Never. Again.

It was sunny yesterday morning. I began to project.

If it was sunny, then maybe we could jump the course that I didn’t get to jump the Friday night. If we were going to jump the course, then I would take Delilah. If I took Delilah, then I wouldn’t really need the long stick, would I?

A Foregone Conclusion

Yes, so the long stick: I have, as I said, become rather blasé about carrying it around.

I do realise, occasionally, that it is basically something that could be confused with a weapon. Recall my experience in Heathrow in 2006. So I keep it as close to my body as possible, tucked up under the handle of my kitbag, which is over my shoulder. I kid myself that no one can see it.

I think people are just too afraid to say anything.

I carry it in to the newspaper with me on Tuesdays. I come dressed in my jods, I don’t even care about that anymore, and hell, I’d wear them everyday if I could. One guy once made a comment, but only because he was caught off guard. Everyone else averts their eyes.

I guess if you have the brass neck to carry the thing around, well… Anyway, I think about it now only to write about it, and to say that I wouldn’t be without it. All that faffing about I did, avoiding getting one, just because I didn’t want to have to figure out how to carry it? All I had to do was carry it off!

Quite the Thing

I’ve gotten rather blasé about the long stick.

I’m handling it better, both in the arena and out. The first few times, handling it was like trying to juggle babies: it felt funny, it felt wrong, but it had to be done correctly or else.

Now I can [almost] switch it from hand to hand without too much wobbling. Although Fiona says it should always be in my dominant hand, no matter the rein. Ruth was equivocal about that. I’ll just do what suits the particular lesson. I’m learning…

I wasn’t going to name it. I tend to name stuff, must be my Viking [very, very very much in the] background. My gran was from Limerick, I’m sure my people got raped and pillaged just like anybody else. Anyway, I do love naming things: people, places, events, cats, dogs, inanimate objects.

So I was thinking about it and I thought about how I was going to call my lost stick Ted [walk softly and carry a big...] and how I didn’t want to call this one Ted, out of respect, and that this one was longer anyway, and then I thought of Longshanks, Longshanks, wasn’t that a medieval British king, one of the Plantagenants, Longshanks— Richard?

Rick the Stick?

But, dammit, it’s Edward, Edward was Longshanks, but I was right about the Plantagenant bit and the era [I have a thing for the middle ages, what can I say].

Back to Ted! That’s very weird and creepy, how that worked out… Nah, forget the whole thing. Although if anybody on the bus gives me — wait for it — stick about the whip, I suppose I could act [act?] really crazy and tell the above story. I do get more than my fair share of personal space when I’ve got it on me—

Nope, can’t get behind the name. Ah, well: first time for everything…

Utterly Changed

It’s only 43 inches of flexible plastic covered in a polyester weave, but let me tell you something, sistuhs, this long stick has effected an utter transformation.

I Give Up

OH, DON’T BE SILLY  I really tried. I did, I really did. But the dressage whip is the only thing Rebel respects, and it now seems pointless for me to ride without it.

Which means I gotta figure out how to get it from point A to point B.

Mama Needs a Brand New Bag

THE SAGA CONTINUES My buzzer rang unexpectedly this morning. The speaker phone revealed a man holding a long, skinny, handful of bubble wrap—

UN £@*!? BELIEVABLE

I LOST THE AMAZING AND MAGICAL STICK OF WONDER I lost it. It’s gone. Gone.

Stick of Wonder: Also Amazingly Awkward

I had kind of suspected as much.

The Amazing and Magical Stick of Wonder [AMSW] is almost as long as my leg. I tried to carry it in my bag, sticking out by about a foot, and every time I turned around, I could hear it scraping against something: a wall, a door, the side of a bus.

I didn’t want it to break. And, oh yeah, and didn’t want to put somebody’s eye out.

I knew it wasn’t going to work very well. I pretty much carry all my kit on my back, very well organised in a medium-sized sports bag, and I knew that a long stick was going to complicate my life.

Given the alternative— an uncooperative Rebel, which is the exact opposite of an oxymoron— I was prepared to work it out.

On the way home from Thursday’s private lesson, I decided to just carry it. People carry long, stick-like objects all the time! They carry umbrellas, they carry canes, they carry… yeah, well, a whip’s a whip, and seeing as the rest of me looks like I’ve been going horseriding, I got my fair share of lairy looks.

Not a bother on me, though. I held it close to my body, perpendicular to the ground, the top as high as my shoulder, the rest tucked in next to my leg. No one got hurt. Received nary an indecent proposal [darn it.] Managed to avoid poking my own eye out. All good.

Its awkwardness is not the end of the world, and in fact, may very well be the beginning of more forward movement on my part. Literally and figuratively. I’d felt a bit stuck in recent weeks, but the AMSW has given me a new lease of life. The least I can do is carry it proudly.

The Amazing and Magical Stick of Wonder

MINDS OUT THE GUTTER, PEOPLE We were walking the horses round and round prior to starting Tuesday’s hour. Reb had been chowing down before the lesson, the first of his day, and I reckoned it could go either way: grumpy from having been taken away from his hay, or fizzy from the infusion of energy.

Fizzy seemed to be the order of the day: we were in the front of the ride, which he only rarely agrees to, and he was moving.

Nikki had grabbed up a bunch of sticks, and from across the arena, I could see that one of them was long.

‘I’ll swap somebody mine, if I can take that long one,’ I piped up.

‘It’s manky,’ Nikki replied, holding it out.

It was. It was dead manky. It was just about falling apart, fraying at the end— in the middle, too— and if it had once been black, those days were long past, as it was ingrained with dirt from top to bottom.

It was manky, but so was the simple chalice Indiana Jones grabbed in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He knew that an object of power wouldn’t advertise itself as such. He knew that the trick would be in seeing past the exterior. Would this stick be my holy grail?

Learning Curve

WITH RESPECT TO CHIEF BRODY, RIP I’m going to need a longer whip.

Rebel and I are an item. There’s no getting around it. He’s got things to teach me, but they’re not, what with retrospect and all, the gentle lessons of Delilah and Argo.