Inspiration

There are times in life when you look at somebody else for some inspiration. I've jumped on various bandwagons in my time, and each one had a different person that I pinned up as the driving inspiration. As life changes around me, and my ambitions become less glamorous, I am starting to see my bandwagons consolidating into one magnificent convoy.

I've always loved horses, and ridden since I was very little. My first pony was Sue, a tiny little grey Welsh pony who was the ripe old age of 18 when I inherited her from the rest of the family. She was quiet and solid and knew it all, and ferried me about while I learned how to sit quietly and still, how to balance, how to keep my heels down. Sue has gone to the great big pasture in the sky, I think she was 34 when she finally called it a day.

I borrowed a pony called Robin one summer, who was another well-aged old hand, and taught me to handle life with a bit more speed. Then the next year, I traded up to my sister's horse, Domino. He was slightly younger (still 16), with a fiesty Arab spirit with which he stomped his Welsh Cob feet. He still knew everything, taught me everything, there wasn't a single thing I could have done to shock him.

I've ridden hundreds of horses in my life, but one thing I've never done, or believed myself capable of doing, is training a young horse myself. I've always considered myself too inexperienced, or that a young horse would be too dangerous. That's amusing, given how many riding schools here in England happily put me on their greenest horses week after week, and instructors would flippantly comment about how hardly any clients ride a particularly troublesome horse that I had enjoyed riding.

So, to the inspiration. Obviously, a big inspiration to me is Cowboy, who reassures me that I'd be a good horse trainer, if I only stopped believing I am a useless horsewoman. There are many other trainers and clinicians that I've watched and studied over the last two years, who have made me want to learn more and try it for myself.

Then I sat down and watched the video diary that Stacy Westfall has been releasing over the last few months. It shows the week by week progress of a young stud horse that she is training. She talks through everything calmly. She demonstrates what she's doing, explains why. Some of it I don't agree with, but a lot of it makes sense. What's inspiring is seeing it look completely possible.

I hope to take on my own young horse in the near future, and build up the kind of bond that would open up a new world for me. It'll be a world full of mistakes and struggles, no doubt, but the prospect excites me. I'm grateful for this kind of inspiration - the kind that makes ambitions look closer than they seemed before.

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.

"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.)

The library

What a strange start to the year it has been. The weather has been grey and dull, with many parts of this small island flooded and without power. I have spent the last five days in a bit of a funk, not sure what to do or where to go or what I want from life just now.

I look at my colour-coded list of things for 2014. Some have been ticked off already. That should be achievement! It feels like nothing. So many things feel like nothing. I wondered this morning if the demons were sneaking in again, dressed up as sadness that Cowboy has gone home, or dressed as bad weather and an overly sugary diet recently.

I'm undecided.

I had a craving for adventure today, and because the weather was shoddy, I decided the best way to satisfy the wanderlust would be to put Skyrim into my Xbox and wile away some hours. I ran up and down a mountain. I killed a dragon, a bear and a troll. I found a dead goat and took its horns to use to decorate my house. Then I went to my second home (where the wife and kids don't live and I can get some peace and quiet), and built myself a library, a trophy room and a greenhouse.

I sent my character to sit in the chair in the library for a moment, so I could see what the room looked like from the reading spot.

The room is a tower attached to the side of the house, and the bookcases line the walls. With the doors closed and my hired magician left in the kitchen to find himself a biscuit, I surveyed my new reading nook. It's a lovely place.

"Well, bother," I thought to myself, triggering my warrior to get up again and do some more running around. "It's not even a real house." Annoyed and needing to vent some frustration, I ran outside and killed another troll.

I've added the library to my "ideal home" list. It could double as my office, it would just need a large, leather-topped desk in there, as well as a very comfortable chair or a small sofa where I could sit and read. Assuming I will ever have time in my life to just sit and read, of course... That's an amusing notion.

While I live at home with my parents, I am discovering a lack of meaningful space. This is not the house where I grew up, they moved here a few years ago, and it is ordered according to their needs. There is no spare chair in a spare room where I might take myself to read, or to earmark as my spot. My dad has generally agreed to share his Man Cave with me - his study and little haven in the house. Still, I am surrounded by things that do not belong to me. Most of my possessions are up in the loft, packed away and waiting to be shipped to my more permanent home, once I have one...

I crave the home of my own. Perhaps that is why Skyrim's adventures today were mostly about shaping a home and not about killing dragons. Next Skyrim quest will be finding books to fill up my library.

Worlds apart

It's getting close to the time when Cowboy will be arriving in the UK for Christmas, so naturally there's a bit of PVP starting to kick in. I am restless and irritable, and scrabbling about for ways to make the days go quicker. It's harder to do that without uni or a job to take up the bulk of my time.

If I had my head in a sensible place, I'd be working on the businesses (mine, and Cowboy's) behind the scenes: adjusting websites, planning updates, drafting letters etc. My head being in an insensible place, I tend to drink a lot of tea and faff about.

Yesterday I joined one of my oldest friends for her birthday celebrations. I drove from the Oxfordshire countryside back to Tooting (where I could park for free as I still have my resident's permit), hopped on a bus to Clapham and wandered down Northcote Road. It was cold, but not bitter. I didn't wear gloves or a hat and I was fine.

We went to the pottery painting cafe and had tea and cake while we dabbed paint on to the various pieces of crockery on offer. I had to resist the teapot with a capacity of an entire gallon. I went for a more demure one pint mug.



The mug features a rope around the bottom, three emblems of London (pictured), a black and white cow (inaccurate, because Cowboy doesn't work with dairy cows, he works with beef cows, which are usually black Angus), a yellow horse (Sunshine) and a blue dog (Blue Dog).

I've never been artistically accomplished, and I'm hoping Cowboy will like it for the sentimental value and its generous tea capacity.

After our pottery escapades, we had a lovely dinner at The Breakfast Club (pie and mash, a side of mac and cheese, banoffee pie), and some drinks in the bar next door. On the way back to Tooting, I went past lovely shops and restaurants, and I wondered why I had left London. I drove back to the Oxfordshire countryside.

Cowboy messaged me from Montana, where he is taking some time out to see his family before he comes over here. All it said was: It hit -40 this morning.

That's in Fahrenheit, but it happens to be exactly the same temperature in Celsius. Minus forty. Minus forty degrees. What alien ice planet is he on?? Hoth?

The only suitable response I could come up with was: No thanks. No minus forty for me. In his little hometown I expect the wind is whipping across the prairie, and there aren't hundreds of lovely shops and restaurants to take refuge in.

I realise I have never been to the US when it's been cold. It worries me more than a little. I will need to invest in a space suit. I mean, in a really good coat.

Review: The Centre of Horseback Combat, Hemel Hempstead, UK Part 1: Rider Confidence

This isn't a straightforward review to write. What I experienced at the Centre for Horseback Combat was some way beyond words. I'll do my best to explain it. Over the last two weekends, I went to the Centre for two separate one-day courses: the Rider Confidence Course, and the Horse Combat Day.

The Centre is owned and run by Zana and Karl, two professional stunt riders who perform all over the world with their team. They don't teach you how to ride - if you want standard riding lessons, they state on their website, there are plenty of good riding schools who can offer you that. They offer courses in stunt riding, trick riding, confidence, mounted combat, horseback archery, and more.



I heard about them through my university riding club, who had organised the Horse Combat Day (see part 2). I had also seen their horse lorry on the motorway a few times, with Stunt Horses In Transit emblazoned on the tailgate. I investigated the Centre's website and noticed the page for the Rider Confidence Course. It was covered in glowing testimonials. The course covers a few potentially terrifying experiences: a rearing horse, a falling horse, losing your seat, and my personal demon: falling off completely. Using their trained and well-mannered stunt horses, participants are able to experience these scenarios in a safe and controlled manner, and learn how to cope should any of these things happen. There is also a session of hypnotherapy designed to put a stop to any irrational fears.

It took me over a month to summon the courage just to register for a place on the course, and I left it until two days before the course was happening. It was a moment of panic: panic that I would die on the course, and panic that if I didn't do the course, I would die from a rearing, falling, spooking, throwing-me-off horse. If I was going to be jousting and shooting a bow, I thought, I had better deal with all this fear first.

I woke up on that chilly Sunday morning feeling horrifically ill with nerves. My stomach was churning, I could barely eat, and the knot in my guts got tighter and tighter as I drove to the Centre. I was sure that this was the stupidest thing I'd ever done, including dating a cowboy, and including quitting my university degree to go and be with said cowboy.

We started with a session inside with Karl, who is a qualified hypnotherapist, and who specialises in equestrians. We needed to wipe the slate of fear clean. I'm not sure what I think of hypnotherapy, but at this point I was ready to try anything. I had nothing to lose by getting stuck in as completely as I could.

The Centre is beautiful. It's nestled amongst the trees, surrounded by quiet green fields, and absolutely no road noise. I am used to riding at a school where the A3 thunders past behind a twiggy hedge, a stone's throw from the arena. The Centre's arena is tucked away in the walled garden. You feel enveloped, safe and protected. It has a springy, soft surface, the fence is decorated with standards, and the sound of birdsong accompanies the instructors' voices. And, might I add, Karl and Zana are lovely to listen to. They speak with a calm, no-nonsense manner, without the brashness that I've often found at riding schools, and their confidence and enthusiasm is infectious. Their instruction is clear, concise and easy to absorb.

"It doesn't have to be pretty," Zana said, demonstrating how to scramble back into your saddle as she hung off one side of her horse. She makes it looks easy and exceptionally pretty, but then she is a professional and evidently has years of dance training (I spotted her ballet hands a mile off), and abdominals made of liquid titanium.

Our first experience was rebalancing. Just a few days before, I had lost my centre of balance by about two inches whilst attempting to get a deadened horse to canter whilst I had no stirrups. The panic had made me want to retch, and I had sent my right leg into spasm as I'd gripped hard with my thighs to squirm myself back into the centre. Zana showed us how far it was possible to slip before you are even close to thinking about falling. It was considerably more than two inches. I felt very silly.

Our first task was designed to teach us how to find our centre of balance (we rode in Cossack trick saddles, which have a gloriously large horn to hold on to for dear life, should you feel the need - and I never did feel that need...), and quickly and easily adjust our seat, even if we found ourselves sitting side-saddle. We learned how to switch from side to side. I recalled carefree days at Pony Club Camp, having Around The World races, when I used to throw my legs around my horse until I had turned through 360 degrees and back again without a second thought. This is was nowhere near as gung ho, and a whole lot safer, but I was still swallowing some worries.

"You can go first," Zana said, smiling at me. I put on my bravest face and climbed up into the saddle. Niagara, Zana's courteous grey Andalucian gelding, barely twitched an eyelid. I tried to engage my dancer brain, and not my panic brain, and think of it as choreography. I had to learn the moves, and I learn by doing. It was very much easier than I had imagined. Just a little tweak and shuffle, and I was completely balanced. After a bit of practice at a standstill, we set off at a walk, and then later at a trot. The movement of the horse was helpful, now that I wasn't bracing against it in blind terror. I caught myself smiling from the inside, like I used to when I bombed around the fields with Domino, my beloved pony of many years ago.

The next experience was sliding off-balance to one side of the horse, learning how to stabilise myself, and how to get my balance back. This had sent my whole life flashing in front of my eyes just four days earlier. First, there was practice at a standstill and learning where the limits are. I learned just how feeble my upper body is, and made a mental note to do more pushups, but my limits were evidently further than I thought. Again, we set off at a walk, and then a trot, to drum the movement into my brain. Zana jogged alongside, giving encouragement and correction.

"Man, she is so cool," I thought to myself, watching her demonstrate and teach, and wondering where she got her energy from. I needed a piece of that, and what's more, I felt like it was coming to me. An infectious positivity was seeping into me, as we moved on to the next challenge: a horse that rears.

Niagara chewed on his hackamore while he waited, and at Zana's request, lifted up gracefully onto his hindlegs, and dropped back down without a fuss. He looked around with his ears pricked expectantly. He is adorable.

"He's looking for a polo," Zana explained. "He's trained not to rear when he's not asked. If he does it when he's supposed to, he gets a treat; if he does it when he's not supposed to, he gets nothing." A good rule. Niagara was duly rewarded for his good show. Zana explained the aid to ask him to rear, and how we should respond as riders to school a horse that rears out of bad behaviour. To me it was fairly common sense, but perhaps I've been helped by watching Cowboy working with horses and his analogy of leaving doors open and closed for horses. The open door will be where you want them to go, so you take the pressure off that part of the horse. There were other riders in the group who had probably had worse experience than I had with rearing, and it was an education to me to see how other people responded.

I was up first again, and for a moment I thought Niagara wasn't going to oblige, but with a little help from Zana's commands on the ground, up he went. I couldn't help an excited little "Woohoo!" from slipping out. It was like flying. It felt easy and safe (and he wasn't going up that high anyway). We reared a few times, to get a good feel for it, and to practice the necessary movement. I discovered that I wanted more.

After a good lunch at the pub across the road, we came back to learn about a falling horse, and about falling off. A wooden horse and a crash mat were set up in the arena. We had an expert demonstration from one of the stunt team, and then the movement was broken down. Having broken my left arm and torn up my right arm from falling off horses in the last year, this was my biggest mental block. Falling meant pain and long rehabilitation. It meant the end was nigh. It meant I should go to bed and never ride horses or ever have fun again.

The blue crash mat beckoned. We learned about how to jettison ourselves from the saddle safely. Technique was driven into us with repetition. After tripping and nearly face-planting twice while I tried to get on, I looked down from the wooden horse at the blue mat and made a pathetic squeaky sound. What if I fell on my face?

"You're overthinking it," our helpful demonstration stuntman said. "Just go for it." Cowboy's voice rang in my ears: "It's all in your head, babe." I squeaked, shut my eyes and went for it. The mat was cold, but squishy, and it wasn't awful at all. I didn't have a broken arm.

"Good!" Karl said cheerfully. "Without the squeaky noise next time!"

We threw ourselves off the wooden horse again and again. Each time, we got a little quicker, a little smoother, and I felt my dancer brain kicking in. This was the choreography, the mat was the mark I had to hit. As Karl explained where my shoulder should be as I fell, I began to visualise the movement pattern, trying to get my muscle memory to take it all in.

We practised how we might land if we fell over the horse's shoulder by walking through the motions, so that we learned what it would look like and how to land safely. I rolled around in the arena sand, determined to make the most of it. It wasn't going to be the last arena sand I ever get in my hair, but it was going to be the best. I wanted more. More falling. Falling from higher. Falling from speed. I wanted to make it ordinary. I used to fall off all the time as a kid, bounce and roll, get back up, and get back on. It was the lack of falling in my life that made it terrifying. I forgot how, and when I was bucked off into the sagebrush last summer, I ended up in hospital (eventually, after much bullying from Cowboy). But now falling was an art. It was a choreographed dance. I knew the steps.

We finished our work in the arena by visualising what it would be like to have a horse slip and fall over, and talked through how to respond if our foot is caught in the stirrup, if we are stuck under the horse, or if our foot is free. Niagara snoozed in the sand while Zana showed us how we might end up, what we would need to think about, and then with a little command, Niagara got up neatly with her still on his back. She's so cool, she did it bareback.

"Man, she is so cool," I thought to myself. "When I grow up I want to be like her." Never mind that I should probably be grown up already, at 27 years old, and my abdominals will never be that taut.

One of the other horses was asked to lie down so that we could all crouch down beside him and picture the scene: we've fallen out on the trail, we're down on the ground with him. We imagined what we would think, how it would look. It wasn't a bad sight.

We finished the day with another session of hypnosis with Karl. My brain felt like it was overloading, but at the same time I was feeling flooded with visions of wonderful possibilities on horseback. I imagined riding the trails with Cowboy, imagined galloping across the hills, imagined ducking around cows, imagined falling, getting up and getting back on, imagined how glorious it would feel to be able to get on Sunshine and trust her instead of fear her. How wonderful it would be to let her be a horse without assuming her intention was to get rid of me. How good it would be to move with her, relax into her, balance with her, and let all of my nervous tension that winds her up just disappear.

I opened my eyes at the end of the session feeling optimistic. I had no idea if it had worked, but I wasn't dead, and I'd spent a lot of the day laughing and smiling. The test would come when I rode again, and when I came back to the Centre the following weekend for Horseback Combat.

I went for a regular lesson at our motorway-friendly yard the following Wednesday. There is a lane we have to ride down to take the horses back to their stables from the arena, and I usually approach the lane with a sense that something awful will happen and I will fall on my face and break my skull and die (it never happens). This time there was no such wave of fear. My horse wandered along, his ears up as he looked around - a move that usually worried me - and he sighed as he stretched out after our lesson. He was relaxed and happy, and so was I. I imagined what it would be like if a bird was to fly out of the hedge and spook him. My imagination suggested that I would stay on, laugh, smile, and carry on like nothing happened.

A curious thing happened. It wasn't just in the saddle that I noticed the difference. I noticed that as I was drifting off to sleep, my mind would bring up images of riding, of it being easy and light and carefree. It would bring up images of falls and spooky horses, and it wouldn't be a problem. It would bring up images of me coping with all of it, and enjoying it. I had several night of vivid dreams where I did this equine choreography over and over, practised dismounting, falling, rearing. I would wake up feeling energised and ready to face the world. I suddenly had more faith in my car, no longer worrying that it was about to fall apart on the motorway. I had confidence in my decision to move to the USA. Somewhere, I'd opened up a seam of Good Stuff in my brain, and I was mining out nuggets of Julie Andrews singing "I Have Confidence". I got to grips with other tasks in my life that I had been putting off, as I embarked on a mad week of moving house and minding a very small child for my brother. I was able to robustly deflect any negative suggestions from other people. I slept well.

More than anything, I long to get back out to Washington to get back on Sunshine and feel the difference in her. I want to show Cowboy that the rigid fear in my spine is gone. I want to feel her quick, quarter horse gaits without worrying about them. I want to spend time with her without being suspicious of her. It wasn't her fault that I got injured whilst riding her in the summer - she was trying hard to do what I asked and didn't mean to hurt me. It's time for us to get beyond that one experience and bond properly. She's only young, and we probably have many years of riding together, if life goes as I hope it does. I'm just glad that I took this course sooner rather than later.

I arrived at the Centre with a sense of dread, and left with a new outlook on my equestrian life. Perhaps it was just the reawakening of my childhood love of all things horses. Whatever it was, it has proliferated across my whole consciousness, and I feel like I've emerged from a long, dark hibernation.

The only down side I've encountered so far is Cowboy's surprise at the overnight transformation in me. He has yet to see what I've achieved, he's only heard me talk about it over the phone, and he's not sure what to make of it. "What happened to my timid English girlfriend?" he asked, bemused. "What did they do to you?"

I am sure he will like what he sees. He won't hear me say "I don't want to do that" so often. He might hear me say "Hey, let's try that!" I'm excited about it.

Anybody looking to rekindle their enjoyment of riding, or hoping to shrug off their fear demons, this is the course you need. Don't hesitate to book yourself a place.

Read more about my experience at the Centre of Horseback Combat in part 2 of my review: Horseback Combat Day!

You can find details of all of the courses on offer at the Centre of Horseback Combat by visiting their website: www.horsebackcombat.co.uk. They offer gift vouchers, and also cater for parties (e.g. stags and hens) if you have some adventurous friends. You can see their own stunt team, the Stampede Stunt Company, performing around the country. Check their website for their show schedule: www.stampedestuntcompany.co.uk

Upgrades

I'm taking the plunge. I'm leaving my current university and abandoning my physio degree to pursue life with Cowboy. I'm moving out of London. I'm clearing out my possessions.

Let's gloss over the part where I clear out my freezer and promptly buy 30 packs of fish from the door-to-door fish guy. Way to downsize, Bee.

Part of my strategy for this next phase of life is to consider how to best equip myself for the future. I recently purchased a laser printer - an extravagance by usual standards, and I'd never considered how much of an improvement it might be over my juddering inkjet. My inkjet guzzles ink cartridges, and clunks laboriously through the pages. Its saving graces are that it is red, and it has a flatbed scanner built in.

Then my black box of a colour laser printer arrived, and quietly glides through a 20 page print job in next to no time. All it asks is that I reinsert the paper so it can print both sides.

"Do I really need this?" I asked myself when it arrived, still packaged and returnable. I thought about it for a moment. I was still a student, and had pages of notes to print out most days. There were long articles to read and annotate. Then I thought about my business, and how much paperwork gets generated by the day to day admin of keeping the company going.

Then I thought ahead to when Cowboy's business is up and running, and we'll have liability release forms to print, records for the horses, invoices, advertising materials, letters... If I have a second business alongside that, there's more paperwork than you can shake a stick at. I've conveniently skipped over the paperwork involved for our visa application that faces us in the future, because I don't want to think about how stressful that's going to be.

I look at Black Box with a vague sense of respect. If it can keep going and keep up with what we'll be throwing at it in the future, it will be worth every penny.

I now look at my battered iPhone 4, which has tolerated all of the abuse I've put it through over the last three years and only protests by occasionally not letting me press the home screen button. Is it time to upgrade myself? My dad is starting to eye up my iPhone as his next phone (he is still using my cast-off Nokia from 2004). Perhaps it's time to invest in the next phase, for both of us.

When I move over to the US, it's probably time to splash out on a really good kettle. A few really good saucepans. Things that will last. The days of buying the Argos Value range are probably numbered.

It's about time.

"The Road Not Taken"

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Robert Frost had it about right. For over a week, now, I have been looking down each road as far as I could, considering which would be the best to take. Like this traveller in his poem, I can't take both. I also probably can't come back and walk the other one later on.

Today, I took the necessary steps down the road I have decided on. I have emailed my course tutor to explain that I am withdrawing, and emailed my landlord to tell him I am moving out. So many other people are excited for me, and congratulatory.

I am bricking it, for want of a better expression. I am looking at my comfortable, lovely little home here in Tooting, and wondering why on earth I am about to leave it. I looked at my fellow students and the interesting timetables that we have, and wondered why I would ever want to give it up.

Perhaps that is the difference here, from previous "life-changing" decisions that I've made: before, I had something that I wanted to leave behind that was pushing me forwards. This time, I don't want to leave anything, I just want to reach one thing sooner, and that means I have to leave something.

I just hope that this road will be interesting and rewarding. It will not be without its challenges, I'm certain. I hope my sense of trepidation is a healthy caution that will stop any foolish impetuosity from clouding my judgement.

Because, of course, there is nothing foolish or impetuous about rushing off to America to fall in love with a cowboy, chase cows around, and decide to eat nothing but beef for the foreseeable future...

"Is she stupid?!"

Maybe she is. Let's see...

Something in the mechanism of writing this blog prompted me to be honest with myself about my depression, and prompted me to be honest about needing to seek help, which I did. The counsellor at university, whom I've now seen twice, was very good, and his acknowledgement of how I'm feeling about life has prompted me to think a little harder about things.

When I applied to university to study physiotherapy, life was very bleak. I had a dead-end office job that I largely hated, lived in a shabby house in a busy corner of London, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't find a decent man anywhere and was beginning to feel that I was destined for tragic spinsterhood.

When the offer from the university came through, and it was unconditional, it felt like the start of a new life ahead. I'd get a decent qualification in something that would be a good, solid career, and still live in London so that I might yet bump into that nice, wealthy banker who would eventually marry me and install me in a house in suburbia where I could raise organic children and go to yoga.

Then I discovered Cowboy. I had been determined not to discover anybody, but they say it happens when you stop looking, and after a whirlwind summer with him, suddenly I was in love with a man who was neither wealthy nor a banker, and his ambitions couldn't be further from a house in suburbia, organic children and yoga.

It was early days in our relationship, so I threw myself into my new degree with enthusiasm and enjoyed my first term immensely. I lived in a lovely little house in Tooting (they do exist), and I waited out the long months until Cowboy would visit for Christmas with a rosy optimism. It wasn't clear where this relationship was going, or if it would last that long, so I kept my sights on finishing my degree.

After he left from his long visit over the Christmas holidays, depression hit me hard, and I told myself it was just because I missed him. Looking back, it was the first sign that my goalposts were moving. After my trip over there in the springtime, I felt less and less interested in my degree, and more and more interested in how I was going to end up where I wanted to be: with him, raising partially organic, free-range children and probably working so hard I'd never have time for yoga.

And now? I spent long, glorious weeks with him this summer, and it was obvious where this relationship is going: marriage. Let's gloss over the part where I don't have a ring on my finger and he hasn't learnt that he can't propose with a bottle cap that says "Marry Me?" on the inside. His intentions are noble.

Now I sit in my lovely little house in Tooting wondering how best to forge our life together. Now I sit in lectures and tutorials imagining how long it will take for me to finish this degree here in London, move to America and get established before we're in any position to start a family. Then I think about how I could make that time shorter.

I could stop studying physiotherapy. I could enrol at a manual therapy school in Seattle and study there for 11 months, and come out with a diploma that enables me to be licensed to practise in America without any further hassle (glossing over the whole Green Card thing). I'd be educated in the requirements for running my own practice, I'd be informed about how to be accepted by insurance companies. I'd be two hours away from Cowboy instead of 24 hours.

This is of course dependent on being accepted to the school, on being granted a student visa, on finding somewhere acceptable and affordable to live. It's a little terrifying to imagine just flying over there and landing myself in a whole new city, a whole new country, but I have friends over there already, and the prospect excites me.

It's all theoretical just now. Cowboy is doing his best to be supportive and understanding, although I can tell he is freaking out. He confided in a friend of his that I was thinking of leaving my course.

"Is she stupid?!" was the response. Time will tell...

Perspective: Spiders vs South Dakota

Like many people I'm sure, I am often lacking in a sense of perspective. I have a tendency towards drama and exaggeration.

"There was this spider in my house and it was literally about twenty feet across and had laser eyes and napalm breath!"

Well, look at the sucker. I wasn't that far off...


Sorry for the gigantic spider image. That should maybe have come with a warning...

I woke up today convinced that the next two years were going to be difficult and terrible and miserable, and that I would genuinely be better off staying in bed all day.

Then I got hungry, so I ate two banana maple oatmeal cookies and had a cup of tea, and life didn't seem so bad. I did some research into various things that have been troubling me, and read some magazines, and dealt with a couple of business issues. I took a step in arranging to catch up on the classes I've missed over the last few days (due to certainty that bed would be a better place to be - thanks, Black Dog).

Then I read about South Dakota and the snow storms. To those of us living in cushy little England where it barely dips below freezing and there's a Tesco's on every corner, understanding just how devastating and destructive the weather has just been is a little difficult.

Dating a cowboy means I can see how the loss of a vast proportion of your livestock would be damaging both financially and emotionally. Many ranchers put their cattle before themselves time and time again, sacrificing lazy lie-ins to go and feed and check up on their animals. Whole families revolve around the cycles of cattle: brandings and sortings and shipping.

I've started to see my future with Cowboy as having a large element of cow in it - he'd like to run a small herd of cows one day, alongside our horse business. That means I will probably have to help with the round-up, the branding, the sorting, the shipping. It means I will have to get up early to help feed (if only to help feed the hungry humans who go and do the real hard work). It means we might have to put our bedroom on the ground floor of the house so that when there's a sick cow or a difficult calving, Cowboy can go out every two hours without disturbing the kids or having to negotiate the stairs in his exhaustion.

Reading about those who have lost their cattle, and some who have lost their lives, was rather more emotional than I expected. It certainly put my problems a little more in perspective, made me rethink what was really important, and gave me a kick up the backside that I sorely needed.