Home life
Drowned in the wind
Alice Thomas Ellis
Four intrepid equestriennes rode up the stony ravine to emerge on the mountain top — and then we nearly got blown off our ponies. I said last week I thought I'd gone mad and now I have hard evidence. Janet was fixing up a pony-trekking ex- pedition for the daughter and her friend Amber, and being a responsible and courageous nanny she said — albeit with some reluctance — that she would go too; and then I heard this voice saying, 'Well, I think I will as well.' That was me. Janet was absolutely astounded although not as astounded as I was myself. I was 16 when I last clambered on a horse, and in a great many years it has never occurred to me as a good idea to repeat the experience. I used- to have a horrible pony, whose delight it was to throw me when I least expected it over hedges, into ditches, on the sand, in the sea. She accepted loud noises with equanimity and regarded articulated lor- ries with cool composure, but she hated discarded cigarette packets and little tiny bits of seaweed. Janet was only thrown once — at her first lesson. They said that she must immediately get back on the horse or her fear would take on neurotic proportions and she would never ride again, and she said that as far as she was concerned if she didn't see another poxy horse for a million years it would be far too soon. Considering all this I think we must both have taken temporary leave of our senses.
We set off bright and early for the stables. I was sulking because they wouldn't let me wear my old jodhpurs on the grounds that they were out of style, and it seemed pointless to have kept them all this time. Janet was talking about last wills and testaments and saying things to the effect that if martyrdom was inevitable all one could do was to accept it with a good grace; and even down in the valley a great gale was blowing. This, however, was as a mere zephyr to the gale we encountered on the mountain top. Not only were we nearly blown off the horses, the horses were nearly blown off the mountain. It was like drowning in wind and none of us had a chance to give way to nerves or the vapours. My one (naturally) was fright- ened of discarded cigarette packets and plastic bags, Janet's one was enuretic, the daughter's one was plain disobedient, and Amber's one liked playing in water: we waited for some time while it stood in a stream splashing with its foreleg — clearly determined to go no further. Janet observed grimly that John Wayne never seemed to have that sort of trouble, and I reflected again how pleasant it was not to be being chased by Red Indians. I often think this when times are difficult. It's called looking on the bright side. As we clattered into the stable yard Janet re- marked that we looked like the return of the Wild Hunt, and we did rather. Every- one's hair was standing on end and all the pins had been blown out of mine. Even our guide seemed a little shaken and said that there were horses in the stable who would have been round the course in ten minutes flat if they'd been faced with those gusts on the top. I think we got off lightly, though we got off the horses with as much alacrity as the stiffness would permit and retired to the pub for a soothing stirrup cup.
I have become very adventurous. I went to the theatre before we left for the country, which is something else I haven't done for years and years since I saw Orson Welles playing Othello, and when he throt- tled Desdemona her poor little feet stuck out of the end of the bed and flapped, and the whole house rolled in the aisles. I was consumed with pity but the terror gave way to hysteria. Then one evening I was sitting next to Christopher Edwards at dinner and explaining that apart from all this I simply could never understand what Shakespeare was talking about, and he said that in that case he would take me to see The Merry Wives of Windsor. And he did. To begin with I understood about one word in six, rather as though it was being played in simple French, and I was delighted when somebody announced quite clearly that there were 'pippins and cheese to follow'. I got that. All around us were Americans roaring with laughter at the verbal sallies, while I sat wondering why I had this problem with my native tongue; then suddenly the whole thing switched to sub- urban sit.com. and I was instantly at home. Oh dear.
Back in the Welsh home everything was much as usual. Cadders opened proceed- ings by disembowelling a mouse on the welcome mat, and the weather was re- markably similar to last summer. All the dramas of Christmas — the snow, the ice, the floods — might never have happened. There we were with the washing steaming on the Aga and the wellies tipped up in front of it.
Janet says there is a man who forecasts the weather by observing the behaviour of moles and that he has promised us a wonderful summer. I've hardly ever seen a mole since they spend most of their time underground, but if he's right I'll join whoever it was and sit in the sun with a strawberry daiquiri toasting the little gentleman in black velvet.
Taki will resume his column next week
Previous page
