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Diary
August Weeks 1 & 2
 | We headed off for Gatcombe early on the Sunday morning as Michael was helping Flora Harris warm up for the showjumping phase and she was in the main arena at 9.30. Somehow Gatcombe felt a bit empty without all the big names and with only 30 in the British Open it was over all too quickly. It was great to catch up with various people though and very sociable. I didn't realise quite how much the anaethestic from my hand operation had knocked me out and I was competely worn out for a couple of days after that. We did scoot over to Smiths Lawn to have a look at some novice horses competing which was handy as it's just 10 minutes down the road from us but made a quick exit before the heavens opened.
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| Michael has quickly jumped into my boots riding Maddox - he's been brilliant and Maddox is going great guns. I was off games and haven't been allowed to ride for a couple of weeks until my hand is back together so Michael took him for a school at Vicarage Farm where he was a little rusty having not left the floor for about 6 weeks. We also made the brave move of entering a dressage competition at Oldencraig although I was hoping to compete on the grass the test I wanted to ride at was in the indoor school. The facilities are great and the entries secretary Jayne is sooooo helpful and accommodating unlike some I have come across in my time especially as I only rang on the Monday to see if we could get in. Despite the shock of being in a scary indoor school Maddox was brilliant he did Prelim 17 which he won on 68% and then did Novice 22 which he amazingly also won with 66% especially as this was his first time at this level. I have to credit my other half as I only rode him for 20 mins two days before and then at the competition as I still had my stitches in. |  |
The next day we headed to Smiths Lawn again this time to Showjump and Michael in the plate - Mad jumped a super round and was 6th in the Discovery - Michael really wanted to jump him in a bigger class but unbelievably the ground was on the hard side so we quit while we were ahead and took our £12 winnings home!
Michael also volunteered us to judge the dressage at the local Pony Club Bisley Hunt - of which I was a member many moons ago. It was hilarious as neither of us have judged before - Michael judged and I was his writer - there is an art to it I'm sure and by the end of it I felt like we were judging a 4 star test not the Pony Club Eventing test. It really made me think where I've come from to where I am now - a bloody long way!
The Olympics were fantastic, Michael and I got our body clocks in sync with HK time and my place on the sofa was where I was glued for 4 days (sorry nights) solid. I was on the text to Sue Davis, Brian Hislop & Janette Chinn the whole night - the ups and downs and thrills, expectation and disappointment. They brought home a bronze medal which was fantastic. That was just a warm up for london where we are going to win a gold.
![muffin_[320x200].jpg](images/muffin_[320x200].jpg "muffin_[320x200].jpg") |
We've also been on Muffin watch, the last of our puppies who is waiting to go to her new home has come to stay while mum & dad have gone to Martinvast to watch the event - I have to say I'm not bothered if they don't come and pick her up she's a love!! |
Until next time..........
July Weeks 3 & 4
 | Martha's been busy now her puppies are on the move, they are soooo cute and now ready to leave their mum. Ella, Muffin (my fave) Penny and Daisy all have homes now and Mum had no reason to worry about finding homes for the last 2 puppies as we ended up with a queue for them. Michael & I have been on "puppy watch" duty several times and they are complete time wasters!
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| As Maddox is still off games - he's working but not competing yet I decided that I needed to do some fitness work on myself. Michael offered to come running with me - he who has not an inch of fat on his body - so we headed off for a run around Virginia Water lake by the entrance to Smiths Lawn Horse Trials. I forgot to mention it was 4 and a half miles round the lake and we ran it in good time - he's not offered to come again surprise surprise! |  |
In addition to running I upped my fitness by offering to do a week working for Flora Harris (Young Rider) who needed cover while her groom Mark was helping out at the Fredericks. Mark & Elodie Frost were looking after Alex Hua Tian's 3 Olympic horses in Quarantine there so we heard all the gossip from there which was interesting. I can't remember the last time I mucked out 6 horses a day - I decided it was character building!! It was great fun and Flora has a lovely bunch of horses to work with - she's one to watch out for.
 | I broke my hand 3 years ago and had a plate & 6 screws inserted. It has just been aching a little so after a trip to the specialist he booked me into have it all removed several days later which didn't really give me much time to think about it which was good. You forget how much you need to use your hands so I've had Nurse Michael helping me out and he's pretty good I must say and Millie has been my constant companion. |
Dad was helping at Aston Le Walls in the showjumping control box for 3 days - do say hello to him if you're passing next time, and Michael & I drove up to watch the advanced horses which was interesting as many off them were doing their first advanced. We also scooted down to Wilton to watch the Intermediate in the scorching sun and fried watching the showjumping. We've also been busy running around the countryside with clients showing horses and have found some really good horses for people.
Off to Gatcombe next & I've booked my sofa space for the Olympics.
Until next time.......
June Weeks 3 & 4 - July Weeks 1 & 2
| As per usual I've been slacking on the diary front. But normal excuse busy busy infact I'm becoming slightly horse blind I've looked at that many horses they're all blending into one. Having finally got the office at home in some sort of order Millie has found the best place not to miss anything - on my desk!! For some bizarre reason she loves watching the screen and anything that might resemble a mouse, rat or cat is very exciting. |  |
Poor Maddox has been off games - he's had a cough which we've finally got to the bottom of but this meant not running at all the 5yr old qualifiers I had pencilled in for him which has been disappointing. He's been in work so hopefully we may get going soon - just have to do some more entries! The good news is Bomber has been spot free for the last week. With noone being able to pin point exactly what he was allergic too he might actually be winging his way back to Michael if he can remain clear for the next few weeks. Poor Janette was almost pulling her hair out as to what it was. So fingers crossed for Bombsie.
 | With the event season in full swing and with a huge demand for horses we went to Rolleston, Salperton, Tweseldown, Barbury in fact I feel like a complete anorak. It's been fabulous to watch some of the combinations we've matched up out competing really successfully. The other good news is we've seen lots of new horses and I now know every service station in the UK!! |
At Barbury we'd been invited to the ERA dinner on Dan Jocelyn's table along with Brian Hislop, Kate Maitland, Georgea Blakey, Joe & Deborah Meyer, Ruy Fonseca & Olympic team dressage rider Laura Bechtolsheimer. Eddie Stibbe was presented with an award and Toddy (Mark Todd) gave an excellent and amusing speech about Eddie. Then Georgea had written a song which the band kindly let her sing. It was excellent and basically took the mickey out of the eventing scene including having David Green's baby and marrying Harry Meade - Harry spoke to me at Tweseldown the next day and asked about the song word - gets round fast! I'm going to try and get Georgia to record it and play it on our website it was really funny. She sang 2 more one about Viagara's a girls best friend & the other about plastic surgery - all very very funny - yep you had to be there really. This was one of the best ERA dinners so far although the price of the tickets put everyone off but they should have told everyone who didn't want to eat to just come and have a drink - the caterers haven't worked out yet that they take the most money in the bar!!
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 | We drove home on Barbury's Saturday night to go to my old friend Sally Norris's 40th Birthday party - which according to her husband's speech she has been planning for the last 18 years. They had the most funky marquee with purple carpet and white dance floor, top DJ and the big surprise of the night for Sally was Ben Mills (yep who?) he was 3rd place to Leona Lewis in X-Factor last year. His website is www.benmillsofficial.com just incase you need to jog your memory. He was actually fairly fantastic and sang live on piano and guitar.
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Martha's puppies are now walking their eyes are open & tails wagging. We have homes for 3 so if you'd like a Norfolk Terrier puppy bitch there's one left so email me.....they are incredibly cute.
Well done to Austin O'Connor on Hobby du Mee & Mary King on Call Again Cavalier... and shame for Sacha Pemble with Hyanie d'aubrie (Irish reserve) I thought she'd done enough but you never know still 29 days to go and loads can happen between now and then....
Until next time..........
June Weeks 1 & 2
| Back on the road again! We headed up to Cheshire as we'd been invited to Nina Barbour's Boleworth Classic Showjumping drinks do and as it was their first show thought we'd make the effort to support them along with our buddies Janette Chinn (looking very slimline) & Derek Nolan. What a fabulous event, the castle is amazing, the arena's looked stunning and Geoff Billington was hilarious giving his speech telling some very cheeky stories (pretty flithy really)which had everyone in stitches - only he could get away with it. Sorry shite piccy but shows the lovely lake and the showjumping rings that were the other side looking up onto the castle (see pic below). | ![bolesworth_do_[320x200].jpg](images/bolesworth_do_[320x200].jpg "bolesworth_do_[320x200].jpg") |
 | The following morning feeling slightly bleary eyed we set off early to watch the first showjumping class at Bolesworth which started at 8.30! as we were watching a horse that was competing there that has just come on the market. It was like a who's who of showjumping including all the Whittakers and Janette's in-house jockey Anthony Condon who's deputising for Billy Twomey and Geoff Billington. Well done to Nina & her team it was a pleasure to be invited. |
From there we scooted up to Bramham to watch the Friday afternoon's dressage. I don't know why but I thought it was just down the road from Janette's but it took over 2 hours. I love Bramham, it was a very successful event for me when I rode there with Uptown so Maddox is going to have to buck his ideas up! I also bumped into my friends from Scotland Jane & David Reid which was great - David at the bar of course and Jane busy with her Young Rider Selector duties. Dan Jocelyn supplied the Pimms while we watched the dressage, he was on a bit of a high after his fabulous dressage result on Mr Pracatan - it was obviously all my hard work in snowy January!! Then back to Surrey that night - another 4 hours in the car!
| They're here!! Yep Martha's pups have arrived. All 4 of them and all girls - Martha & the Muffins!! She was a week early but we knew something was up as her stomach was dragging along the floor and she resembled a balloon about to pop. Anyway they are soooooooooooo cute. Martha has yet to inform George (the father) of the addition to their ever increasing family - she's now had 12 pups in total by him - he's a proper posh Kennel Club registered Norfolk. As anyone who breeds Norfolks will know they have the sex drive of a Gnat and normally have a litter of 2, bitches are like gold dust so we're dead chuffed. Martha has now divorced George as that's her last lot of pups we've promised her. Anyway she's a fantastic mum and I can't wait till they're a bit older. |  |
 | Now Millie on the other hand whilst being a great Auntie has been banished from my mothers house and has moved into Weaver's Cottage with us - well she's here most of the time anyway. So not to be outdone by Martha on the attention stakes Millie fell into the pond! She thought no one was looking but both Michael & I saw her in action - infact she was leaning over trying to eat the fish food on tip toes when she toppled into the pond - it was like a "You've been framed" moment. When we moved in I was all for filling our pond in but we inherited 9 goldfish, a newt, 2 adult frogs and about 1,000 frogsporn which has turned into about 10 tiny frogs and is really fascinating so it's staying - luckily they're all intact after the unexpected dog shaped swimmer! |
Michael's been busy teaching, Maddox is swinging along nicely and we're planning some showjumping with him shortly - there's no rush with him he's only 5 which is difficult to remember when you're as impatient as I am!
With another spare weekend we decided we'd go and watch at Longleat to see if there was anything that might be saleable. I was quite disappointed really these super stars are very few and far between but I did spot several I'll keep an eye on and it's always good to see what's happening!! We've also been on the road with clients looking at horses all over the place. Michael has put the gag on me so I don't drive flat out everywhere seeing as petrol is now a fortune and in my car I just watch the dial drop. I'm not sure it's going to make any difference but that'll be me in the Merc in the slow lane from now on!!
Also big excitement - our planning permission has been approved on our house so I may be kissing goodbye to the yummy Anaglyptine wallpaper fairly soon!!
Until next time...........
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