| Welcome to Situpandkick.com, Michael J Dixon's event and wedding photography business based near Ely, Cambridgeshire. To buy prints, keyrings, fridge magnets and coasters , please click the event list on the left. Click here for the Badminton diary or the Phoebe Buckley photo Library or read on down for this month's short story. If you like it, then it would be really nice if you left a message on the forum. Thanks! Mike |
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THE STUD |
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I’m nervous. Not actually shaking or trembling but pre-occupied, the pit of my stomach oscillating with that empty-full feeling that dominates every thought and every decision.. And I’m vague, only half-aware of the people around me, riding the course in my head, ticking off the minutes till we go. Mind that nasty drop-log, be careful jumping into the water and don’t let him look left as we come up to the logpile; there a flock of sheep in the field. And Shady, my chestnut, thoroughbred eventer, hates sheep.
I’ve reached that slightly numb, totally comitted stage. There's nothing else I can do to prepare and there's no way I'm backing out. I want to do it but I want to do it now, not in an hour's time.
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I always feel like this before a big track. In the start box I’m petrified, transfering my fear to the horse, I’m sure. And every time, when the starter shouts, "Three, two, one, Go…good luck!", I am transformed.
I love it. I’m on a high for days afterwards. I don’t sleep at all the night after an event. Or the night before. But for different reasons. Oh God, why am I doing this?
‘Time to put the studs in.’
The shout jerks me back to reality and I turn, sluggishly, the terror turning to torpor now. I nod, absent-mindedly and hold out my hand for the threaded pins that screw into the horse's shoes to give more grip in the mud. My mother dribbles the squat steel slugs into my hand and my mind registers, with an unreasonable irritation, a problem. ‘There’s only three here.’
‘Hang on.’ Mother delves into the pocket of her ancient, wax jacket and drops a fourth into my hand. Superficially the same, its older, greyer, more rounded at the edges and it sends an electric current through me, galvanising my mind with a mixture of nameless terror and strange, enveloping support. Suddenly I feel stronger.
Ridiculous. It’s just a stud.
But the feeling is violent, and cannot be ignored so I look at the lump of metal more carefully, rolling it around in the palm of my hand with the other three. It's the same size, it does the same thing, but it's different.
It's...almost alive.
I look at my mother, curiously. ‘These aren’t a set?’
And she’s instantly cautious, trying, I see, not to tell me too much, as mothers do sometimes. ‘No. It's an old one. But the thread is the same. It’ll fit.’ She turns away quickly.
The stud is still shouting to me, silent, deafening whispers of God knows what. Or when. I wonder briefly just how old it is, turn to the grooming box and look for the spanner.
Somehow, I’m not nervous anymore.
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I sit in the lorry, quiet in the aftermath of effort, exhausted as the adrenalin receedes, happy -no- astounded in my unexpected success. Behind me, in his stall at the back of the lorry, Shady is quiet too, chomping hay and snorting. The rain is still falling and, although now in dry clothes, I still feel faintly damp, that deep, through to the core moisture that always pervades a really wet horse trials and which lasts until you get home.
But I don't mind. My attention is concentrated, completely, on the four upturned coffee cups on the table in front of me. Underneath one of them -I know not which- is the fourth stud. Rosie, my sister and groom, has at my request, placed it under one of our green plastic coffee cups while my back was turned, and is now looking carefully at me, rather as you might at someone who has just fallen off their horse and banged their head.
I look steadily at the four cups. I didn’t fall off. I won, riding better, I know, than I ever have before, and I need, desperately, to know more about this strange old piece of metal that deafened me, silently, from the moment I first touched it.
The lorry rocks on its springs. The wind is still rising, rain is trickling down the windows and I hear Shady shift, uncertainly, in his stall. Suddenly, I can't wait any longer. I take a deep breath, reach out and touch the base of the first cup with the tip of my forefinger.
Nothing. It’s just a cup, upturned on the cracked, plastic-topped table. Big deal. And Rosie looks like she’s wondering whether to fetch the doctor. I retract my hand, try to control my breathing, look through the window at the racetrack of raindrops on the outside, not one of them taking the straight course to the bottom, but snaking down, meeting and crossing, fighting their way against the sideways pressure of the wind. Ordinary rain drops.
And in front of me, ordinary cups. I put my hand out again, touch the second cup quickly and jerk my finger back, careful not to look at Rosie's face. Her expression will, I know, reveal all. Deep breaths. It takes longer this time, the….sensation in my head is enormous. I can’t describe it any clearer than that.
Third cup. I pause, my finger tip just inches from the plastic, half wanting it to be true, half terrified. Touch it. TOUCH IT.
It’s dead, just another upturned cup and relief washes over me, a strange mixed-up relief that allows me to touch the fourth cup, quickly, and to find it also lifeless.
I am brave now. I look Rosie in the eye and pick up the second cup We both stare at the cold, muddy stud beneath.
Now she is scared. ‘How the hell did you know that?’
I don’t answer. I can’t answer. I don’t know. I pick up the stud, feeling its energy flow through me again. It warms me. I offer it to Rosie but she shrinks away.
‘I just felt it.’
The door crashes open and Mother, coat tails flailing, comes charging up the steps with hamburgers, tomato ketchup dripping onto her wellies. She stops dead at the sight of the table, the frozen cameo of four cups, three in a line and one pushed to one side, and me with the stud in my hand.
Reluctantly, she sets the hamburgers in their crumpled paper knapkins down on the table beside the guilty cup and then raises her eyes to meet mine.
'You feel it?'
I nod, unable to speak.
'Your father was the last to use it.' She looks away as she speaks.
I dive past her, kicking open the door, falling, sliding, scrambling down the steps in my socks, sliding across sixty feet of rain-battered mud to the fence at the edge of the paddock, skidding to a halt, grabbing the barbed wire to steady myself and feeling the steel bite my palm as, with my other hand I lob the stud as far as it will go, losing track of its path through the rain but catching, unmistakably, the soft plop as it lands, thirty feet away, in the lake.
My father was killed in the Grand National.
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| Please click here if you'd like to leave a comment on the situpandkick forum |
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I've separated out wedding photography, so, if you were looking for Michael J Dixon as a wedding photographer in the Ely and Cambridge area, then please try www.youmaynowkissthebride.co.uk (Situpandkick just didn't seem appropriate any more. Someone suggested Shutupandsmile...). |
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Finding Your Pictures: Pictures are stored by venue (top left of this page), and then by event. If a picture looks too light, or dark, or if the horse isn't in the middle, don't worry; I colour correct and crop every image before I print it (that's why we don't print on the day). If there is one that I can't print to a professional standard then I'll give it to you and either refund your money or give you two other pictures of the same size. If you're not sure about a picture (sometimes it's hard to see your expression on the screen), or if you would like the image cropped in a particular way, then please ring me, Mike, on 07739 913696. I can put a higher resolution version up on the home page for a few minutes for you to look at. |
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Situpandkick are very pleased to be supporting Phoebe Buckley again this year, as she rides the four-star horse Little Tiger owned by Dr Polly Taylor. Click here for details of Phoebe's yard near Melton Mowbray, and here to read the Badminton diary from last year (2007), when Phoebe took Little Tiger to 38th place. They managed 38th again this year, but out of a larger field of finishers, and with a spectacular round cross-country. Some of the pictures are already in the Phoebe Buckley photo library. When I get a moment, I'll write the diary (including how I got the lorry stuck on the way INTO the lorry park...) and I'll put the film up on Youtube. There's a bit from Burghley last year already. |
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We now have an on-line forum: New for 2008, with details of upcoming events and space for letting off steam. Please take a moment to register and tell me what topics you'd like. My Photos: You can now create your own gallery of pictures under your username. We've got loads of webspace, we won't be archiving anything off the site, so please go ahead and have a go. It's all free. |
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Random fridge magnet... And below, some links to other things I do |
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...wedding photography with, I hope, a unique style, in Cambridgeshire |
... portraits of your loved ones, large and small. Every one is a challenge; they either run off or tread on you. |
... portraits of your other loved ones! My aim is to relax you and to take lots more pictures than you expected. |
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| Do you suffer from fridge guilt syndrome? Try my magnets to help you cope when you finally yield to the door of temptation! | Do card shops drive you crazy? StorySnaps" are my answer; greetings cards without a slushy verse, just a tasteful picture and a short story. Some are about horses, some are romantic. One or two are slightly risque... | For a longer read, try "Kicking the Tyres", my 350 pages of motor racing action, terror on horseback and complicated love lives? Available signed and with a dedication at no extra charge. |
| Postage and packing is free on everything from this site. You can order on-line with a card, or by post with a cheque. |
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Copies of my book can also be reserved for collection at the next event that we cover. There's a list of where we'll be on the on-line forum. |
| I also cover dog agility-shows (the best entertainment you can have with your clothes on) |
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| No prizes for guessing which one's the wedding photographer. Good luck, everybody, for 2008, when Situpandkick will be covering more events than ever before. Have a look at the forum for details. |