but this wasn't a great session - it had rained all morning and someone was a bit grumpy and we didn't feel like we were doing as well as we sometimes do. But then for me horsemanship, like singing in the car, always seems to go best when there is no-one around to witness it. Either way it's probably an honest representation of where we're at right now, if not a showcase for a whole lot of excellence. If I can get everything up to the standards of the best bits here by this time next year, though, I think I'll feel like I'm doing alright.

Date: 2009-10-25 23:42 Subject: A couple of other things... Security: Public

While I remember:

1. It's chestnut time and this year we seem to have more and bigger ones around than I can recall seeing before. The blustery weather over the weekend has brought a lot of them down so if you're in the UK I strongly recommend going out to your nearest chestnut trees and collecting some in the next few days.
2. If anyone has a copy of the BBC Lord Of The Rings dramatisation that packs with the Stephen Oliver soundtrack on a separate CD I would really like to get hold of a couple of the tracks from it. I have my own copy of the series, of course, but it's on tape and the soundtrack was only released with the CDs.

Date: 2009-10-25 21:38 Subject: Dogged endeavours Security: Public Mood: calm Music: Grizzly Bear - Fine For Now Tags: photos

Following on from my questions of a week or two back I did end up getting a new phone and it's a very dapper little creation, powered entirely by androids and determined to bring about the destruction of humans by any means imaginable. Going from a very old Nokia to a very new HTC Hero has basically overawed me with gadgetty goodness and so I've got total new toy syndrome at the moment and I'm doing everything I can with it.

This includes using the GPS to record our routes, so I can safely say that today our ride was 6.12 miles long and that our average moving speed was 3.7mph. Which, given that we trotted quite a bit and had some ( slightly overexcited and bucky ) canter in a few places, suggests that our walking speed is a trifle sluggish. We're working on it.

( A few illustrations )
The ride did have one significant downside unfortunately - as we came up to the trail off the common I saw a grey-haired couple ahead of me with a golden retriever and a black-and-tan egyptian looking dog ( the kind with those funny Anubis ears on it ) who looked very interested in us. They vanished off around the corner ahead but shortly afterwards I spotted the black-and-tan dog running flat out on a long loop around our right about a hundred yards away. It looked a lot to me as though he'd gone into some kind of hunting or herding mindset that likely to end badly for us so rather than going on down the ( narrow, wooded and barbed-wire fenced ) path off the common I was planning to take, we stopped and turned to face where I thought he'd come from and sure enough ten seconds later he came shooting out of the bushes and zoomed towards us making some growly-barky sounds and straight past as Zorro reared at him and span to follow him. I'm pretty sure that if I'd not been paying attention he'd have had a nip at Zorro's heels and someone ( or maybe everyone ) there would have been injured to some degree. As it was we had quite a scare, enough that I got off for a few yards so Zorro didn't feed off my adrenaline and we could both calm down a bit before riding back up the road. It worked fine and the rest of the ride was calm but I'll probably have a hell of a time persuading him that corner of the common is safe next time we go there.

I did think to catch up with the dog's owners to let them know that they were putting other people in danger - could have been a child, could have been a more flighty horse that would have bolted and quite possibly gone straight over them given which way the dog was running - but frankly Zorro wasn't going to get within fifty metres of that dog and I could understand that pretty well.

To counterbalance that, earlier in the ride we met a couple with a little terrier who they had trained to stay still when horses approached. I told them how much we appreciated that.

Date: 2009-10-19 00:25 Subject: Weekend gone down... Security: Public Music: Sigur Ros - Fljótavík Tags: photos

Well, another weekend ended pretty quick then. But fine weather and autumn colours can only mean one thing...
( Illustrated version )

Date: 2009-10-16 22:53 Subject: One thing and another Security: Public Mood: pleased

Since the last clinic with Steve I've been working on getting our direct rein better so that when I pick up with a direct feel on the left rein Zorro follows my movement with his left front foot and the same on the right. Since Karen French came to visit a couple of weeks ago I've also been working to build a stronger connection between my legs and his hindfeet so that if I'm asking softly on one side of his barrel he'll step under himself with that hind foot.

He's getting it pretty well ( no surprise there, once I finally fumble my way through to figuring out what to ask for Zorro comes up with the goods very rapidly ) and during our session yesterday it occurred to me that if I have this good direct rein and a connection between my leg and his hindfoot then I could just apply both and - hey presto - the best side pass he's ever offered me. Straight, balanced and flowing- not perfect but really in control and exactly what I was asking him for.

Increasingly when I ride him it feels a bit like we're floating on water and it will only take the mildest change in my balance to slide smoothly away in any direction. Tht's a pretty good feeling.

Of course, a year from now I'll be amazed that I thought I was getting anywhere, but right now it feels like we're still making progress. Steve quoted Philip Nye at the last clinic saying "If you could get just 1% better with your horse every time you ride, how much better would you be in a year?" At the moment it really does feel like we're managing that.

Date: 2009-10-13 22:47 Subject: Showing my ignorance Security: Public Mood: confused

I've carefully not cared much about phones for a while and as it's time for a new one I've finally thought about what I need and come up with a fair idea of what I want, but I don't know if anyone offers it.

Given that nobody designs phones to be resilient to the forces exerted by things in my pocket and/or the environment of people who go outdoors occasionally, I figured I might as well get something gadgetty that will break after a couple of weeks instead.

There seem to be lots of neat gadgets around, but the one I would like is to be able to use Wifi rather than the cellphone network if I want to. Between my office and my parents' house I spend quite a lot of time in places where there is no phone signal but there is a wifi network I'm able to use, so it seems logical that given how far smartphone technology has come in the last few years one should be able to just switch between the two. I went to our local 3 shop today to ask about it but the guy didn't seem to have the slightest idea what I was asking him about or why, so he lost a pretty easy sale.

You're all more aware of gadgets and whathaveyou than I am- is the thing I'm looking for possible? Does it have a name or are there particular phones that offer it?

Date: 2009-10-12 22:27 Subject: Worst. Monsters. Ever. Security: Public

I'd just like to apologise to anyone we didn't kill over the weekend. I think we might just have been very poor quality monsters as during the Saturday evening when we turned up in character most of the casualties happened. But not us. Apparently you cannot kill a group that wants to get themselves wiped out...

life_of_tom came back to stop over on Sunday before heading off to his natural habitat approximately 1000000 miles away in Edinburgh - it's been a couple of years since we met up in real life so that was awesome. On the way home from monstrous fun we visited allezbleu and got to meet her little pony Jess, who is very cute, and see Hero in action. That is a horse who knows how to extend his trot.

Because Tom was staying I took today off so I slept in a bit ( there were some fairly short nights over the weekend ) and after a leisurely breakfast we ambled down to the ponies and Tom had a chance to sit on Zorro, who was being quite pesky for me but recognised Tom as a total novice and looked after him really well. We dropped by my parents' new house on the way to trains as well cos I thought it might be nice to show it off to someone who had seen the old one a few years back and could appreciate the difference.

After dropping Tom back at the station I headed back to ponies and took Donk out for a little hack down to the stream. He was really good- all the work sleepsy_mouse has been doing with him is really showing through - and it was an enjoyable little expedition.

Date: 2009-10-09 16:09 Subject: Off in a couple of hours... Security: Public Mood: excited

Going to the Jackals, gonna kill a lot of players. Going to the Jackals, gonna kill a lot of players...

Haven't been off to monster an event for a few years but last time I did it was pretty fun. I may even get to pop up IC for a little while and Weasel things up a bit.

Of course, rain is forecast, but hopefully not so much rain that camping is a miserable experience.

Date: 2009-10-07 23:48 Subject: Just to say Security: Public Mood: grateful

Thank you, spoondog and spoon_doom, you totally rule.