Equine Portraiture

You may have noticed that my journal entries have been rather brief this last few days. It's not so much down to a shortage of things to say but rather too many! My head has been very busy. Work has been very busy. My social life has actually been busy too, for the first time in many weeks. I was going to spend this evening trying to catch up with you lot (which is sadly long overdue), but remarkable events today have conspired against me. I've been compelled to write about those tonight, but I'm not going to rush. The words are not coming that easily. The story will probably be told tomorrow.

First, a word on yesterday's blip. It may not have been obvious, to newer subscribers at least, that I was having a bit of fun. I loved your comments by the way. Some were quite brilliant. The woman was not hiding from me. She was covered up long before I got close enough to get the shot. It turned distinctly cold and wet and windy yesterday and the two women were braving the weather for a coffee and a smoke, the one covered up taking the full brunt of it. The guy in the shorts reading the newspaper was actually under cover and out of the wind - although still, like me, refusing to accept that summer's over. I would never take a picture of someone who clearly didn't want to be photographed.

After making a small dent on my growing list of jobs around the house this morning, as well as catching up with a bit of correspondence, I made a spontaneous decision to run over to Thackley to watch the boys' cricket match, both playing for the second team today. I was going to head out for a run on the moor anyway so I thought I might as well just keep going rather than come back, get changed, and head out again on the bike. It's quite a roundabout route by road to Thackley but running there allows for a more direct and much prettier line, over the moor to the Twelve Apostles and Horncliffe Well, then along a network of bridleways and footpaths skirting Baildon to Tong Park, over the River Aire and the canal on an old track which climbs up through a wood to bring one out right at the ground. It's actually amazing how little road is involved.

I was a little late arriving, mainly due to an encounter about which I will talk tomorrow, but Forrest was already out for a first over duck. He simply got a snorter and was reasonably philosophical about it. We eventually made 197 and it looked like we were heading for an easy win when we had Thackley at 50-odd for 5, Roam getting two early wickets and then Forrest picking up two in his first over, but then they started getting after us and the match began to slip away. Forrest was getting the ball to spit and turn prodigiously but he was almost doing too much with it to get a wicket. A quicker ball from him was missed by the batsman but struck our wicketkeeper a fearful bang on the collar bone and he had to leave the field. Forrest and Roam picked up another wicket each and as it looked like going down to the wire I borrowed some whites to make an appearance as a substitute fielder. Sadly, even my charismatic presence was not sufficient to swing this terrific match our way! We are now dragged into the relegation battle. A win next week is going to be essential. And I'm not available!!

I could easily have posted a landscape or a cricket shot, but I'm putting up something a little different. While running through a field near Baildon I came across this wonderful group of horses, one of which in particular took quite a fancy to me - giving me a right good licking indeed! I couldn't resist asking for a portrait!