Not a horse

It's the strange little things that I have started to notice now like the child's glove used to jam the kitchen door shut.

Outside is silent, not just quiet but like I've gone deaf. The stillness is a heavy blanket wrapped around you. There are boars in these hills and foxes so not making a noise is a survival instinct.

Every now and then you can hear a horse clopping about. The horses here run wild, the have a vast hillside to graze on and stay out during the nights. I met them yesterday for the first time. There was nine of them, in a loose herd. they were Horses with a capital H, untempered by conditioning or artificial training.

Part of the work they do on these stables is about helping troubled horses. There is an ex-prize winning horse here who they saved from death to try and rehabilitate - he had thrown lots of riders and was judged unsafe. Three years later and he seems happy and at ease but his life is a bit lonely. The years of strict conditioning and competition training mean he doesn't really know how to act like one of the herd so even though he is part of the herd he doesn't completely fit in.

The poor chap had forgotten how to be a horse, and when you see him eating alone slightly apart from the rest of the horses it breaks your heart just a little bit.