Twenty-five years ago we had a Belgian teenager named Paul who came to spend part of two summers with us. This week, Paul came to visit with two of his four sons, Joe, age 19 and Sam, age 18. It is such a kick to meet again someone you remember as a sweet but immature student, and realize that they have metamorphosed into a responsible parent!
Sam is taking a gap year before university, and horses are his passion; in fact he is an acrobat who does vaulting on horses. Naturally I took him out to see Millington Stables, where we are lucky enough to keep our two horses. It was a sparkling winter day with puffy clouds pushed along by occasional gusts of wind, blinding sunshine and a light dusting of snow on the ground. We took a mile’s circuit walk around the property, stopping to dispense carrots to grazing horses.
Sam and his father exclaimed over and over again that they had never seen such a beautiful, HUGE farm; that there is only farm in Belgium anywhere near that size, near the German border. Their three horses are lucky to get a few hours turnout in tiny pastures, mostly they are in stalls all day in their barn in the Brussels suburbs.
There is nothing like seeing something familiar through someone else’s eyes; Millington’s beauty and its rambling pastures are newly valuable to me.
