"The greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses; people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few friends these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms, she rewards passionately." Tim Krabbé, The Rider

I shall be thinking of this as the brisk wind howls around me and the sun is sinking even earlier below the horizon, as I try to squeeze in a hurried after-work ride on my horse in the thin autumn light, and I am being silly and lamenting the fact that I don't have an indoor riding arena.