Worked the boys on Tuesday night. Q: the model of decorum and loveliness. T: the anti-stallion.He has this thing where he twists his head in a certain way and is able to get out of his headcollar. Most times it's not a biggie as I simply gather him up before he realises he's free and nobody is any the worse off. On this occasion I was in the wrong position and before I knew it he was off. He went on the raised bed, considered going for a mooch in the garden but was put off by the slightly too narrow a gap, went in the hay barn and then out onto the site for the arena, having a rare old time flirting over the fence with Q, charging around with absolute gay abandon, jumping telegraph poles and such, all with an air of "I'm FREEE! FREEE!" which is a bit rich, quite frankly, when:
(a) he lives out 24/7, coming and going as he pleases, and
(b) I'm tired and I really want to go and lie down, not spend the evening chasing recalcitrant stallions about the place.
Eventually gathered him up and took him to the picadeiro to work him. And work him and work him and work him. We were just getting somewhere in terms of attention when a sodding pikey pony and trap went by and we lost it again. It was one of those evenings where I could still be there even now and it wouldn't have made any odds. Plus I'd have had to spend another three days cooling him out.
Finished on a good note, took him back to the yard, remonstrated with him about standing quietly like a good boy and insisted he stand there (like a good boy, if not actually a good boy) to have his feet done. No sooner had I finished than he did it again! Arrggghhh! As I remarked to him some while later, it's as well I couldn't physically get my hands around his neck or I'd have had to wring it for him.
Next day: a trip to the Cabinet War Rooms just off Westminster, for a conference. This enabled me to enjoy a splendid walk around St James's Park enjoying the sunshine and the people enjoying the sunshine also, as a mark of how old I truly am. The best bit of all though was it didn't start til 10:30, a fact which meant that I didn't have to get the train until 8:15! Meaning a lie in until 7am! The number of exclamation marks used in those last few sentences is a telling representation of just how overawed I was to have a lie in during the week. Even if it was rather marred by (a) more raucous than usual night time snufflings of the French persuasion, and (b) a madly itching hand that hasn't been quite the same since something bit it in the garden on Sunday. A something which I rather suspect to consist of 8 legs
Thursday: awards do at posh Park Lane hotel. It was a good bash all in all even though we didn't win any awards; highlights were the free chamapagne, the comedian wotsisname Armstrong from Armstrong & Miller and seeing my old boss Alison, of whom I am inordinately fond and who I have not seen for many years. Age-related prudence saw me heading off to Charing Cross for the penultimate train rather than hedging my bets that the last one would be running unmolested by cock ups, signal failures or random crapness on the part of Network Rail, and I was just congratulating myself for having arrived there with ten minutes to spare when I noticed the telltale board full of CANCELLED notices. ARSES. Giant, hairy, skanky, sweaty arses. It transpires that there was a fatality at New Cross when someone was "struck" by a train, surely a euphemism in this case for "splattered". Not nice I know but as someone rather pragmatically pointed out to me this morning, quite why they have to close every single sodding track out to the south coast is anybody's guess. Maybe the bits were flung so far and wide that all tracks did indeed have to be switched off to enable them to be bagged up.
Eventually I got a train to Tonbridge and was then able to limp home through a convoluted chain of events that saw me roll up at home at around 1am. With a dog barking at me from my own garden. I couldn't help but notice either that this Wasn't My Dog. Turns out it was a dog belonging to the former owner - two dogs in fact. Just left there presumably because they'd run off exploring. I would ask exactly what sort of person leaves their dogs out to fend for themselves overnight while they drive off home, but I know the answer to that already. I couldn't bring them in as there was literally no room at the inn, what with Slinky Binky and the Mittens taking up residence of the bulk of the lower floor.
All of this and I haven't even mentioned yet the fact that work has begun on our arena! YAY! Am so excited to have that done that I'm well able to ignore the fact that I had to auction off Sid's body for medical research on the internet in order to get it done, and hoping that the adrenaline rush will give me a good month of dedicated horsey doings after work, no matter how completely shagged I am when I get home.
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