Another wonderful day has gone.
Never have I felt more connected to the moor than the last few months when I have been unable to be a part of it.
Many of you will have suffered from illnesses and ailments that have prevented you from doing something you love. I know you will empathise with my feelings of isolation and frustration. It’s almost unbearable! I have injured my back somehow. Probably repercussions of a cross country fall a few years ago when my horse landed on me. My body has been continuing to motor on with the many demands I put it through. Finally it can motor on no more. In July I began to experience pain in my right leg, sciatica, which gradually deteriorated until I was reduced to shuffling painfully from one bed to another, or resting flat on the floor if I couldn’t quite make the distance. All agony for my body and singing nerves.
Thanks to painkillers I’m now far more comfortable, but still so limited in what I can do. What on earth did we do in days gone by before pills and modern advances in surgery! Now my greatest agony is looking out of the window and seeing those stunning Autumn days passing me by. Watching the sun fall on the end of the bed I’m stuck in, and as the day wastes away that gorgeous sunshine creeping across the bed to the floor, burning orange and pink on the far wall before it drops down behind the trees outside and another wonderful day has gone. With me taking no part in it. Torture.
I see stories on social media of friends living active lives, out on the pheasant shoots, where I should be, at the beach with their families and dogs, where I should be, walking over the hills of Exmoor, where I should be.
Since the shooting season ended on February 1st I have been planning next seasons work with my dogs. Lots of fun training and introducing my new young dog to the farm and country life. Welcoming Torro, my labrador, to the team and showing him his new life with us all. Learning to work together with the pup from my first ever litter, Flo.
Now it feels all for nothing. I’ve wept and sworn, and felt very sorry for myself, but that’s over now.
I’m one of the lucky ones. Life throws nasty twists and turns at you. But it’s not whether you follow the course and reach the end unscathed, it’s how you take the hits and rise again…and again.
I can look back on difficult times. But those times of sadness, and self doubt, have made the good times shine brighter. I know that I’m one of the lucky ones, because every hit I’ve taken, large or small, I have stored to remind me to be grateful for the important things…a loving family, learning to ask for help, and an optimistic nature. With these things you can achieve so much.
I’m only down for a while, I’m positive that the nice surgeon will fix me up and send me off in my walking boots again. The time I have been given now I’m trying to see as a gift. Very tough sometimes! But when we lead such busy lives we don’t often take the time to stop. Listen. Watch that gorgeous sun pass across the sky. Take the time to write letters. No one does that anymore. It’s such a treat to receive one!
My patience is being tested(which is not such a bad thing!), but I’m planning for the time when my dear dogs and I, will go and play down in the valley by the river again. I’m planning how I can improve their lives with new kennels, with heaters in! What I will do when I get up on Marbles back. We are definitely heading for a gallop on the beach! A sausage sandwich afterwards at the beach cafe and a lovely mug of tea with my horsey friends. I now have time to read without falling asleep after a full day out in the fresh air. So I have picked up ‘Lorna Doone’, and am loving it! The descriptions of Exmoor are bringing it alive for me, and have rekindled my interest in researching the history of our farm. It would have been built and worked around the time the story was set, in the 17th century. Walking around Oare and Badgeworthy Water(where the hero John Ridd lives and where he meets Lorna) and The Doone Valley are on my list too.
Lots to do! So, yes, I am lucky. I am finding some positivity in this ‘bad’ time. It has also reminded me that there are many who suffer for years, and hope has left them. I can only experience a micro measure of what they have. To them, I send all my love, and hope for brighter days ahead.