Conkers and Decorations

On Monday afternoon, Britney (not her real name) and I went conker stealing. We went off on our bikes with our plastic colanders for protection and spent a happy hour and a half breaking open the green and brown husks of the Horse Chestnut tree.

When our backpacks could hold no more we cycled home with the company of the setting sun, thinking longingly of the hot bath that would thaw out our fingertips. Later Britney lovingly polished each of the 187 conkers with an old sock and put them on display in a wire basket that is meant to hold eggs in my kitchen. After Britney had gone to bed, I sneakily removed a few of the smaller conkers and placed them strategically around the house. The conker is meant to emit some kind of noxious substance that wards off spiders and after I threw a large glass of Shiraz all over my sofa when an enormous arachnid landed on my foot a few nights ago, I am willing to try anything. So yes, I had a bit of an ulterior motive when I suggested that Britney and I go conker stealing.

This week is half term (hence the conker theft) and this Saturday marks the end of British Summer Time.

It means that it’s that time of year again.

I’m not referring to the time when the Autumnal chill creeps into the air once the sun has begun to set or the onset of Christmas adverts on TV; it’s the time of year when those bizarre people who own a “Field Ornament” suddenly develop an interest in riding it.

I refer to these people as “Field Decorators” and once you get your eye in they are fairly easy to spot. They are the people who wear clean, non-holey jodhpurs in Sainsbury’s and can’t ride in a taxi with the door shut. They usually own more than one Field Ornament, often one of them is at least 105 years old and is still not broken to ride and the other is an unsuitable pony who has bucked off everyone in the County under the age of 10 and therefore has not been ridden for over 15 years. They talk loudly at parties about their Field Ornaments and always tell the entire room that they unfortunately have to go home early to muck out.

Good God, if I haven’t mucked out by 9am I am so ashamed that I don’t tell anyone. I even lied to Other Half last Saturday as I was quietly trying to finish mucking out my stable at 2pm without him knowing. “Are you just mucking out now?” he asked incredulously, forcing me to cough and reply breezily that I was just “tidying up”. If I’m at a party I’m the one whispering “I shreally sshood go home ash I haventsh gosh the fecking horsh in yet” but at least I am safe in the knowledge that my stable is clean and ready to receive my horse when I bring him inside in a slightly intoxicated fashion. Why brag that you haven’t bothered to muck out yet? In horsey circles that’s about as popular as a dusty cat at an allergy clinic.

It puzzles me as to why the Field Decorator suddenly develops an interest in riding when British Summer Time is about to end. From May to September we have had some incredible riding weather, some days you could have ridden in daylight anytime between 5am and 8.30pm. So why does the Field Decorator rush out in October purchase a high visibility jacket, a flashing red light and proceed to imagine that they are shortlisted for the British team?

On the plus side, you can rest assured that you won’t meet the Field Decorator on the school run, because they choose to ride their horse on the public highway once everyone is home from work and having a gin & tonic. Yes, that’s correct, in the dark. And I can’t think of anything more dangerous. If I can’t see where I’m going, I’m fairly certain that Dobbin can’t either.

The Field Decorator also rides their Ornament everywhere at a snail’s pace. There is no trotting and definitely no cantering for fear of falling off. Going for a ride takes a very long time if you walk everywhere and if you are short of padding in the arse department it is excruciating. You will return to the yard with your seatbones on fire wishing you had one of those gel seat covers that I use on my bike.

Aside from the excitement when he is trying to see where he is going during his evening hacking, The Field Ornament has a slightly dull life. Yes he has the luxury of being able to eat as much grass as he wants, but he has no job and most horses thrive on routine and work. This Field Ornament does absolutely nothing but eat and have shiny new shoes fitted everytime one falls off. In the winter when I find that I am mostly riding in the gloom, I tend to ride off road as much as possible. It is during this time that my Farrier will examine a shoe that he has just removed from my horse’s foot and utter the biggest put down in the world: “Not doing much with him at the minute, are you?” This is my Farrier’s way of politely saying: “You haven’t worn the fecking shoe down. You are clearly not riding this horse at all because real horses trot around the roads for hours to harden their tendons and keep them fit; and don’t ponce around the field margins for 40 minutes every morning before the school run.” This makes me wonder what he says to the Field Decorator. Or does he just smile, remove the unworn shoes, shave a bit of hoof off, slap them back on again and carefully put the cheque in his pocket?

Another common trait of the Field Decorator is the vivid colour of all their horse’s garments. I am an old fashioned horse owner, which means my horse’s clothing consists of 3 colours: black, brown and navy. White is acceptable on some occasions but purple, yellow, green and sodding pink are most definitely out. The Field Decorator’s Ornament could bring on an epileptic fit. Stars, stripes, hoops, primary colours and glitter are all there in abundance.

The Field Decorator’s own wardrobe is crammed will all the latest riding gear and possibly the same brand of riding hat as the most recent Olympic dressage champion; which comes in handy and keeps them nice and safe when they leave it on the parcel shelf of their car in Sainsbury’s car park.

You can also spot a Field Decorator as their horse will be wearing a rug to keep them warm when the temperature is warm enough for us in Northumberland to be wearing shorts. And in the November their horse is probably still wearing a mesh rug that is designed to protect the creature’s skin from the biting flies that disappear at the end of August.

I would love to tell you that the Field Decorator continues to ride all winter, but they don’t. This mad, high octane form of riding only lasts a few weeks and then the horse is out in the field again wearing a rug that it will continue to wear until Easter.

The Field Ornament is a bit like the conkers. Carefully selected, lovingly polished at first but forgotten about as soon as they become old and a bit shrivelled. 

The Professionals

My friend, the Native Pony Professional has been and clipped my horse. Native Pony Professional clips at the speed of light and it took no time at all to shave my orange pony and leave him bald with a shocked expression on his face. He now looks like a proper grown up horse. Gone is all the half bred welsh pony hairiness and now at least he won’t get overheated just from walking and trotting around a field.

I bought this wet dishcloth of a horse when he had just turned 5 years old. I was the 6^th person to own him and gaining his trust took time. He’s a very sweet and loving character but he’s also a bit odd as he absolutely adores children. He has on more than one occasion scaled a heap of split logs like Bambi on ice, to get near to Britney (not her real name). Britney is a bit unsporting as she happens to be allergic to all things equine but before her sneezing and red eye became really horrible, she used to stand on a step stool and put hair clips in his forelock and he loved it.

Despite this horse being terrified of any person he does not know over the age of 12, once you are on board him he resembles a giant guide dog. He doesn’t care about tractors the size of houses towing trailers full of sheep and he is the only horse in the world to have no fear of those sodding England flags that people attach to their cars during major football tournaments. He’s astonishing. He is the most sensible horse that I have ever ridden. But if I ever ask you to hold him while the Vet gives him his flu booster, just say that you are busy. I quite understand.

He isn’t however, what we call in the trade a “Granny Bike” and last winter he developed a nasty habit of trying his damnest to buck me off. This is not a fun pastime and if anyone tells you that they like a horse that bucks; they have clearly NEVER sat on a horse that can really buck. The sharp, violent buck is a horrible action, firing the rider up in the air and if the horse twists to the side while you are still in mid air, it only leaves the ground underneath to catch you. By some luck each time Dobbin tried this, I managed to land back in the saddle and regain my composure with my knees shaking slightly against the saddle. In the perfect world, when a young horse gives a cheeky buck, you should wrap your legs more tightly around him and give him a smack behind your leg with your whip to encourage the horse to move forwards and not upwards. In the real world however, as soon as Dobbin finds he’s being whacked he will buck again and after a few more buck/whack exchanges, you’ll find yourself saying “You’re very naughty” in a high voice and waggling your index finger at the back of his ears.

Anyone over the age of 19 is too old to fall off and knowing that if this clever horse bucked me off once he would do it again and again, I sent him to my friend the Problem Horse Expert to sort out. After a week and a half I went and rode my reformed character with Problem Horse Expert who said “If you have this bucking problem again, I think you’re going to have to belt up and sit on him”. To Problem Horse Expert, Dobbin was probably about as exciting as sitting on a bean bag in the cupboard under the stairs listening to the Jeremy Vine Show.

Back in 2012, Scottish Moose Friend and I went to watch the Cross Country at the London Olympics. It was an amazing experience but left me feeling quite depressed. A year later we went to Burghley and again I felt slightly downhearted watching the pro’s jump fences that were so big you couldn’t quite believe they were real. The Burghley course designer should have just gone the whole hog and covered the fences with broken bottles, razor wire and wired them into the mains electric. How on earth do you get to the point where you can trust a horse to jump a fence that’s the size of a 4x4 and make it look easy? It made me wonder if I should bother riding at all as it made the fallen tree in the wood that Dobbin and I pop over in the mornings look a bit feeble.

Last week I visited a racing yard. It with a stunning, purpose built yard with the most incredible facilities, a horse walker, a covered gallop and an equine swimming pool. I fell in love with a lovely 4 year old and I watched him work with his stable companions on the 6 furlong gallop high up in the hills. The Thoroughbred is the king of the equine world and watching these equine athletes gave me a familiar feeling of despair.

This feeling disappeared the very next morning when I was out on Dobbin. We were standing at the railway crossing as the train sped over it, sounding its horn as it went. I nearly died; Dobbin didn’t move.

I’m willing to bet my horse, house and car that the 4 year old racehorse that I had lusted over the day before would have gone into orbit if that had happened to him. Horses for courses, I suppose.

 The difference between the professional and the amateur can be small or it can be great. I’m glad the pro’s are here because we amateurs need all the help we can get.

Gardener's World

The garden that came with my house is my Other Half’s domain. I am no gardener; I don’t have the patience to wait for a kettle to boil so there’s no way I can possibly wait for something to grow. If it was up to me our garden would consist of Astroturf, bark chippings and enormous plastic plants. I can’t even be arsed with planters on the patio as you actually have to water these stupid things in the summer. Clearly after a long day in the office the only thing I want to do is stand outside holding a hosepipe trickling water into a wooden planter full of flowery things. You could argue that with a watering system in place all I have to do is walk outside and turn the tap on, but this interferes with “wine time” and frankly I cannot be bothered to even do that.

As there is more chance of me paying a subscription to the Royal Society for Waiting & Patience than actually planting something, it is strange that I love Gardener’s World. It is my weekly aim to be in my pyjamas and on the sofa by 8.30 on a Friday evening, ready to see Monty chuck a tennis ball to Nigel and watch Carol (clearly on Valium) adding grit to the bottom of her plant pots. I have absolutely no interest in gardening so I can only conclude that I enjoy lying on the sofa on a Friday night with a pint of wine watching other people work.

If the garden was left to me I would buy full size artificial trees and have them lowered into place with a crane. A gardener can never sit in a deck chair in their garden and think “There. I’ve finished it.” because the job is never ending. The only part of the garden I take an interest in is the growth rate of the lawn and this is only so I can gauge how much grass my horse is guzzling in his postage stamp of a paddock.

This disappoints Other Half as he appears to have something of an obsession with grass. I have checked this theory with my friends and we are all in agreement. The men-blokes are fanatical about their grass and are only content when their lawn resembles the Old Course at St Andrews.

Before I became aware of this “Man-Mania” regarding grass, I made the terrible mistake of allowing my horse to walk across our lawn. It was December, the lane to the field was sheet ice and I chose to take my expensive, spindly-legged equine up my garden to his field, rather than risk a Vet’s bill by allowing him to skate up the road. Good God, Other Half spent the next 4 months filling the 3 inch deep hoof holes with sand and sprinkling them with grass seed, with a very cross expression on his face.

This moment was surpassed when the current horse took fright at the new Farrier and galloped off across the garden. By the time he had calmed down and I was able to catch him, he had performed something that resembled a Strictly Come Dancing routine on the lawn. I knew this was bad as Newcastle Racecourse have less damage after a full day’s racing when the going is good to soft.

As a result; I have learnt to respect the lawn and I have also noticed that we have a considerable and frankly elaborate, Lawn Mower Collection.

When we first moved to this house we were mowerless as our previous houses had no gardens. And it was apparent that despite the garden being somewhat undulating there was a fecking ton of grass to cut. For a while we had the most expensive law mower in Northumberland as the expensive, spindly legged equine roamed freely. It was only when he began pruning the roses with his enormous teeth that Other Half went out and bought a strimmer. Then Artist Friend gave us an old lawn mower as a moving in present. Old-Mower did a marvellous job but didn’t propel himself and so took a lot of effort to push it up the steep slope in the garden.

Then we acquired a second more modern self-driven mower from my Father’s friend, who no longer required it to cut his town garden that was the size of my bathroom. I thought we could then get rid of the Old-Mower, but Other Half insisted that Old-Mower would be used to cut the rougher areas of the garden and Self-Driven-Mower would cut the neat sections of lawn.

Then Teacher Friend invested in a new ride-on Mower and asked if we would like to buy her old ride-on mower.

“Tremendous,” I thought, “Now we can get rid of all other mowers and just have Ride-on-Mower. It will save Other Half so much effort.”

But there are places in the garden where Ride-On-Mower cannot be used. Some of the garden is too steep and having once witnessed a near calamity, I agreed that Ride-On-Mower should not be used on a gradient. Even slight gradients are a bit of an issue with Ride-On-Mower, as he continues moving forwards even when he is in reverse. It was during one of these gradient sliding manoeuvres that Ride-On-Mower turned 5 Playmobile Unicorns and 4 Playmobile Princesses to small gravel sized chunks.

Ride-On-Mower has managed to redeem himself after the Playmobile attack as he can pull a modest trailer behind him. In the winter the trailer goes up to the paddock full of horse poo and returns full of logs to fuel the burner in the lounge.

Then Other Half had a great idea. Why not buy a Fly-Mower to cut the dangerous slopes? This was indeed a brilliant idea and Fly-Mower now cuts all the banks in the garden without the danger of Ride-On-Mower.

In turn, Ride-on-Mower cuts the easier flat bits of grass, Old-Mower cuts the rough areas and Self-Driven-Mower cuts the flat but more fiddly areas around the square lawns that Ride-on-Mower cannot get to. Strimmer does the really, really tricky areas that no mower can reach and also cuts around the legs of Britney’s (not her real name) swing and trampoline.

Consequently, due to the size of our Lawn Mower Collection we are contemplating constructing some sort of building to house it in. Perhaps incorporating a little viewing gallery, coffee shop and a parking area for coaches.

Visitors by appointment only.

Don't Touch The Blackberries

Autumn is finally here. The X Factor is on television which means it’s nearly Christmas, Britney (not her real name) has already chosen her Halloween outfit and I have a hankering for shepherd’s pie and leek and potato soup. It’s dark by 7pm, the log burner is lit every night and the mornings are crisp and dewy. These days as I totter between the trees with my saddle balanced on my hip, I have to stand on my tiptoes to select an apple for my breakfast as the icy cold plum selection is no longer available. The leaves on the trees are changing colour and beginning to float to the ground. My 6 sloes are turning a beautiful bluey colour and Dobbin is able to sneakily nibble a Blackberry from the hedge as he stands at the mounting block waiting for me to clamber on board.

I can’t recall where I read the important piece of information I’m about to share with you, but here it comes anyway: Apparently you shouldn’t eat Blackberries after the 1^st October because the Devil has urinated on them.

Oddly enough as the Devil was completing peeing on all the Blackberries in the world, the Canadian company Blackberry announced that they would no longer be making mobile phones and would instead be concentrating on making software. The demise of the Blackberry brand is a bit of a shocker really. As recently as 2011 Blackberry were shifting 50 million phones a year. In the old days when most mobiles had a number pad and a star and a hash button, the QWERTY keyboard of the Bramble made emailing a breeze. Regrettably Blackberry couldn’t keep up with the touch screens of the other market leaders and hence after 14 years, Blackberry handsets are no more.

Blackberrys are like Marmite, you either adore them or you hate them. Sometimes people hate them more than they hate Donald Trump, but I loved mine as it did so many amazing things. I mean I could actually use it to make phone calls, I could send people text messages and I could surf the internet with amazing regularity. I could email people from it and I could use it to take great photographs between my horse’s ears. Yes, it didn’t talk to a multitude of Apps that would have been handy to have, but for me it was a phone that did everything that I wanted it to do.

Last Tuesday my faithful Blackberry Z10 winked at me, warning me that there was only 20% battery life remaining. I checked the phone 5 minutes later and it was flat. I plugged it in to the laptop that I was working on. Nothing. I plugged it in to the desktop in the office downstairs. Nothing. Frantic in the knowledge that I had lost all contact with the outside world and being unable to look at Facetube, I raced home and plugged it in to the mains charger. Nothing. It was completely dead and frankly after almost 3 years together I expected a little bit more from my beloved Z10. There was no “Sorry, I’m not feeling all that well today” there was no “Ooooh dearie me, I can’t let you send a text today as I’m feeling a bit under the weather”, there wasn’t even a “I’m sooooo sick, plug me in and back me up pleeeeeese”. There was no warning at all, the sodding thing just gave up and died. And as if that wasn’t bad enough the Z10 took all her secrets to the grave as well, all my contacts went with her and all my text messages too. The Z10 left me without an alarm clock, without any friends and with no way of looking at my Instaphoto account. I was faithful to the Z10 for so many months after my contract had ended I expected it to try a bit bloody harder than that. On Tuesday evening I left it in the kitchen to charge overnight thinking that might teach it a lesson, but no, it was still dead the next morning. It was also stone cold after a night’s charging. In short, it didn’t even have the bloody common decency to get hot enough to burn my palm when I picked it up. So I chucked it into the depths of my handbag while I looked online to see what its replacement was going to be.

This was when things took a definite turn for the worse. My mobile provider’s website said I had no account with them and to add insult to serious injury, they also said my number was not a customer’s number. The lovely Paula who I ended up speaking to for almost 2 hours, said it was to do with my account being set up in 1998. Ah yes, when life was simples. The year of my first ever mobile phone that was the size of a house brick and only made phone calls, as text messaging hadn’t yet been invented. Consequently, while O2’s IT Department was trying to sort out why their website refuses to recognise one of their oldest customers, I drove 30 miles to the nearest shop to collect my shiny new gold Samsung upgrade. The nice people at the mobile phone shop looked at the Bitch-of-a-Blackberry-Z10 and when they pressed the “on” button it had the cheek to flash a red light, as if it was trying its hardest to restart. After 40 minutes the nice people in the shop had managed to scrape 6 contacts from my knackered SIM; and guess what? They are all for people that I have either spoken to once or for people who I don’t like. The Bramble is now packaged up in its special envelope ready to go for recycling. And the very worst bit? I’ve just found the sodding new battery I bought for it back in June so I’ve shoved that into the recycling envelope as well.

That’ll teach it.