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Tiny horses, epic bike rides and more uplifting stories
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Good morning.
Sometimes, in life, all you need is a tiny horse.
Victoria Nodiff-Netanel bought Black Pearl, a miniature horse, for company after she had retired from a career in dressage. “She was a fluffy little thing and would run around at warp speed, then run back to snuggle,” she says. “ She stole my heart from the beginning [but] I had no idea [she] would inspire me to change my whole focus in life.”
Nodiff-Netane went on to set up Mini Therapy Horses, programme that takes miniature horses to psychiatric units and hospitals to spread a little joy. “Of all our miniature horses, Black Pearl is the biggest show-off. She feeds off everyone’s positive energy and loves to do her tricks.”
Read on for more stories to lift your spirits.
The Guardian newsletters team
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Japan’s Jimi Halloween, a celebration of all things mundane
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 Work-life balance … Jimi Halloween, Tokyo, Japan. Photograph: Tomohiro Ohsumi/The Guardian
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What if your Halloween costume was just … normal? Tokyo’s annual Jimi Halloween turns the usual spooky season spectacle on its head, with participants dressing up as the mundane and the oddly specific – from a shop assistant spritzing customers with deodoriser to the elusive concept of “work-life balance”. This spin on the event finds comedy in the everyday, proving that sometimes the most inspired costumers are the least extraordinary.
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The Feast app: your most useful kitchen utensil
Get inspired with more than 8,000 recipes from our world-class cooks and smart, exclusive features to make cooking a breeze.
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At 26, I saw my dream Porsche. At 68, I built one from scratch
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‘You must have a dream’ … Bill Drysdale at Shelsley Walsh, Worcestershire, in July 2024. Photograph: Joy Richings
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Bill Drysdale saw the Porsche 904 at Silverstone racetrack when he was 26. He instantly fell in love but realised that buying the car was unlikely, due to its more than £1m price tag. Still, he promised himself that one day he would have it.
That was 61 years ago – today, 87-year-old Drysdale has the car of his dreams, just without the hefty price tag. He decided to build the car from scratch after retiring as an engineer at 60. It took him eight years to complete what he has dubbed the “Porsche 904FF”; the double Fs meaning “effing fake”.
Drysdale has always had a passion for cars. His father, a chauffeur, taught him how to drive, yet passed away when Drysdale was only 21. “I think my dad would have said: ‘Yep, that’s my son,’” he says. “The car has given me a dream. I’m a great believer that you must have a dream.
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I was terrified of my own body – until a surprising 20-mile bike ride
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‘Before long, we were doing 100-mile rides’ … Patty Azzarello pictured in Carmel valley, California, in 2020. Photograph: Courtesy of Patty Azzarello
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After years of being terrified to move, one bike ride changed Patty Azzarello’s life. When Azzarello was 10 years old she was diagnosed with scoliosis, severe lordosis, where the spine is excessively curved, and spondylolisthesis, meaning a vertebra was out of place.
She was told that a simple bump or fall could sever her spinal cord, leaving her paralysed. This led to years of anxiety about exercising.
When she moved to Colorado in her 30s, a co-worker invited Azzarello on a bike ride and she accepted, not realising it would be 20 miles long. Azzarello realised that her body was stronger than she thought. Since then, she’s hiked the Alps and cycled for entire days. Today, at 60, Azzarello remains incredibly active. “I am no longer ashamed of my body,” she says. “It has become my ally.”
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Phoebe Waller-Bridge donates flat to help early-career writers live in London
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Flat-out generous … Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
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Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator of the hit show Fleabag, has bought and donated a London flat to Writers’ Block – a scheme tackling class barriers in theatre – so that early-career writers can live in the capital rent-free while they attend meetings, rehearsals, and other career opportunities. She has also made a ‘generous financial contribution’, says the initiative.
Other high-profile creatives backing the scheme, which invites Londoners to offer spare rooms to writers at reduced rates, include Jack Thorne, who co-created Adolescence, and James Graham, who wrote the stage show Dear England.
“When I first made it to London, I slept on friends’ floors and worked in call centres … while I wrote,” says Graham. “Every spare room a scheme like this can give to writers starting out in London, not only helps them write but saves them from giving up completely.”
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How elderly ‘unsung heroes’ powered Lula’s historic fightback in Brazil
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Voting intention … Celia de Oliveira Soares, aged 101, did not want to see another Bolsonaro as president. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian
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On 25 October, as Brazil held its presidential election, 101-year-old Celia de Oliveira Soares left home for the first time in months, to vote for the first time in nearly a decade. She was determined that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) – who had lost in the first round – should beat the far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro.
Since Brazil’s return to democracy in the 1980s, no first-round loser has ever bounced back. But 3 million extra voters took part in the second round, after skipping the first – and 1.4 million of them were over 70 years old. The victorious Lula, along with many others, is now hailing elderly voters as the election’s heroes.
“It is possible to resist fascism – all you need to do is mobilise society,” the former minister Simone Tebet said. “Young people hit the streets and golden-agers saved our democracy.”
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