Relative Something

It was a little warmer sleeping on Tuesday night. Not such a chill in the air. We have been waking about 7 or 7:30 in the mornings, and today, Wednesday, September 22nd, is no different. The first thing we do is look out the window beside our bed to see if the sun is appearing over the far side of the ridge.

I write for a while in my journal, and then we wander over to the main house at about the same time Ian is coming out to tend to the horses. Cyndie has just fed them, so Ian focuses on cleaning out their stalls. I bring my computer over and sit on the front porch to look up the Carolyn Resnick audio segment Ian had recommended, and we all take a moment together to listen to it. The next order of business is getting the brush cutter in to be looked at again, so Ian and I did that errand while Cyndie took her book and sat with Frida and read, eventually getting the halter back on.

When we got back, Ian helped Cyndie to ride Lucy and Doll. One at a time, each horse was saddled and then was taken for some exercises in the circle and the area of the figure eights. While I crouched to watch the activity, the cat climbed up on my lap and then on to my head. The little guy doesn’t shy away from anyone or anything. While they continued to work with the horses, I wandered a bit and took pictures of the main house and surrounding area. After the riding, Cyndie went in to make lunch (sautéed brussel sprouts and peppers with some minced beef which she served over pasta) and Ian and I picked some grapes to made juice out of them. What a fantastic treat fresh grape juice is!

After lunch, Cyndie and Ian spent time allowing Lucy to accept her harness and then walked the horses down to the bottom field. First, Lucy and Frida, and then Doll and Sebastian. I took the opportunity to wander some more and take more pictures of the bounty and wonder of this paradise.

By this time in the afternoon, we were expecting a visit from Patricia’s friend, Margarida. She arrived with her boyfriend, Nuno. Cyndie was preparing a snack for their visit and they arrived with many treats of their own. My favorite was a freshly prepared home-made meat sandwich, but there were also a good number of traditional sweets presented.

Cyndie connected immediately with Margarida. After eating and visiting around the table on the porch, the girls moved up by the pool and Cyndie performed a Rieki massage for Margarida and had her select some cards for a “Path of the Soul” reading. Meanwhile, I passed the time playing guitar for Ian and Nuno. Before long, we were all walking down to the bottom field so they could say hello to the horses. With that accomplished, it was time for them to get back to Porto, so it was actually a rather brief visit. Margarida and Cyndie appeared to make quite a connection, which is just what the Rowcliffes sensed was possible when they arranged for the meeting. By evening, Margarida had already sent Cyndie an email, and Cyndie was able to respond with promised results of the cards Margarida had selected. Cyndie is also planning to do a Numerology reading for her. We feel particularly grateful for the opportunity to have spent time with them both. It really expands our experience here in a special way.

After they departed, Ian and I made a run back to Alfredo’s to pick up the cutter, and Cyndie was going to bring the horses up. We got back and took a little walk so I could show Ian some of the bounty of grapes I had discovered on my earlier walk. I also pointed out the large number of chestnuts that were on the ground under one of the big trees. With no sign of Cyndie and the horses yet, we walked down in the increasing darkness to find her. She was waiting at the gate for the horses to behave and allow her to get Lucy and Frida out first. We assisted in facilitating the agenda, with my role being, for the third time in 3 days, to wait with Doll and Sebastian for five minutes before letting them through the gate to head up on their own.

Cyndie described her ‘horse moment’ of the day was achieving successful voice command of Doll and Sebastian to get them to back up. She described it in a way that reminded me of the “Narpa moment” that Julian had on our dogsled expedition when the kids were little. Gaining control over the sled-dog, Narpa, was a lot like gaining control over a horse.

After I let the horses out, I walked up alone, in the dark, and checked with Ian to learn if everything went alright, wondering about my timing of releasing the second two horses. His response was about the cat! The only thing that went wrong was that the cat had gotten into some of the really excellent bread that Margarida had brought. I took that to imply the timing of the horses was fine. He was kind of amazed that the cat was so fond of bread. The rest of the little loaf was distributed to the cat and dogs, in addition to their regular food which had been neglected, perhaps because we didn’t sit down for an evening meal. We had eaten lunch late and then had more food shortly thereafter when company arrived, so none of us had need for anything more this day.

We needed to bring in the figs that were out for drying, discovering limited progress toward that goal, and then rushed through some dish washing to give Ian some space. We returned to our cottage by about 9:00. I processed the day’s pictures and then posted a few to Ian’s LifeStory and discovered he was doing the same. Finally turned in for sleep shortly after eleven, …I think.