Some announcements

Good evening! I'm in bed with cold toes and a stomach ache.

1 - I tried drinking some tea to help with how gnarly I feel this evening. It did not help. I must be terminally ill.

2 - I met roughly three thousand new people today here in Cowboy's small home town in Montana. All were very lovely. I remember no names.

3 - I was expecting turkey and roast potatoes for Christmas lunch. I got prime rib and pasta salad. America is so strange.

4 - Cowboy is disappointed that there isn't more snow. He wanted me to be as cold as possible while I was here. I'm just pleased I brought my long johns. It is quite cold enough, thanks.

5 - I'm in the process of moving my blog from Blogger to its own domain name. This is more complicated than I first thought, but I'm nothing if not stubborn, and I'll get it done, by George.

6 - Who is George??

7 - Nothing like a bit of Bach Cello Concerto to soothe the brain after a busy day meeting people, but it's a little odd to be able to hear Yo Yo Ma breathing in my bedroom.

8 - I miss the heck out of Richard. I imagine he is spending most of his time like this:

9 - It seems Cowboy and I are the only people in the world who like a good firm mattress on a bed. I have struggled to sleep since we left our home in Washington, as every bed we've been put up in has been about as firm as a wet sponge. I'm developing kyphosis.

10 - I love the word kyphosis. It makes me feel clever.

11 - I'm going to bed now. The end.

Friday Night Feeling

It's Friday night! I'm on the sofa with the cat and Cowboy has gone out to play poker with the boys. Living the dream.

Earlier this week, I came down with a strange headache thing that meant I missed a day of school. This is very sad to me, because school is much more fun than it used to be when I was eleven.

I finally got our thank you notes for our wedding gifts in to the post and they are on their way to the lovely people who showered us with kindness several weeks ago.

Sir Richard is getting ridiculously big, and now when he sleeps on my chest in the mornings, it's less adorable and more suffocating. I still can't help being utterly besotted with him. I am powerless in the presence of his little face.

He continues to tear things up, climb on things he shouldn't, and shove his paws under the bathroom door and cry every time I go for a wee.

Occasionally he pushes a toy mouse under the door and we play instead. We have that kind of relationship.

Today, Cowboy pestered me into riding Sunshine for the first time in over week. We've had a lot on our plate, and I hadn't felt up to doing much in recent days. Sunshine has been out in the pasture with Beau, getting as much good grass as possible as the winter closes in.

Well, I brushed her off and saddled her today (ok, Cowboy threw the saddle for me... I'm puny...), and we went out to the round pen to see how we would do.

Bill Dorrance writes about feeling for the horse; true horsemanship comes through feel. I've been working hard to put aside my frustrations at my lacking horsemanship, and to leave behind my annoyance when I step into the barn. I've been focusing on putting out a good feeling whenever I am around Sunshine, and keeping in mind that she is my partner in this work.

We've worked on little things on the ground as I've brought her in and out from the pasture - she's stopped being pushy and impatient and has begun to feel for me when I'm leading her. When I'm brushing her down, I try not to be brusque about it, but to feel for her response to the work and to give her the sense that I'm there to help. She has stopped dancing about while I'm grooming now. She watches me with one eye.

Today, the weather was cold and damp, and both of us were feeling a little stiff and sore. I made an effort to tack her up quietly and gently, and to invite her with me to the round pen. We both stretched out a little bit. We both heaved a sigh as if to say "Goodness, I am out of shape for this sort of thing." That's entirely true...

We stretched out, we moved, we got as loose as we could, and I thought all the time about how she felt. She felt stiff, tight, unfit, but willing enough. She did everything that I asked without a fight, but she couldn't offer me the flexible, pretty thing. That was ok. I could feel her trying. I could feel her feeling for me.

"OK," she said, dropping her head and trying to round, "I hear what you want. I'll give it a shot. This is all I can manage today. Is that OK?"
It was more than OK. She and I have got ourselves into battles before. Finally we're learning to talk to each other without yelling. We're learning to meet in the middle.

It was possibly the best ride we've ever had together.

I'm going to go and throw hay at her now.

We made it!

Two years, three months and eighteen days after we met in Montana, on a dreary, rainy day here in the Pacific Northwest, Cowboy and I got married.

And we are living happily ever after.

Things that happened today

I lay in bed for over an hour after the alarm went off and asked Cowboy if I could stay and hide in bed all day. He said no. He's cruel sometimes.

The cat managed to lick me right on the eyelid, even though I've been trying to make him understand that I don't like it when he licks my face. The licky little ninja.

I went outside and discovered Sunshine being the perfect horse for a two year old girl. She really is pretty special to let a small child lead her all over the field without batting an eyelid.

We went to the ocean and I collected sea glass for some unknown reason. What will I do with sea glass?

I finally met a number of Cowboy's family members whose names I know but whose faces were brand new to me. They were full of kind and positive things.

Enough people came to my house at one time that they used all of my mugs. My house is not big enough for this many people, but it happened somehow.

We switched the heating on. Winter is coming.

My brother and sister arrived in town and we embarrassed my brother at a Mexican restaurant. It involved a sombrero and singing Happy Birthday, loudly.

My good friend from Minneapolis arrived in town and we realised we haven't really spoken in about two years, and it was so awesome to see each other again.

The cat got in to a tin that I hadn't washed out yet and now his face smells like food.

I think Cowboy has been abducted.

When the Cowboy is away, mice will... clean.

Cowboy is away for the weekend with the caballos, and I am staying at home with the cat and the dog and my cold medication. I'm attempting to use these three days of relative quiet to reorganise our haphazard little home and try to establish some kind of order to the place.

When Cowboy moved in, without me, he pretty much just camped wherever his stuff landed. When I came to visit, I stashed most things in the cupboard nearest to wherever they had landed. This means I have a whole cupboard dedicated to plastic bags, bookshelves covered in tools, and a closet full of junk.

The first thing I've done is to go through the box of small change from our bedroom. I've made $80 this weekend! Hooray!

I've learned how to fold a fitted sheet courtesy of Youtube, and folded all of my fitted sheets. It's the little victories that make my day worthwhile.

I ate more of my weird soup that I made the other day, and it has only improved with age. The spice has really ramped up. Mmmm...











I emptied out our walk-in closet in the bedroom and found all of Cowboy's guitar picks (he is always complaining he can't find any). I also found more money. Hooray again!

Then I gave Blue Dog a bath, because he smelled horrific and I couldn't stand it any longer.

He took it well. His old trick of lying on the ground like a dead weight beside the bathtub didn't work for him. Since I became Amazonian and strong, I can now lift him. He decided to get in the tub of his own accord after I manhandled him a couple of times, and that made the whole experience more pleasant for both of us.

Once he was sweet-smelling and no longer a menace to society, he was very keen to go outside. He promptly ran to the back field and rolled...

... and rolled...

... and rolled...

I didn't think he was going to stop...

Eventually he was satisfied and we came back inside, where I managed to make more mess than I had tidied up in the closet. I abandoned the project midway through.

I finally put away my suitcases in the shed, and rearranged a few things in there so that it is actually accessible and no longer a minefield. While I was outside, I pulled up a weed or two that I could see, thinking I'd head back inside and finish the closet.

Two hours later, I was still ripping out weeds. I would still be ripping out weeds if my 90 gallon garden waste bin wasn't completely full, and it wasn't dark. I have a lot of weeds. I grew them myself.

Tomorrow: I finish the closet project, and the living room project. We might be getting somewhere.

13 days in

I've been in the US for 13 days. I have finally got a US phone number, and waved a sad goodbye to the phone number that I have had since my very first phone, the trusty Nokia 5110 with the changeable covers...

I've cleaned all the things - most things more than once, and the dirt keeps coming. It doesn't help that we have a juvenile feline who likes to shred anything he can get his adorable little paws on. We invested in a laser pointer in the last few days, just to keep him busy.

Sometimes we can wear him out, just for a moment.

I've started to learn where everything lives in the supermarkets. I've learned that you can't get anything for a good price without giving up your personal information and getting the store club card.

I have a pile of recycling in my kitchen and my shed because I haven't yet deciphered the recycling system. It involves crates with very similar contents listed on them. How exactly do "scrap paper" and "newspaper" differ in any significant way? Why is there no crate for plastic? It is mystifying.

I have fed Cowboy some real food and he has repaid me with some manual labour, heavy lifting and getting up early to get the horses in while I snooze for another hour or two.

The horses have been a joyous challenge to me. Sunshine is teaching me about how to say "I mean it!" and our new addition, Beau, is teaching me about lightness. Sunshine has been so desensitised that you could do just about anything with her and she barely blinks, which is wonderful for keeping people safe, but it also means she needs a louder cue. Beau is so light and responsive to anything and everything that just thinking something seems to be enough for him.

His little quirk is that he has spent so much of his 4 years in the arena, he has no idea how to pick up his feet. So we spent some time teaching him the other night.

It took him a few goes to catch on.

There is something magical about watching this little horse think something through for the first time. He tries so hard. He wants the right answer, and when he understands the question properly, he is ready for anything.

It was a beautiful evening, and it reminded me why I came here. Me, the cowboy, horses and the fresh air. I am so lucky.

Early days

I moved to a new country on Wednesday. It is now Saturday, and I have spent the last two days cleaning my house, stocking up my cupboards at Costco, befriending the kitten (including believing I had lost the kitten out of a window, crying in the garden thinking I would be dumped for being a negligent girlfriend, finding said kitten inside the house after all - hiding in the recliner), and attempting to get my head around the gargantuan to-do list. It's early days in the New Life.

I have also succeeded in eating badly, sleeping badly, overreacting, panicking, and my personal favourite: sitting in a stupor.

Cowboy is hiding from me this morning, while I scowl at the computer. Who knew it would be so difficult to find affordable, relatively nice furniture in an actual shop where I could go in and just get the furniture? I didn't realise how important it would be to me to have furniture. I've been living out of a suitcase for weeks now. It was fine while I was waiting to move, but now I'm here, I want to plunge some roots down and feel like I have a home.

It's becoming an ordeal. If I could hide from myself, I would.

On the flip side, things that I thought would be horrible, terrible, insurmountable issues as part of the move have turned out to be nothings, and the relief is overwhelming.

Yesterday I played with the horses in the rain, and began to see how good life is going to be. If I could only get some furniture...

Headache

I have a headache. It might be because I've neglected to wear my glasses for the last few weeks, but have simultaneously upped my computer usage while I try to negotiate the Big Move. Might be because I've had a bit too much sugar and caffeine today.

Might be fatigue, might be muscle spasm, might be a virus.

Might be my poor brain trying to understand whether or not my UK iPhone will work in the USA, and if so, how do I get a good deal on a mobile contract? I pay £6 per month, and so far the cheapest option I've found over there for something remotely comparable is over $40 per month. I'm not even certain that my UK phone (unlocked, bought from the Apple shop, and destined to be used until it dies) will be recognised by the US networks, which seem to have a will of their own.

Might be my brain trying to figure out how to pay the bills. Might be the fierce desperation that I have to suddenly and inexplicably win the lottery, so that I can suddenly and inexplicably buy a homestead of my own. The nesting instinct is powerful these days.

Might be the sadness that is starting to set in, as I begin to understand that I am moving far away from my closest friends, from my close-knit family, and from everything that is familiar to me.

Might be the many hours spent at the sewing machine today, making bunting.

I think I've lost my mind...

Last minute

It is rapidly becoming the last minute. I am down to last minute meetings, last minute socialising, last minute packing, last minute shopping, last minute panicking, etc etc.

Today has mostly been about last minute hair dye, as I realised it must be almost a year since my mother slapped henna (I use Caca Rouge from Lush, and have done so for over ten years) all over my head and I propped myself up for several hours while the mud did its miracle thing on my hair.

With what feels like several tonnes of goop and clingfilm on my head at the moment, my neck is rather sore. That may have something to do with the killer upper body workout that Mark the Magician made me do this morning. His trainers matched the walls of the gym today. I was rather impressed, but I don't think it was intentional.

"Rather than mess about with more reps," he said, as I sipped water in a recovery break between push presses, "how about we just build up this weight to about that of a saddle?" This man has paid close attention to my goals, and I love him for it.

If I can now push 60lbs over my head three times, without dying immediately, hopefully I can avoid the shame of flinging Cowboy's saddle, forcefully and enthusiastically, into the side of my horse instead of over her back.

I've also ended up doing some last minute bonding with this little monster, who has spent the last nine months completely ignoring me.

She has finally realised that I will scratch her ears, rub her belly and bump heads with her at her every whim.

I'll even feed her. I'm that kind of cat person.

I think she might be a little sad when I leave, if she even notices, of course.

I'm not really going to miss her needle sharp claws being dug (with love) into my legs, arms, neck, feet, fingers, etc.

She can be a little over zealous with her affection.

She also likes to dribble on me when she's really enjoying the bonding session. Then she likes to shake her head and spray the dribble all over me, and whatever it is I've been doing whilst petting her. Thanks, Marmite...

You love her or you hate her. Her name really is appropriate.

The Release

Holy Nancy Spumoni Snow Boots... (spot that reference)

It's often said that you never know how much pressure you can handle until you're under pressure. I'd actually go a step further - you never know how much pressure you've been under until that pressure lifts.

Yesterday was a big day. On the face of it, the pivotal moment was a little over an hour spent at the US Embassy in London, and most of that was sitting and waiting. It wasn't exactly strenuous or difficult.

The relief, and the release, that came with that magical little word, "approved," was like a bulldozer. I feel totally drained. I expected to feel exhilarated, thrilled, excited, uplifted, enthused.

All I want to do is sleep. My muscles ache, my joints are sore, and this is not the usual post-gym fatigue. As the tide of adrenaline washes away, I am aware of just how much tension I was holding. It's a wonder I've been getting anything done at all.

I am taking a couple of days to sit with this new development in life. Moving to another country, another name, another way of life is a lot to get my head around. My decision to go ahead with this is being met with mixed emotions from different people. I'm sure there are doubters, but I'm trusting my gut on this one.

Now I think I'm going to go back to bed.

The to-do list

Well, gosh...

I always imagine that, at some point, I will be on the winning side of my to-do list. I'll eventually have fewer things to do than I have already done, and the end will be in sight. Occasionally I dream that I will have nothing left to do, and then I can mess about being creative and frivolous (and play Xbox).

On my brief trip out to Washington last month, I drew up a to-do list in the first day or so, and then spent the entire visit adding to it. A few things were crossed off, such as "buy Xbox", and generally I'm pleased with what I got done at the new house, but I left behind so many tasks that I felt I should have been able to conquer if I hadn't been wallowing in illness and misery on the couch.

Being ill in America is very crappy, and I do not recommend it.

I have come back to the UK for what I hope to be the last time before I get permission to be in the US for the foreseeable future. My to-do list here is growing by the day. I grapple most with the strange way that other people's to-do lists seem to end up being put on to mine, because I have "nothing else to do but wait around", as I was told this morning.

How glorious it is when your work is tangible, and you can show somebody what you've been doing all day, when they can see you physically toiling away on an object or a task with immediately measurable results. What a luxury it must be not to have to explain that you might appear to be freely available, but you are in fact masterminding a global operation. It just happens to involve a lot of sitting down.

All I can do at this point is get my glasses on, get my head down, and get on with what needs doing, and attempt to hold it all together without having a meltdown.

I think Cowboy is expecting a meltdown soon. He usually knows before I do...

My Excessive Collections: new lip balm

Whilst shopping at Coastal feed store in Mount Vernon a few weeks ago, when I spoiled us with some new tack for Sunshine, I spotted a box of lip balm at the till. I was really just intrigued by the name.



"You never heard of that?" Cowboy said, bemused. "You put chicken poop on your lips. Old cowboy remedy."

I did my best not to think too hard about how that works, and added a tube to our pile of leather and metal on the desk. I then forgot all about it for several days. I eventually remembered, and dug it out to see what on earth I had bought.

Look at this lovely list of ingredients!




No poop! Yay! I slathered it on immediately. The flavour is citrusy and fresh, but leaves a soft and buttery feel on the lips. The consistency is just right - not too firm, not too squishy. I am rapidly wishing I had picked up a fistful of these. If you see some Chicken Poop on your shopping travels, invest. You won't regret it.

P.S. It turns out the "remedy" was that if you put chicken poop on your lips, you wouldn't lick them any longer, thus ending the vicious cycle of chapped lips. Still disgusting.

Visit the website to see other lovely looking products, such as Good Gravey, and Kill It Dead. I'll take them just for the names and scrumptious packaging.

Back to the books

I've been back home in the UK for a couple of days now. I'm so jet-lagged, I could vomit. The weather was kind enough to be that glorious March sunshine that makes the rolling clouds look wonderful when I landed, but now it's gone back to the dreary grey.

My month in Washington went far too quickly for me to understand. We lost several days, snowed in, and a good deal more time travelling up and down the state. I spent a small fortune.

I spoiled Cowboy on Valentine's Day, buying him a leather splitter and a pattern for him to make his own spur straps. I know, I can hear you thinking it. He's the luckiest man alive, with romantic gestures like that. His gift to me was driving me to Seattle more times than he'd care to mention, and with only minimal complaining.

Who says romance is dead?

Now that I'm home, it's time to get on with boring tasks like doing the company accounts, realising I need to stop spending so much money on Cowboy, and hoping like heck that I can get the right paperwork together for the school in Seattle to accept me into their programme as of May. I don't particularly want to have to wait until September.



Although Cowboy said it was a good thing I was leaving for a bit, as Sunshine was getting kind of smart-arse about things and he needs some time to put her back to work. I didn't think we looked too bad.

Snowed in

We had a winter storm and about a foot of snow came down over the course of two days. The wind was fairly vigorous and some large drifts piled up around the house.



At first, it was a lot of fun. The first morning, the dogs went racing out across the field and went gallivanting about.



Blue Dog loves the snow. He rolls in it, burrows in it and just loves to hang out in the cool air.


Cowboy donned his Carharrts and his hat and went out to shovel the driveway like a hero. My goodness.



you were out of the 30mph wind, it was really very pretty.



Driving in it was a little scary. My host has a beast of a Ford Bronco that handled it pretty well, but even so, it was an interesting drive into town for supplies.



I took a view that being indoors was preferable to being outdoors. I was rather surprised that, despite the foot of snow on each car, people were still intending to dig the cars out and go to other places, like work. This would never happen in Britain. Except probably in the north, where people are tougher and this kind of weather is more likely.



This morning was glorious. Crisp, bright and clean. I think maybe I'll stay.

"You're a dancer? You must be really flexible..."

So, perhaps my plans are about to be wiped out. Perhaps my best intentions are taking me along the road to hell. Perhaps my flexibility is about to be tested, pushed to its limits. It's bend or break time.

I've been in Washington for just over a week now, enjoying the crisp, clear winter weather (and the less crisp, less clear rain which is more typical), and hanging out with Blue Dog.


He had a bath yesterday, against his will. He smells so good now.

Then reality hit hard this afternoon. Plans about massage school got shaken, vigorously, by the discovery of some terrible internet reviews of my chosen school. I began to question my judgement. Some hyperventilation occurred.

Cowboy hugged me and said "It'll be fine, babe."

So, I took a deep breath. I sent emails to other schools. I reminded myself that I have more time than I think. I considered the possibility of living with my parents for longer than I planned. I considered the upsides to being in the UK for longer than I had intended - more horseback archery... Hmm. Not so bad.

Then I sent Cowboy to make me a cup of tea. I'm already feeling better.

If I had a pound for every time things didn't go to plan, I'd be a rich person. Better than being rich, I'm still surviving, so obviously it isn't the end of the world if plans change. Quite the opposite.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Lao Tzu (c.604 - 531 B.C.)

Packed

Tomorrow, I head off to Terminal 5 at Heathrow for my flight to the US. I have packed my suitcase with determined efficiency, using a new packing technique (new to me, at least), and I have crammed in a huge amount of stuff into one suitcase and one cabin bag.


Sadly, there wasn't really enough space for this monster. She tried.

It is at about this point, when the trip looks very real and inevitable, that I get some nerves. I look at my packed bags and feel certain that I am forgetting something utterly vital and irreplaceable.

I also have to tidy up my bedroom before I leave. Something about coming home to a chaotic room is very unsavoury to me. I'll have to hoover and put everything away before going to bed tonight, and in the morning I will probably change my bed sheets so that when I get back, a month from now, everything will be ready.

A fair amount hinges on this trip. Life could be extremely different in just a few short weeks.

The Little Cowboy Bar

I learned recently about a fire that ripped through a small bar in a very small town in Montana. The bar was called The Little Cowboy, and it was in Fromberg, MT.

The Little Cowboy Bar is where the wranglers (Cowboy included) would take us tourists after a day's riding at the dude ranch where Cowboy and I met. At this bar, I learned what Mountain Dew tasted like. I learned what a 'Shake-a-Day' is, and even played a few rounds, despite the stern sign that the Shake-a-Day was for locals only.

I spent hours looking at the photographs of the rodeo stars of years gone by, and I pored over the impressive collection of belt buckles, pipes, boots, saddles, letters, photographs, preserved beetles and snake skins, clothing, hundreds and hundreds of items that the bar's former owner, now manager, Shirley Smith had collected over the years. Her museum had a tattered guestbook filled with names of people from all over the world. I signed it, promising I'd be back.

The Little Cowboy is where I learned a game that involved clenching a quarter between my buttocks, walking ten feet across the floor and trying to drop the quarter into a shot glass on the floor. It's where Cowboy looked at me, my first day on the ranch, while I contemplated my life and said, "You're interesting, you know that?"

The Little Cowboy is where I tried on his spurs and paraded around the deck to make them clink and chime like in the old westerns, it's where I stood in the irrigation channel in the sun to soak my boots which were too tight.

It's where I listened to Shirley tell us about the Little People of the Pryor Mountains, she showed us her documentary about them and her photographs with their strange discolouration which she thinks was to do with the spirits up in the mountains. She told us about putting cigarettes in the little gift bags which the local school children had wanted to leave for the Little People - tobacco is a customary tribute to the Little People. She told me that, yes, if you go back to where you leave your tributes three days later, they will be gone. She told me about people she knew who had seen the Little People. She gave me shivers down my spine with her stories.

Shirley in her museum. Image from Billings Gazette

The fire started by accident one afternoon last week, and quickly destroyed the building and most of what was in it. I feel a keen sense of loss. Shirley's collection was so precious - not much of it appeared valuable at first glance, it was odds and ends from ordinary lives of local people, but the more time I spent in the museum in the back room, the more I loved these ordinary treasures. I wish now that I had taken photographs of the place and what I saw inside. I didn't take any, not a single one.

Image from Billings Gazette

Now, there is not much left of this little place. The front wall, which was covered in the brands of local ranchers, may have survived, but the inside is wrecked and most of the collection with it. This bar in a sleepy small town was once named as one of the best bars in America. I hope that it will recover to some extent, that a new collection might be started, and that it will be one of the best bars in America all over again.

My heart goes out to Shirley and the people of Fromberg.

Read the Billings Gazette report on the fire here.