Give Thanks and Thorny Issues about Personal Blogging.

Garrarus Beach, Co. Waterford

It’s been a roller-coaster of a few days at a number of levels and I felt it best not to write here as I felt I could say things that I might later regret.  Perhaps some bloggers operate at a far more distanced, professional level than I do and press ahead with posting no matter what’s going on.  I could certainly do that  if this was a different type of blog but one of the features of a ‘Personal Blog,’ as I see it anyway,  is that they mirror what’s going on in the writer’s mind/heart ~ or else demand that one dons a mask and that’s not really something I’m very interested in doing.

Anyway, last night I had the most delicious swim at high tide in Garrarus and it seemed to wash away the angst. It was one of the highest tides of the year and I was there just as night was closing in.

As I lay floating over the big, friendly waves, the words ‘Give Thanks’ came to me. They always make me smile because way back in the early 1980s, I yearned for a pine bed but being an impoverished student such a luxury seemed way beyond my grasp.

However, I put all my faith and trust in a friend who knew all about horses and he swore that a horse called Give Thanks would win me the price of the bed over time if I invested the £5 I managed to scrape together from coins that I found in old purses, backs of drawers and down in the depths of ragged pockets.

Give Thanks was trained by Jim Bolger, who has gone on to be one of the leading trainers in the world of racing. Give Thanks and her jockey Declan Gillespie kept on winning for me and she even won the Irish Oaks, which is for three-year-old thoroughbred fillies, in 1983.

My pine bed materialised and was beyond precious in my little bedsit  apartment in Dublin.

Last night, in lovely Garrarus, I gave thanks for all the good and the great things that have happened over the years and there have and continue to be many.

By the way, the ‘friend’ who spotted Give Thanks all those years ago became ‘hubby’ almost ten years later!

Horizon of Hope at Garrarus, August 13, 2014.

I’d love to know how other personal bloggers deal with writing/not writing when on an emotional roller-coaster? Do you pour it all out; write about something ‘objective’; refrain from posting or …..?

 

Ireland ~ The Land of Horses

Horses are a fundamental part of Ireland and Irishness. We stand tall on the world stage when it comes to horse-breeding, horse-racing, show-jumping and so many great names and places comes to mind when horses are mentioned in the Irish context.  How about Arkle, Redrum, Dawn Run, Moscow Flyer, Nijinsky, Shergar, Australia,  Vincent O’ Brien,  Tom Dreaper, Aidan O’ Brien, Jim Bolger, Capt. Michael Tubridy, Eddie Macken, Paul Darragh,  Coolmore Stud, The Curragh, Punchestown, Fairyhouse, Pat Taaffe,  Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty,  The Royal Dublin Horse Show,  Laytown Races …  just for starters?

Horses have always been part of my landscape. I loved hearing my father telling me about his younger brother, Michael, who was a world class show jumper and nothing soothed me more at bedtime than Mother telling me about her happy childhood days on a farm with her beloved pony, Jock.  I must have read every single book that was ever written about young girls and their ponies and was fortunate to be brought to places like the Dublin Horse Show and race meetings all round the country.

I have what I consider to be my very own ‘horse show’ here in Tramore every day when I bring the dogs out along Cliff Road to Newtown Wood. There is a field, with a spectacular view of  Tramore Bay, which is the grazing place of the friendliest horses I know. These are horses that trot gently over to the gate to be patted.  I could spend hours there running my fingers through their manes and gazing into their big brown eyes.

I guess most Irish people have a special field such as this in which noble, nuzzling friends reside and ones that evoke thoughts of echoing hooves and contented whinnying.