Out Of The City

As much as I like staying in town with all its conveniences, I also like heading out of the city to visit the Aunts.

(Note that the friends live in the city. It must be the age-lifestyle theory at play here.)

The Aunts live in charming houses. They've been in London for a long long time now. The residences are nothing palatial of course. What we have here are decent 8 - 10 bedroom houses sitting within a large garden with foxes running by and full bird-feeders and a garage or garden shed by the side. One has been converted from an old barn. Alot of tedious work and maintenance to be done, but the family has made it a beautiful home.

One of the Aunts owns a small stable of rescued/retired racehorses. This is her pet cause, literally. She has this thing about not having them put down. 2 are quite badly crippled, but otherwise healthy and free of drug-related illnesses. They can trot and still love a gallop of sorts with a human. They've got the most amiable natures. I like them very much. They've seen me grow up. Am surprised that they still recognized me after not seeing them for a good 4 years.

The saddling up and riding are so so fun in the cold. It's the wiping down that's alot of trouble. After the cool down mile, I've to hose the horses with water in the temperature-regulated stables and dry them thoroughly. In winter, she keeps the horses at about 8°C above the temperature for the day. The Aunt jokes that the heating bill for the horses cost more than the humans'. Heeeee. It's a good 2.5 hours work post ride, but I have to do that properly otherwise the poor horses will get cramps, swelling and be so uncomfortable. I like the solitude of doing the work. I just haven't done manual work for a while. The muscles ache in places that no pilates stretches could hope to achieve.

I've always lived in tiny flats. While I love visiting houses and enjoy the expansive space and all the opportunities it has to offer, I balk at the idea of living in one. There is simply too much cleaning and tidying-up to do even with hired help. But that quality of life, is unbeatable. The Aunts walked into our tiny city flat and nearly fainted away. They said that they couldn't even fit through the door or have 2 of them in the kitchen at the same time. What nonsense. But yes, the size of our tiny flat isn't even the size of one of their drawing rooms.