Apparently, at 45, I’ve decided to take up an extreme sport.

This isn’t technically my first midlife crisis. The first involved following Stevie Nicks around America. I still adore her and stand by it completely, but as obsessions go, it had limited potential for personal progression.

This one has four legs and, worryingly, feels much more obtainable.

For years I’ve been the horse mum. I’ve watched from the side of the arena and heard heels down, sit tall, elbows in, cup of tea hands, look where you’re going so many times that I genuinely thought I must have picked up a bit of riding knowledge along the way.

Turns out, watching someone else do it and actually doing it yourself are two very different things. It had not prepared me at all.

Horse riding is really hard. There are far too many body parts expected to do completely different things at the same time, usually while someone shouts “RELAX!” as though relaxing several feet above the ground on half a tonne of animal is the most natural thing in the world.

And yet, here we are......

I’ve started liberty lessons too, which may have been a mistake because now I don’t just want to learn how to ride, I want to understand the horse. Body language, pressure, release, why they choose to stay with us and why, occasionally, they very much choose not to.

Somewhere along the way, my daughter’s hobby appears to have become mine. I think about the next lesson before the aching from the last one has disappeared. I replay the tiny things I got right and conveniently forget the rest.

At 45, I’m under no illusion that anyone is about to discover an exciting new equestrian talent. The ground looks significantly harder than it did twenty years ago and self-preservation is now very much a thing. But that might actually be the best bit.

There’s no grand plan. I’m allowed to be spectacularly amateur. I can be rubbish at something, laugh about it, get slightly less rubbish and feel ridiculously pleased with myself.

Maybe that’s what a midlife crisis really is. Not trying to be young again, but suddenly realising there are still new things out there capable of completely consuming you.

My first one had a tambourine.

This one has a saddle.

Whatever is next!