A really lovely thing to end the week.

An amazing thing happened today. A group of three schoolgirls, who had chosen HorseBack UK for their charity in the Youth Philanthropy Initiative, gave their presentation and WON.

Three thousand whole pounds.

The incredible Young People. All my hats are in the air.

Regular readers will know how livid I get when charmless newspaper columnists and Eeyore-ish pundits grouse about The Young People. (Demonstrating, I always think, nothing more than their own intellectual laziness.) So this news acted as a double tonic for me. I was so delighted and moved that I felt quite overcome and teary all morning.

Then I saw the faces of the two course participants after they finished joining up with their horses in the round pen. One, in particular, a hardened veteran of over fifteen years, looked like a small child on Christmas morning.

So there was an awful lot of goodness.

As the week closes, I run into a wall of exhaustion. My new regime needs a little revising and a lot more iron tonic and spinach soup. But I’ll go on bashing away at it, because everything in it is worth more than rubies.

 

Only four pictures today, because I’ve run out of tether:

Mikey and his new compadre in the round pen:

The three Amazing Girls, when they came to visit HorseBack in the snows of February:

The wonderful Mikey, who has been a real star all week, and who is one of my absolute favourites among the HorseBack horses:

And the wise eye of my own darling girl:

PS:

There is no longer any time to reply to all your lovely Dear Reader comments, but sometimes someone asks a direct question and I do feel it would be bad manners not to answer.

One of the DRs asked if I were now doing the HorseBack Facebook page. The answer is yes. I have been oddly shy about talking to it, merely referring to a new project or a new bit of work. I’m not quite sure why this is. It is not a closely-guarded secret. There are no Moscow Rules.

I think it is because it is the first piece of truly ego-free work I’ve ever done. It is not about my name or my reputation or the regard of my peers or any of the things which come into my professional writing. It is not about me at all. This is an entirely new sensation, and one I find oddly delightful.

Of course, it is not quite ego-free. I get kind remarks and strokes; I get a giddy sense of satisfaction if a post works, or if one of their Dear Readers says something complimentary. I am not a mystic or a hermit or a lama; I need praise just as much as the next flawed human. But the fact that it is done anonymously, in the name of the organisation for which I have so much admiration, does take a lot of the self out of it, and I don’t think that is a bad thing.