STEPPING OUT

But before we can go much further along Bloggiana's road to set up a shop, two things happen. And both are a considerable cause for concern.

The first thing is that Nag - Bloggiana's oldest equine friend - grows markedly worse. Stumbling and hobbling which have been his daily habit for several months now have made way for plain hobbling. On hacks, he tiptoes through the gravel like a cat edging its way through a puddle. He is 17hands high and weighs half a tonne or more and he is afraid to step on a pebble because of the pain. Bloggiana nurses him down the road willing herself to believe that what must be true is not true. She tries to wince herself so that the horse need not. She steers him as carefully and deftly as she can, weaving a pattern down the tarmac which belies the horse's size and her own gauche physical manner.

Nothing is said. I Piccalilli sit aboard Dobbin and make cheerful conversation; or stay silent. Dobbin and Nag chat to one another - but theirs is the language of ears and whiskers and touch and it seems far from likely that Nag and Dobbin are discussing their ailments. At the end of our rides, when Bloggiana reaches the old wood-lined tack room, she slings her saddle high on the rack - above the rosettes for best mountain & moorland, Highland Show, 1975 - and I watch as she gropes for a cigarette, her hand having developed an infinitesimal tremor.

This scenario has been going on for several weeks. The months of stumbling were worrying enough and now the weeks of hobbling are almost too much to be borne. Bloggiana's old copy of the Manual of Horsemanship - written in 1959 by one EF Gelderhorn - shows signs of having been thumbed. The dust on the dustjacket bears fingerprints and the page marked Ringbone has one corner folded down. Once, I dare to ask the old girl if she fears that that is what Nag is suffering from. Bloggiana looks at me over the top of her scarf, under the rim of her cross-country helmet, cig-smoke swirling around her face in cumulo-nimbic formations - and that, as far as I am concerned, is all she needs to say.

And it is the day after that particular encounter between my question and Bloggiana's look that something happens in the Nag department which seems to hail a watershed. Nag is waiting at the gate. Normally when it comes to bringing him in from the field, the old bugger trots off. Swishes his tail, grinds his teeth, utters an equine sneer and says Ciao. Generally speaking, Bloggiana marches after him for a spell, then loses her temper and throws a bucket at the beast. The beast circles her. Bloggiana expletes. Bloggiana walks off. And two hours later comes back and brings the bugger in.

But this day, Bloggiana goes to the gate and there he is. He has his same old face and his same old smile. He has his tall beautiful neckline and his exquisite almost feline elegance. But his sense of humour seems to have abandoned him. And worse still, he is standing with one leg in the air.
&&&
So Bloggiana is more than usually preoccupied. She has signed up to the ShopsRUs website and is daily receiving mailshots about small units here and larger ones there. She could buy a pub in Marshy Codsdale for a song. (Not a good idea, we both conclude). She could buy an industrial unit in Wabbersworth, an old electricity substation on the top of a fell, a cafe with village shop and house combined - all situated at the very posterior of beyond; she could go mad and buy a camper van, then sell our chutney nomadically out of the back.
Interesting and in some ways entirely possible as some of these options are, Bloggiana pays no attention. Her mind is elsewhere - and never is this more evident than when she mistakenly puts bulbs instead of onions in the red cabbage; and all but dies of sudden onset amaryllis poisoning. (SOAP)

And when the next thing happens - which it does shortly after Bloggiana has finally heaved herself out of the loo, where she has been hiding for the three days that have intervened since the red cabbage incident - when a letter arrives inviting Bloggiana to take part in an event in aid of the local Cruelty for Children charity, Bloggiana pays the thing scant attention.
No. Instead, she rips open the envelope,

Never know when there might be a fucking cheque inside,

hurls the contents out across the table

Or even, god forbid, some fucking cash

spots a small box that says tick

'Bout time I had some fucking luck

and before anyone can veto anything she does

signs along the dotted line, ticks in the box marked tick, places the paper in the given envelope and pops her acceptance to attend the Winston Churchill Tribute Night - as a tributee herself - straight into the postbag of the man who has just whizzed into our parlour in a blur to collect just that, our post.