The Value of Friendship

A few weeks ago I attended a friend’s birthday party. I went, armed with a bottle of Champagne as a gift for Sporty Friend (and a bottle of Hooch to remind her of our student days), a bottle of Prosecco, a bottle of Gordons, a bottle of tonic and a lime. You can probably imagine by the description of my picnic hamper, what kind of party it was. It was a Ladies only affair and it took on the form of the last night at Pony Club Camp. I saw girls that I had not seen for the best part of 20 years. It was amazing because we picked up where we had left off. For a few hours we were no longer Mothers, Wives, or Divorcees; we were teenagers again. Laughing like we did back in the day, when Medical Friend was busy French plaiting my hair in our Religious Education class. Ignored by our class Teacher, it was going swimmingly until the Headmaster entered the classroom; and Medical Friend had to slide gracefully back into her seat beside me under his steely glare. I swear that some of the half finished conversations that began in 6^th Form were completed that sunny Saturday afternoon. It made me realise that the camaraderie we shared as teenagers had not died and never ever will. It has brought us together again as friends, leading to new conversations on Facetube and promises that we must not let it be so long before we meet again. Especially as we all live within an hour of each other. Have you noticed that we make more effort to keep in touch with people when they live far away? And we merrily neglect the friends who live 8 miles away as we are always so busy. At this point I will just confess that I still haven’t been for my 2014 Christmas drink with my brother, whose house is a mile from mine.

When I was 13 years old, a group of us at school were training for a 10 kilometre run.

The games Teacher who was coaching us, asked who had managed to get out for a run after school. When we all said that we had been too busy, he then replied “If I had offered to pay you £10 for each run, how many would you have managed to do?” We all agreed that we would have gone running every night, leaving Mr Games Teacher to inform us that weren’t too busy, just idle and money hungry.

How right he was. If money was on offer in exchange for friend visiting, how much more effort would we make?

I now value my friends and family far more than I did when I was younger. Perhaps it’s because I live in the Country, where people would actually die if they did not ask or indeed accept, the help and support from friends. Not just the friends that you meet for coffee or the Mummy-Friends who you chat to at the school gates. It’s also those friends who you don’t see all that often, but know that if you needed them, you would just have to pick up the phone and they would be screeching into your drive and sprinting towards your house half an hour later.

Around the same time as I attended this birthday-and-mother-of-all-catch-ups-party, I got a phone call from an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years. It was very early in the morning when Posh Friend called. So early in fact, that I only answered my phone as I thought someone needed help. I was out on my horse at the time and I had to keep asking Posh Friend to “hang on a minute” so that I could swop hands and shorten my reins.

“How the hell are you?” I asked.

 “I’ve had an absolutely shitty week” was the reply “and I’m handing in my notice this morning.”

I was shocked. Posh Friend had always been so methodical and organised that this seemed totally out of character. I also knew that Posh Friend lived in a house owned by their employer, so I asked if they were really sure that this was the right thing to do. Did they have a job to go to? Where would they live?

Posh Friend was hesitant and admitted that there was no job on standby and that they would have to immediately find somewhere else to live.

Would it not be better to stick it out, I asked, just until they had another job to go to?

Posh Friend admitted that it was huge worry that they had no job to walk in to, but the strain of the position was so great that they felt a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders simply by deciding it was time to leave.

Posh Friend then asked what I would do in the situation, what advice could I give them?

“Look Dave,” I said “Just be yourself. But don’t let Samantha wear that bloody dress with the triangles on it, because she looks like something out of a Littlewoods catalogue.”

It just goes to show that even old friends don’t always take your advice.

Who Killed Mrs White?

Mrs White is to be killed off from the game of Cluedo.

Her replacement is Dr Orchid, the adopted daughter of victim Dr Black. Dr Orchid is a biologist with a degree in plant toxicology and was privately educated in Switzerland until her expulsion after a near-fatal poisoning, involving daffodils. She was then home educated by none other than Mrs White, the Housekeeper of the Tudor Mansion. Are you still with me at this point?

I’m a bit sad about this as I believe that I would get on rather well with Mrs White. She seems the type to smoke cigars, roll-ups and a pipe all at the same time. I bet she also likes the occasional can of Mackeson Stout and sometimes sneaks a swig of cooking sherry from the bottle when she is alone in the kitchen. I can’t see me getting on with Dr Orchid at all. Firstly she makes me feel stupid because I don’t know anything about plants or toxicology and is clearly much more intelligent than me. Secondly she’s bound to be younger, slimmer, taller and prettier than me and she knows it. I bet she has a sports car, Jimmy Choo shoes and only shops at Harvey Nicks. No, I would much rather sit and chill (Swadge) with Mrs White, as after you’d finished your can of Mackeson she would serve up Cheddar cheese, pickled onions and pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks. If you were to ever drop in unannounced, she would immediately put the kettle on and produce an enormous teapot with a home knitted tea cosy. She would use cups and saucers on a Sunday afternoon and her salmon sandwiches would be cut into triangles and have the crusts cut off. She would use one of those lovely 3 tiered cake stands that was her Grandmother’s; and she would make more sandwiches when it became empty. She would make homemade wine from peapods and parsnip tops, jam from blackberries and chutney from green tomatoes. She would have porridge for breakfast every morning and fish for dinner every Friday. She would also remove newspapers from the bin so that she could do the crossword.

Her vacuum of choice would be a Kirby and she would iron all items of clothing including her bed socks, which were a gift from her employer. On her day off she would go to town on the bus and make sure no-one was watching as she ducked into the Bookies. She would be on first name terms with the cashier but would refuse to have an account.

She would wear tweed and those shoes that ladies only acquire through the reading of wills. Those shoes with the penny loafer effect at the toe and an inch and a half sturdy heel at the rear. She would wear thick scratchy woollen tights and never be seen in slacks. I thought at first she would also have a dog; and I couldn’t decide if she would have an overweight Labrador or an ancient terrier with glazed eyes that had its own chair in her parlour, but actually I think Mrs White wouldn’t have either. She wouldn’t like the hairs on her furniture, you see. Because Mrs White would be immaculate at all times, even after a can of Stout. She would be stern, with a sour look on her face that says “do not cross me” to mask the fact that she is a kind person who thrives on routine. She would run the Cluedo Mansion with the piece of lead piping and even though there are 324 possibilities, she knows damn fine who killed Dr Black in the Hall with the candlestick. But she says nothing, as it isn’t her place, you see.

Once you really got to know her, the teacups on a Sunday afternoon would be full of brandy and she would pass on her betting tips to you. Sometimes she might even give you a tenner to buy yourself something nice, as Saucy Lad had won the 3.20 at Kempton and she had backed him at 25 to 1.

But I’ve just realised two things. For a start I’ve just described my Granny; and also, that Cluedo is just a bloody game.

Orkney - Like a good Whisky

I was visiting Orkney with a reason; and I will blog about that another time, perhaps when the death threats have stopped and I feel that it is safe to re-open both my Facetube and Instaphoto accounts. In the meantime it’s safe to say that I went to Orkney to look at horses and that sight-seeing was not top of the agenda. As luck would have it, the Foreign Secretary with whom I stayed for the weekend, had to transverse part of the Mainland to check her horses and therefore I was treated to twice daily tours of Orkney’s largest island.

Before my visit, I thought Orkney was an island or two, hundreds of miles off the coast of Scotland. So, for those of you whose geography is as shit as mine, I’ll tell you that the 67 islands that make up Orkney begin about 6 miles north of Caithness on the Scottish Mainland.

My host had advised me to bring plenty of layers as the weather forecast was for cloud and a brisk wind. If you are ever fortunate enough to visit Orkney, please remember that when an Orcadian says “bring plenty of layers” what they actually mean is “bring clothes that you would wear if you were visiting North Northumberland in January while they are having a bit of a cold snap and you are planning on standing on the beach for several hours and pop another couple of jumpers in, just in case”. The wind is absolutely bloody freezing when it’s coming from the North and apparently the wind had been coming from the North for 10 days. (The inhabitants of Orkney refer to the weather forecast in the same way that we would check our watch whilst waiting for a delayed train.) I had asked my host if her home had electricity as I would pack my GHD’s, she told me not to bother as it is usually so windy you have to wear a hat. And I thought she was JOKING.

The Foreign Secretary had to work on the Friday that I arrived. Apparently there was an approaching referendum of some sort and being Foreign Secretary meant she had a lot to do.

So I wandered through the shops on the main street and saw there was an M & Co but no other chain stores. There were some lovely shops selling knitwear and jewellery produced on the island and the true tribulations of living on an island struck me when I went into a charity shop. Every sodding item was from M & Co.

Being a proper tourist for a day was actually a huge benefit to me as I did something I would never normally do – I went to a museum. The Orkney Museum is opposite St Magnus Cathedral and it’s free to visit. The museum is housed in Tankerness House which dates back to 1574 and began its life as the home of the Archdeacon of St Magnus Cathedral. It’s like a rabbit warren with many different rooms that take you through the history of Orkney; and they have history by the bucket load.

The first human settlers were present on Orkney circa 8000BC and the famous Ring of Brodgar which is Orkney’s largest stone circle, was built around 3000BC. Brodgar is impressive, stretching 104 metres in diameter with 27 of the original 60 stones remaining. It’s an incredible feat of engineering, when you think that building began on the Egyptian pyramids around 300 years later.

Quite literally, just down the road from the Ring of Brodgar are the 6 metre high Stones of Stenness which date to about 3100BC. And not much further down the road there’s Maeshowe’s Mount which is a chambered tomb that was constructed 5,000 years ago.

You don’t have to drive very far to sight-see in Orkney; it’s a bit like Wuhu Island on Wii Sports Resort.

Skara Brae is Northern Europe’s best preserved Neolithic village and it was revealed by a storm in 1850. And in 2003 the Ness of Brodgar was discovered. This is a vast 6 acre site which is thought to have been a place of worship, pilgrimage and trade. It also contains what the experts believe to be a Neolithic temple – one of the largest ancient structures built in Northern Europe.

Orkney was also home to the British Home Fleet in both World Wars; as Scapa Flow is one of the greatest natural harbours in the world. It has been calculated that the body of water that is Scapa Flow is 125.3 square miles and contains just less than 1 billion cubic metres of water.

On 13^th October 1939 a German submarine skirted through the sunken block ships and nets and fired 3 torpedoes at HMS Royal Oak. She sank in 15 minutes and although 386 sailors were saved, 833 lives were lost. As a direct result of this, Winston Churchill ordered barriers to be built cutting off access to Scapa Flow from the East and 1,000 Italian Prisoners of War were shipped from North Africa to carry out the work. The resulting barriers connect the islands of Burray and South Ronaldsay to the Mainland and are used as connecting roads to this day.

The Italian Prisoners took what left over concrete they could and built the famous Italian Chapel from 2 Nissen Huts. The demolition team sent to tear down the camp after the war ended, thankfully refused to touch it and The Chapel still stands in ornate beauty on the tiny island of Lamb’s Holm just off the Mainland.

One thing I did know about Orkney before my visit is that there are no trees. So it was strange that I took a phone call from a friend on my day-of-being-a-tourist. “Can you see any trees?” she asked. I replied that I could see loads of trees; but then admitted that I was standing outside a garden centre. The Foreign Secretary proudly pointed out “The Wood” on one of our island tours. And right enough, there is one dense, green leafy wood tucked into a fold of the land, sheltered from the salty wind. There are trees in gardens but they don’t grow more than about 10 feet tall due to the wind, so everyone has to buy these strange looking cobble type things to burn on their wood burners. The views are absolutely breathtaking, you only have to turn a corner and there’s another incredible bit of scenery. The landscape is massively varied, there are quantities of it that resemble mountains, there are boggy areas growing reeds and there are fields and fields of Buttercups. Apparently the land is very fertile so I can’t understand why there are so many Dockens everywhere; although I suppose this is useful if you get stung by a nettle, but I didn’t see many of those. Orkney only grows what they need to support their livestock and there are plenty of cattle and plenty of sheep. Some of the teeny tiny islands that you can only just reach when it’s low tide are the home to some sheep that never leave. The Farmer goes over and collects that lambs that are ready to be sold and leaves the ewes there until it is time to take the ram over. Talk about the Mountain going to Mohammed. The wildlife is amazing – I have never seen so many Oyster Catchers, possibly because they have no Foxes on Orkney and no Badgers either. Typically the day after I left I saw that there had been several sighting of a pod of Orcas. Well that’s just another sign that I’ll have to go back. In fact, I would go back just for a serving of the local Scallops and if you like seafood I would urge you to book your flight right now. Where I live if you order Scallops in a restaurant you will be expected to pay £7,500 per Scallop and receive a maximum of 4 on your plate. Not on Orkney. They practically heap them on to your plate bragging “These are the best Scallops in the world! Do not insult me by being unable to finish them! Or I will spit on you!” I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

I leant a new word too; “Swadge”. It’s a brilliant word that we have no equivalent of. Swadge is what you do when you have had a huge meal and are feeling sleepy and content. The lady who taught me this word confided that when you Swadge you often have to undo the top button of your “breeks” as they are invariably too tight and you lie on the sofa. Like you’ve had too much of a good thing and you need to reflect and enjoy what has just happened.

And that’s how I feel about Orkney. It’s like Whisky and Campbell’s Condensed Soup, you could water it down and it would still be magnificent.

Flying to Orkney

Last weekend, I went to Orkney. No, honestly I did. She, who claims to never leave home, has not only had a night in the Scottish Borders sleeping under canvas, but also 3 days in the land of Ork. I flew from Edinburgh on Friday morning and 1 hour and 15 minutes later I landed at Kirkwall. I’m not saying that the aircraft was small, but whenever I turned the page of my Horse & Hound magazine I inadvertently bumped the Pilot’s elbow. The Cabin Crew was one lady who served a complimentary cup of Tea or Coffee with a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer; whilst the aircraft was still climbing. And I mean, really climbing. Had Margaret forgotten to put the brakes on, her trolley would have slid all the way to the tail in a nano-second. 

I have felt more safe in my life, than when we approached Kirkwall. It was windy. Not madly windy, but enough to be moving the plane in all directions as we saw the runway underneath us. And when you do touch down at Kirkwall, make sure you have a tight grip on your rosary beads as they apply the brakes with all of their might. Apparently it’s a short runway and I wish that my host for the weekend had informed me of this once I was safely back in Edinburgh. My host (The Foreign Secretary) also laughed when I regaled her with details of the scary approach to landing. She cheerfully reported that it was only scary landing at Kirkwall when you look out of the aircraft window and are looking straight down the runway. I.e. the wind is so strong that they have to bring the plane down to land on a 45 degree angle; otherwise the wind would blow the aircraft over when it touched down. Again, hearing this when I was safely back in Edinburgh would have been more helpful.

The “Terminal” Building was something of a shock too, although I should have been more prepared considering that Air Traffic Control was a man with a Megaphone shouting “Get out of the bloody Way”. You walk in a door and there you are. You’ve arrived. No hunting for the baggage carousel because it’s right there on your left and your welcoming committee is standing in front of you. And it’s lovely. How wonderful to be able to walk from the plane, grab your bag and go. Brilliant. And the check in process (Aside from the bloody Jobsworth who scanned my handbag and decided that it still needed to be searched, although to be fair, he was only 12.) is a breeze. Your flight is called, you walk through a door, through security, which apart from the Jobsworth was a pleasant experience, then you enter another airy room where you can stand and watch the men refuelling your plane that is the size of a shoebox. And when the lady who is Cabin Crew pulls up the steps she calls to the gentleman who has loaded the hold, “Thanks Tom, see you later” and slams the door shut. It’s like getting the bus. It really is like getting the bus and I suppose to the Orcadians who use it all the time, it is just as simple as a bus to them.

I was going to carry on this post and tell you about my sight seeing but I’ve changed my mind and will do that in another post, because frankly, Orkney warrants it. I left Kirkwall at 4.10 on Sunday afternoon and was home by 7.45pm.

By Monday evening I was ready to go back.

One thing I will tell you is that I didn’t get to see the Italian Chapel that was built by Italian prisoners of war. Apparently the Chapel is one of the most visited attractions on Orkney. So there’s only one thing for it, I’ll have to go back. Damn it.

Flybe, operated by the Scottish company Logan Air, fly 2 to 3 times a day to Orkney from Edinburgh, they also have flights from Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen.

Referendum Day - Just a brief thought

I read this morning that Katie Price has never voted before; despite the fact that she stood for a seat in Greater Manchester in 2001. Clearly not one of her people told her that she was allowed to vote for herself and perhaps with a campaign backed by the Daily Star with the slogan “Vote Jordan for a bigger and betta future”, this was for the best.

I have nothing personal against The Pricey, I think she has made a huge success of her life with some plastic assets and a lorry load of brawn. I don’t know anyone who has willingly bought anything from her equestrian range but it does show the diversity of her business.

But as a candidate for Parliament, I mean, what the? You’d be better off voting for Edina Monsoon as at least she would (in her own words) just Tax the stupid people.

I hope everyone uses their vote today. Whichever way they decide to vote, women did in fact die to allow us ladies to put our cross in the box.

The Proud Owner of a Rubbish Cat

My cat; is a shit cat. He’s rubbish and refuses to sit on my knee. Occasionally if my other half picks up the black and white fur-ball, he will sit on his knee for approximately 15 seconds. Then he clearly realises that he is sitting on a human knee and makes a bid for freedom. This behaviour confuses me greatly; Father Christmas delivered this crap excuse for a cat on Christmas day 2 years ago. The kitten was so tiny his eyes hadn’t quite turned from kitteny-blue, to green. When he was a minuscule thing that fell asleep sitting upright, he would sit on my knee happily. He even used to sit on my knee when I was at my desk, replacing my usual wheatybag. These days the nearest I can get to cuddling this anti-social creature is picking him up and draping him over my shoulder like some hairy, living, accessory. And that only works while I am walking around or standing up. If I sit down with my hairy, living, accessory, he’s off. He’s quite a big cat and I had no idea how much a cat can eat and not get fat. Perhaps Slimming World should be marketing cat food as it certainly doesn’t put weight on the fur-ball and he eats 4 pouches a day. He is always hungry but will only eat from a pristine dish and as my other half has taken to using my bloody Burleigh pasta dishes whenever the cat’s dish is dirty, I have considered just feeding him on the floor and mopping up afterwards. This cat takes a mouthful of food and then places it on the floor to chew it. And he’s certainly Spatially Aware as he always makes sure he drops his food on the floor and not on the mat underneath his dish that would be easily washed. He is also a bit strange as he doesn’t remotely mind getting wet.

He returns from his travels with his tail shaped like a question mark and his coat wetter than an otter’s pocket. So why do we bother keeping this poor excuse for a cat? Well, grim though it is, we don’t appear to have a mouse problem anymore. In fact, if Dr Crippen had made a cat, this would be him in the flesh. He kills anything. Mice, rats, moles, rabbits, birds, nothing that is small and moving is safe from this cat.

In fact even things that are big and moving aren’t safe as I saw him wrestling with a Pheasant the other morning. We returned from the afternoon school run the other week to find that he had devoured half a rabbit in the bloody conservatory. Hats off to my 7 year old daughter who, upon hearing that her Mother is more squeamish than a celebrity faced with a Bushtucker Trial, promptly collected the dustpan and brush and proceeded to sweep up the remains. All I had to do was call out “Make sure you pick up both the rabbit’s ears, darling” in my very best Mary Poppins voice. She’s also a bit of a dab hand at rescuing live rabbits from underneath the planters on the patio. Her tools of choice are a shoe box and my 3 foot long dressage whip. Poor bunnies. My other half has now made a mesh barrier to go across the conservatory doorway. It’s brilliant, it means the plants don’t get cooked and the cat can jump it easily but not while he is carrying a rabbit. We haven’t had another bunnygate incident since it was installed.

We had to lock the cat flap some months ago; so that the cat can go out but cannot bring the vermin that he has caught, back into the house.

One day we moved the sofa in the kitchen and found a dead shrew under it. And another shrew squashed under the rug at the sink.

He’s an awesome hunter and I’m not sure what I want more, a cat that purrs himself to sleep on my knee or a 5 star vermin controller. Obviously as Father Christmas brings all the presents on his sleigh direct from Lapland, that’s where the black and white fur-ball came from. But if Santa was the kind of man to use a cat charity so that he could re-home their cats and kittens, I’m fairly certain it would be this one. ;)

www.westgateark.org.uk

The Grim Reaper

Three years ago today, my beloved little Arab horse chose to gallop off with a buck and a kick into the next world. He was getting old and despite being spritely and fit I was all too aware that his time was coming. Not through anything that had happened to him, just because nothing and no-one lasts forever.

Little Arab lay down and made it clear that he was in immense pain and could I call the Vet as soon as bloody possible. And despite the best equine Vet in the country working her hardest, it was obvious that he was not going to get better and I made the decision that we should put him to sleep. It wouldn’t have been fair to have put him through an operation and I certainly didn’t have the funds to do it. So instead we took him quietly up to his field and I fed him carrots and pieces of Mars Bar as the lethal liquid was injected. In seconds, my glossy bay Arab created by Allah, horse of fire, was still and silent on the grass, out of pain and in the next life, pieces of chocolate still in his mouth.

Now this horse had not lived his life aiming to please those who are faint of heart. He was what you would call a 1000% horse as he was either running with his engine on maximum revs or he was asleep. He was very kind to my daughter but only after I’d reprimanded him for snapping at her ponytail with his huge teeth as she cycled her plastic tricycle past his stable door. In one of the last dressage competitions I took him to the judge wrote on my score sheet that he was “a very nice little horse, could do a very good test if you can get him to settle more to the job”. I felt like writing back to her, telling her that I’d been trying for over twelve years to get him to settle more to the bloody job. But that was him in a nutshell. If he found something a bit dull he would provide his own entertainment to liven things up. He was terrified of anything on the public highway that weighed more than 3 tonnes. This was a bit of an issue during the harvest when every damn thing on the road is a tractor. (I won’t even mention the day when we met the combine harvester – I had to lie in a darkened room for four hours after that one.) So in the way the horse lived, it was fitting that he chose to fatally colic on a Bank holiday weekend meaning that I had to pay the Vet and Out of Hours call out fee. The Arab would have loved that.

I chose to have his life ended by an injection instead of a gun for my sake and this meant than when my four year old daughter asked to see him, I didn’t hesitate and took her by the hand up to the field. Each to their own and some people will think this is wrong, but I wanted her to understand that sometimes it is kinder to stop an animal suffering with death rather than prolong the agony and that death is not always a horrible thing. She helped to cover the body with a tarpaulin and gave him a pat, a stroke and tried to close his eyes. The next day she saw the carcass being removed by a JCB and delivered into a hole in the ground and she came with me to scatter grass seed on the bald earth a few days later. He was a very special little horse and if educating a child about death was in main purpose in life then I’m delighted to have known him. The rosettes were obviously just a bonus.

Misery Under Canvas

I’ve been on holiday. No really, I have. I left home at 4.30pm on Saturday drove to the Scottish Borders, slept in a tent and was home again by 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon. This is how people in the countryside go on holiday using the “Cram-in-as-much-as-you-can-in-one-night-and-rush-home-again” technique. It saves on pet sitters and it doesn’t leave enough time for the Other Half to become suicidal because the daughter is feeding tadpoles to the cat.

The reason that I went to the Scottish Borders and slept in a tent is because it has become a sort of tradition. It’s also the only chance I have to meet up with some Scottish friends of mine. I use the term “friends” only in case they actually end up reading this because I don’t really like them very much. When I arrived at the tent, I mentioned that I had thought of bringing a bottle of Prosecco as a gift but I was worried as to how it would behave after an hour long car journey. My tall friend then produced a bottle of Prosecco that was so large it took two of us and a sack barrow to transport it outside into the sun. People even stopped by to admire the enormous bottle with its glittery hologram of a label, assuming that it was some kind of monument or visitor attraction. Supper is always a miserable affair as The Tall One assumes that everyone has been working down the Coalmine all day. When she serves my supper I am often forced to enquire if the portion is meant to feed all the inhabitants of the local town as well. No, it isn’t. And often there is pudding served in one gigantic bowl with 4 spoons, hotly pursued by cheese and crackers. I swear that The Tall One just throws food at me all evening. Another thing which I bloody hate about these “friends” is that they can actually eat everything that The Tall One serves up. Even The Feisty One, who is about the same size as me can pack it away as though she hasn’t seen food for weeks. As if this experience isn’t bad enough, once you have consumed as much as The Tall One deems fit, you become terrified to leave your seat at the table. This is because upon your return you will find that the empty glass that you left at your place setting has been refilled. The Tall One doesn’t know what it is to fall out with the top of the glass and often you will be forced to lower your mouth to your drink; because any attempt to lift it will result in huge gin and tonic trauma all over your hoodie. The sleeping arrangements are also somewhat suspect. Me and The Sensible One sleep in a tent whereas The Tall One and The Feisty One sleep in a shed on wheels. I’m not all that certain that this is reasonable but to be fair, for some reason I usually end up removing my contact lenses and no items of clothing before zipping myself into my sleeping bag. Something else I can’t fathom is that I always wake up drowsy and have a bit of a headache. I have checked the tent from top to bottom and can find no faulty gas fire. Therefore I can only assume that The Feisty One is slipping something into my drink(s). Perhaps it was lucky for all of concerned that my phone went flat so I couldn’t take any photographs. They would have been just too boring.

Bring Back The Woolly Mammoth

A few year ago, Scientists analysing the fossils of the Woolly Mammoth, came to the conclusion that the rising temperatures at the end of the ice age may have been the reason that the animal became extinct and not (as previously thought) due to human intervention. Now, there has been talk of “de-extinction” for some time now. The process of certain creatures that are no longer with us being brought back to life. Now, I can kind of see the point in bringing back the poor old Dodo as we, the human killed it off, but the Woolly Mammoth?? The Plains of North America now have roads, crops and people on them, so what would he eat? And it’s not just as though you can ask him to live just anywhere, he’d be sweating like a fat lass in a disco if you made him live in Spain. Crikey, even I can think of better things to bring back from the dead than that. I mean Freddie Mercury for one, or even my Granny and that’s without touching on the list of famous and influential people who have passed away in the last six months. In life there are things that simply run their course and is this a good enough reason to re-create them? All this got me thinking and as horses are usually at the forefront of my mind, I started thinking about all our native horse breeds.

The Rare Breed Survival Trust states that a breed is “Critical” when there are less than 300 breeding mares; “Endangered” is less than 500, “Vulnerable”; less than 900 and “At Risk” is less than 1500. And even though these all important mares are registered, they may not be used for breeding purposes and even if they are, they may not produce a live foal. This makes some of our native breeds rarer than wild pandas. One of my favourite breeds The Hackney is on the Critical list. The Hackney was used as a carriage horse and the clue to his survival is in his name. The only Hackney Carriages we have now have an engine and are driven by someone who has knowledge of London that would rival that enormous man on The Chase. The Hackney is a beautiful creature, sleek, elegant and with an extravagant high knee action. He is eye catching to say the very least and he had brought his good blood to many other breeds of horse. Would I have one? Oh lordy, yes I would love one, but I would have to travel a long way down South to take him to a Show, as up here in the North, Hackney Ponies are more scarce than buses.

The great Clydesdale horse is on the At Risk list. This heavy horse was used to plough our fields and sow our crops until the rise of the tractor. He has also brought his bloodlines into many riding horses and over the years I have known a few horses that have been the offspring of a Clydesdale mare sent to a Thoroughbred stallion. The common sense and kindness of the heavy horse crossed with the quick thinking and energetic racehorse makes an active and generous horse to ride and deal with. Pure-bred Clydesdales with a saddle on have become very popular in recent years. I have a friend who shows her majestic elephant of a horse in ridden classes and I have to admit the first time I rode him I caught flies in my mouth. I expected this colossal beast to be a bit like a cross between a Neanderthal and an Army Tank, with the finesse of Play Doh. To my amazement he was neither. His mouth was soft on the bit and it was like sitting on an air suspension. At the slightest touch of my legs he moved forward with a lovely enthusiastic manner; he clearly loved his job and was both eager and happy to please his rider. I am 5’2” and about 9 and a half stone so he would find me something of a feather weight, but just because this horse is the size of a bungalow, should we really be asking him to carry big weights? If you look at the Clydesdale’s hind legs you will find that you would struggle to get a fag paper between his hocks, unlike our riding horses where this would be a conformation fault. This gives the heavy horse the power to drive those all important back legs into the ground and pull a huge amount of weight behind him, he is not built to carry weight on his back. And there you have it, the reason that the lovely gentle Clydesdale is at risk is because we no longer need him to be the Farmers’ Servant. How sad.

The Perils of Self Employment

I should be working. I really should be working but instead I’m writing this.

I’m self-employed and throughout the ten years of being an employee, this was my dream. The thought of being able to take a day off whenever I liked was incredibly appealing, especially when I was sitting at my desk from 9am until 5.30pm every day. Back in those days the highlight of my working week was leaving the office and finding that the Seagulls had shat all over my car. Just to liven things up, everyone in the department where I worked, used to illegally park their cars right at the front of the building. If you ever want to see a group of individuals move exceedingly quickly, get everyone’s attention, silently count to ten really slowly then announce that you’ve just seen the traffic warden. This job was bad for my health because I was also fat while I was there. Scotch pie with coffee at 10am, followed by half a pack of indigestion tablets, eat the lunch that you made at home and order pizza at 3pm because you were still starving. We should have been sponsored by Rennies.

So, no more do I have to think of an excuse to go home early, I can choose to finish work whenever I like. Actually, that’s not quite true. You see, no one told me that when you become self-employed you develop a phobia regarding having no work. Consequently, you will find yourself with the presence of mind where it is impossible to turn work away. In the days when I was an employee, I thought with glee that if I worked for myself I could take the whole of Cheltenham week off, so I could sit every afternoon and watch the racing. I hate to admit this but every Cheltenham Festival of Racing since I became self employed, I have managed to watch one afternoon of racing, ducking between my desk and the television.

I don’t mind telling you that the cost of stationery was a bit of a shocker as well. Envelopes are in fact very expensive, costing more than gold, and you have to buy your own cellotape. No more printing the addresses on your Christmas card envelopes and quietly shuffling them into the mail heap. Pens cost money too. This was a surprise as I thought that they just appeared on your desk. Printer ink isn’t cheap and therefore I don’t print half as many photographs, calendars, party invites, leaflets, labels, random pictures from the internet, fake parking tickets, newsletters or posters since I became self-employed. You have to empty your own bin. This is perhaps why my bin is so full that I’ve just had to press my foot into it to try and make some space for the bloody empty ink cartridge that my printer has just depleted. Lunch can also be problematic. I can assure you that knowing exactly what is in the fridge takes all the fun out of lunchtime. Usually, I open the fridge door stare aimlessly at the contents for half a minute before closing the door and having a Cup a Soup and a packet of crisps.

There is a comfort in going to the same office every day, knowing what time you need to get up and what time you need to leave the house. There’s the magic that happens when you stay at your desk after the Office has closed. Suddenly your hourly rate shoots up and you are earning time and a half. And then half way through the month someone deposits your salary into your bank account, without the need for you to sit down and physically prepare an invoice. Have you ever seen a Mechanic’s car? It’s usually held together with gaffer tape and you have to lie underneath it to poke something into the engine to get it to start. Well that’s a bit like an Administrator’s invoicing system. Ask me to file your invoices and I will check that you want them in alpha numerical fashion and crack on, but my own administration? Well, maybe best not to go there. I have also found that I have become a jack of all trades and master of absolutely none. When people ask me what I do for a living, I have to think for a minute and then list off some of the jobs I do in the fashion of a six year old telling you about a day trip to Lego Land.

One of the downsides to working for yourself is that if you don’t go to work, you don’t get paid. None of this holiday pay malarkey for us who strive out on our own. And that’s an arse. There is no office banter for those who choose to work alone with only the company of the radio but at least we have opportunity to churn out three loads of washing and are available to sign for that parcel that’s being delivered on Tuesday, sometime between 8am and 6pm. I wouldn’t swop my working conditions for anything and if you are considering becoming your own boss; do your research and go for it. You won’t regret it.

The Breakfast Club

Last Saturday at 8.45am I heard the Postman drive up to my house to deliver my usual collection of begging letters and demands for payment. And I was embarrassed. Why was I embarrassed? Because I was warm and toasty, gloriously snuggled beneath my duvet. I was revelling in the Saturday morning lie in as I did not have to do the school run or go to work. But I couldn’t help thinking “What does he think when he finds the house in silence with its eyes tight shut?” Of course what the employee of the Royal Mail was actually thinking was “How quickly can I ram this heap of junk mail into this fecking letterbox and get finished?”

There is a complicated kind of shame associated with a lie in when you are a country dweller. I know someone who rises every day before the first Sparrow has broken wind and sits on their patio with a warm coffee and an even warmer coat, to watch the sun cheekily peep over the horizon. It’s a lovely idea, but to do this every day you have to go to bed before Emmerdale has finished.

Aside from the idleness of the weekend, I do adore an early rise. Nothing sets you up for the day in a better fashion than a cheeky excursion around the neighbourhood on horseback when the shadows are long and the dewdrops are still garnishing the grass. You might not see a soul, or you might see the world before its wife has got to it. A year ago when out on a pre-7am ride, I almost scared to death a lovely lady who was staying in a holiday cottage nearby. She was brandishing her camera and said she had been told that there were many hares in the area and she was trying to photograph them. I told her that at that time of year I saw hares most mornings along the piece of road leading to her cottage. As I rode away from her a hare ran over the road in front of me, as I turned to see if she had seen it, I saw she was facing the opposite way. When I was returning home, two more lolloped across my path as she meandered on ahead; with her back to them. For those of us who remember the Kit Kat advert with the Pandas, it was a moment like that.

There is tranquil softness in the air before 8am and I like it.

It’s like being a Member of the Secret Club that resides behind an unmarked door in Mayfair, although there are no champagne cocktails offered on a silver platter at 6.20am. More’s the pity.

The Noble Lord

I was in my teens when I first began to take an interest in horse racing. Watching it on television was something of a law at the stables where I worked as a Saturday Girl. Once the jobs were done there was a sprint to the television to catch as many races as we could before settling the horses in for the night. Back then, there was no catch up TV, and no Channel 4 +1 so if the boss had gone Hunting, I had the task of pressing the “record” button on the VHS to ensure the races could be viewed that evening.  At that time on Channel 4 Racing, one of the presenters was this lovely trilby-wearing old bloke who the infamous “Big Mac” (John McCririck) used to call My Noble Lord. One Saturday afternoon I watched The Noble Lord stand on top of a crane, remove his glasses and perform a bungee jump to raise money for The Injured Jockey’s Fund. It turns out that this old bloke was a gentleman called John Oaksey, or to give him his full title, John Geoffrey Tristram Lawrence, 4th Baron Trevethin and 2nd Baron Oaksey OBE.

And to put it mildly; he was quite something.

Born on 21^st March 1929 he was the son of Geoffrey Lawrence, 1^st Baron Oaksey and his wife Marjorie. John attended Eton College, did his National Service at Catterick, went to Oxford and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and then went to Yale to study Law.

Having ridden since he was a child he had his first ride in a Point to Point aged 24 and enjoyed his first winner a year later. He went on be to British Champion Amateur Jump Jockey twice in 1957-58 and again in 1970-71. He rode in the Grand National 11 times, completed the course on 4 occasions and was close to winning in 1963 on Carrickbeg, having led over the last fence only to be beaten by ¾ of a length. In 1958 riding Taxidermist, he won the Whitbread Gold Cup and the Hennessy Gold Cup and when he finally hung up his breeches after being injured in a fall at Folkestone in 1975, he had ridden 200 winners in total.

Riding as an amateur jockey the rules state that you must have another occupation; and Lord Oaksey was a journalist, writing as a racing correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and also as a columnist for Horse & Hound. Once after being knocked out in a fall in the Grand National he insisted on filing his copy for the Sunday Telegraph before being carried off on a stretcher.

Enough, do you think? If you had achieved the catalogue of achievements listed above, would you be happy? I certainly would.

Lord Oaksey did something else too; he founded the Injured Jockeys Fund.

The Charity began as the Farrell-Brookshaw Fund in 1964 after John Oaksey’s fellow jockeys Tim Brookshaw and Paddy Farrell suffered falls on the racetrack which resulted in paralysis. It later became the Injured National Hunt Jockey’s Fund before finally becoming the Injured Jockeys Fund (IJF) and thus embracing all areas of the sport. Lord Oaksey was the President and Figurehead of the Charity and there is a statue of him outside the Lambourn rehabilitation centre which is called Oaksey House. The IJF has helped over 1000 jockeys and their families since it began and it celebrated the opening of Jack Berry House (another rehabilitation centre) in Malton on 20^th April this year.

Although Lord Oaksey was a charming and charismatic television presenter he was no tipster and he once received a letter from a disgruntled punter which read “Dear Bastard, I am writing to tell you that you could not tip more rubbish if Channel 4 bought you a forklift truck.” I am sure he would have laughed long and hard at that.

Up until a few years before he died he was often on the racecourse, wrapped up against the chill of the English Winter, selling Christmas cards and calendars in aid of the Injured Jockeys Fund. His health was not good in later years and when he penned his autobiography in 2003 he was already suffering from the early signs of Alzheimer’s. By 2011 John was very ill and in an emotional win, his horse Carruthers who he had bred and partially owned, won the Hennessy, 53 years after John had piloted Taxidermist to victory in the same race.

Lord Oaksey died on 5^th September 2012, he was 83.

So why am I telling you all this? Because I watched some lovely old bloke do a bungee jump, it took about 30 seconds and it was on television 20 something years ago. And I remember it most vividly, to this day. Perhaps even as an ignorant teenager, I had an inkling that he was a very special man.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus

The man who converted our house installed a log burner in the lounge. And the lounge is upstairs. People love our house and I personally think that there is a lovely feeling of security when the main hub of the home is on the first floor. However, the gentleman who decided to put a fire source upstairs clearly hadn’t considered the logistics of a log burner. For one, they need logs. And the size of the burner that sits in our lounge belching out dust onto my carpets and furniture is the size of a student flat. One of the mammoth sized logs that it takes would keep a small Scottish village in firewood for a year. Consequently I have muscles in my arms that would rival those of a German Shot Putter due to carrying the fuel for the sodding log burner up the original, steep and downright dangerous stairs. I challenge myself everyday that I can carry more logs than I did the day before. I even bought a proper log bag from one of those catalogues that come free with the Sunday papers. I used to scoff at items such as this. “Bah” I would think, “why not use a Sainsbury’s bag for life instead and you could save fourteen quid?” But the purpose made log bag can carry so many more logs than the Sainsbury’s bag for life. So much so in fact that when it is full my knees are shaking by the time I have staggered to the top of the stairs and I am cannoning off the door frame as I enter the lounge.

Thankfully my Chimney Sweep is always so busy that I have time to organise the loan of a defibrillator before he arrives to undertake the job for which I pay him. When he does arrive (early) with his brushes and home made vacuum created from an oil drum, he always pauses at the bottom of the original, steep and downright dangerous stairs, raises his eyes to the heavens before looking at me with a sigh and a shake of his head. And when it comes to the moment that he needs to check that his brush has popped out the top of the chimney, he asks me to go and have a look from outside as it would take another three hours for him to get down the stairs and back up again. He earns his money does Mr Swimney Cheep, just by carrying all his gear upstairs. I mean, how in the name of all that is holy did the bloke who built the house expect a log burner upstairs to be practical?

I was thinking about all this the other day when I was waiting at the level crossing. I had waited a year and a half for the barriers to lift (Steve Wright had played two songs) and I rang to see why the barriers were still down. It turned out that there had been a power cut and that was the reason that all the barriers in the local vicinity had failed in their down positions. As I found an alternative route around a field and under a bridge, I suddenly realised that a man must have devised the level crossing. Why? Because a woman would never have thought to make the barriers come down and stay down should the power fail. I suppose that's what you would call teamwork.