One advantage of Norway’s state religion is the remarkable series of public holidays we have in May: there’s Mayday, Ascension day, 17th May (the anniversary of the drafting of the Norwegian constitution), Whitsun. Holiday mondays and fridays dissolve into weekends and there are some three-day work weeks. Yesterday was Whit Monday. We went to try out a horse called Lady Macbeth — known as Betty — she is a young Welsh cob, 144 cm high.
We were in a flattish region very close to the Oslofjord. Growing raps, or rape, is a recent development in Norway according to my wife. I saw lots of it in Germany twenty years ago. It’s only May, it has grown so quickly.
I liked the idea of this rather nice little house directly overlooking a paddock. It’s an ideal home for a teenaged girl, but the horses must be a pleasant distraction for the whole family:
After walking round and round, other gaits were tried out:
Lady Macbeth has a shiny chestnut-coloured bottom and three white socks.
There was more toing and froing:
and some galloping:
Later I saw these, there are lots of wild violets at the moment:
A Bad Guide 
Neither the Countess nor I is fond of horses. My first words to my new-born daughter were “You can’t have a pony”.
On the other hand I want (and can’t have) chickens, so I am certainly in a position to agree with her future self when she gets round to observing that It’s Not Fair.
Des, you and the Countess have about twelve years before you’ll be getting a pony too. Looking on the bright side, you’ll have access to some wonderful Friesians. It’s expensive, but what else would you want to spend the money on? Nothing as useful as a pony, that’s for sure, and by the time she’s twelve maybe they’ll have worked out the dna of an egg-laying pony.
I’m sorry, I can’t help myself: every time someone mentions Friesian horses I have to mention chevaux de frise.
Cheval de frise was a missed opportunity for Name An Ice Cream Shop:
I like this bit, finish this sentence:
Goats from All Over, in this case from the latest post at wood s lot:
The Voice of Things
Francis Ponge
translated by Beth Archer
pdf at aaaarg – free reg. req.
The Goat
(….)
These long-eyed beauties, hairy as beasts, beauteous and at the same time bumptious—or better said, Beelzebumptious— when they bleat, what are they bewailing? what torment? what distress?
Like old bachelors, they are fond of newspapers and tobacco.
And in connection with goats, one should doubtless mention rope, and even (what pullings! what placid jerking obstinacy!) rope at the end of its rope, a rope whip.
That goatee, that grave accent. ..
They haunt rocky places.
(….)
Magnificent knucklehead, this dreamer, grandly flouting his ideas, bears their weight but not without some testiness useful for the brief acts assigned him.
These thoughts, formulated as weapons on his head, for motives of high civility curve backward ornamentally;
Knowing full well, moreover—though of occult source
and readily convulsive in his deep sacks—
With what, with what love, he is burdened.
Here then, his phraseology on his head, is what he ruminates between two sallies.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be online anywhere in full, in English or French; here’s a snippet from Google Books:
Comme les vieux célibataires elles aiment le papier-journal, le tabac.
Et sans doute faut-il parler de corde à propos de chèvres, et même – quels tiraillements! quelle douce obstination saccadée! – de corde usée jusqu’à la corde, et peut-être de mèche de fouet. Cette barbiche, cet accent grave.
“The Frisians, having little cavalry of their own, relied heavily…”. And yet the Romans in Britain used Friesian auxiliaries, some of them (I was once told) cavalry. Which only goes to show.
Congratulations for choosing a horse with three “socks”.
In French a “sock” of this type has a special name: une balzane. I learned this saying from my father, who knew horses:
Balzane un, cheval de rien,
Balzanes deux, cheval de preux,
Balzanes trois, cheval de roi,
Balzanes quatre, cheval à abattre.
(One sock, fit for nothing.
Two socks, fit for a knight,
Three socks, fit for a king,
Four socks, fit to put down).
m-l, thank you so much! My daughter is intrigued by it and so am I. She’s always very interested in their socks.
Language, that’s wonderfully apt writing about goats. Thank you very much for trying to find the whole thing. I’ll have to resort to buying it.
Well, apparently you can get the whole translation at aaaarg with free reg., which I was too feckless to bother trying.
[…] perhaps I do and perhaps it will. At the moment I’m very interested in Language Hat’s Goats From All Over that he’s been posting at his own site as well as here; however, I wouldn’t want that […]