Marcus recently pointed out to me that I don’t do change very well. I’ve decided that he’s right – he usually is - just like my mother used to be. I put it down to the fact that as a teenager I went through an unsettled time when the family fortune was squandered by my father, my parents divorced and we were forced to leave my childhood home; consequently we ended up moving about five times in the space of five years. It was an unsettling time which I think may have had a lasting impact upon me; I have become a creature of habit, routine and regularity. It’s perhaps the reason that I don’t really like the thought of going on holiday; the fear of abandoning my everyday life unnerves me and makes me irrationally anxious.
Let’s face it, it took me twelve years to leave the school where I began my teaching career. I used to travel over an hour to revisit my childhood dentist because I couldn’t face finding a new one; ridiculous I know. When I have dared to embrace change things have often gone horribly wrong; there was the new dentist who tried to ‘sell’ me a root canal filling that I didn’t need and the vet who fatally misdiagnosed a horse. Such happenings have inevitably compounded my hate of change.
I struggle to change hairdressers let alone cope with the potential stress of moving my horses from the yard where we spent the last eight years happily together. And yet move we have. This time the change is definitely for the better; in pretty much every way. The horses are happily installed in their cobbled stable yard with acres of grass to graze or roam. The riding takes us through stunningly picturesque, Cotswold countryside and for schooling, or if it’s raining, we have an indoor school. Luxuriously I no longer have to face the political tension inherent in most livery yards because it’s just me and the owner muddling harmoniously along. I’m just keeping everything crossed that my bubble doesn’t burst.
