It's summer at last. Sleepy hot days. Perhaps too hot. Also, sheet rain, which always coincides with the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Summer also means we can turn the horses out overnight, a full 14 hours mooching around the fields. I love this. If I wake in the night, I think of Val out there with his friends on horse business, though he's quite happy in a stable too.
There's another rhythm of summer that horse people know. The sudden lush grass. It's stuffed with sugars and all the horses have gone bonkers, like children on caffeine. One friend has been bucked off twice. Val has become much more upsettable.

The bridle paths are suddenly like a jungle. On one track, the willows hung down in thick streamers, touching the saddle. I could not see, not even Val's neck. I glided through frond after frond while he moved me, invisible and solid, as if in a separate realm. A bicycle was following. Val knew. His entire skin prickled with suspicion as he walked, so it was not as dreamy as it sounds.