Olympic levels of tiredness

Never let it be said that we don't cram a lot of stuff into a weekend.

The boys were back yesterday to continue the fencing and there was the small matter of about 60 tons of top soil being delivered, making a complete and utter mockery of the 4 puny tons we bought earlier, naively imagining it would somehow be sufficient to fill all those raised beds.

With that tonnage of soil comes the need to rake and spread, although Phil has moved the bulk of it around with his tractor, saving us hour upon hour of back breaking work. Also, Rui and Fiona arrived early afternoon and were soon pressed into service to help out.

Went to a cheese tasting thingy at a friend's house down the road which did mean sitting down for a bit (yay!) and tasting lots of exquisite cheese (double yay!) but unfortunately I was so damn tired I could barely keep my eyes open and was therefore not at my most sociable.

I'd bought a nice Dexter fore-rib for dinner whch had been boned (?) but that turned out good as we got back late and slapped it on the barble instead. Had a lovely meal with Rui and Fiona, drank lots of wine and went to bed late. Marvellous.

Sunday
Had a lie in til 7.30 and was just sitting relaxing with a cup of coffee when the boys turned up to continue fencing, so had to go and gather insulators and all the other stuff for them. This is all very well but I have forgotten the last time I actually managed to have a whole cup of coffee unmolested by the need to leave it to go off and do something.

Next order of the day was to get the boys organised for our lessons, which were to take place down the road at a friend's yard. We opted to travel them together in the trailer, which involved a very great deal of blokeishness on their part (and no little on Rui's part too, it should be said). Was interesting listening to the snorting and squealing and banging and crashing going on in the trailer as we set off, but they did settle down.

T's lesson
I worked him in hand first and he was a wid man; very up, yelling etc so we worked through that until a state of calmess fit for riding. Rui was very complimentary about my ability to get them calm and listening with the work that I do, so was thrilled with that.

Rui then rode T and he produced some very nice work, especially as last time threfore he found it so difficult to relax, but this time although he'd seen mare and baby and was geerally very excited at all the equine comings and goings, he settled really well into his work and was a joy to watch. He produced some really nice extensions - wow.

Then it was my turn. There was a time when I wouldn't have ridden him when he was still so up but there was no real question in my mind that I would. He did vocalise quite a bit and was on the verge of being distracted and tapdancing a bit; just relax, keep seat and press forward straight away into trot, relaxing and bending him, playing with some SI and leg yields, nice and forward in the trot work and feeling really good with him even though I found it difficult at times to keep with his movement in the bigger extensions - wow that boy can really move.

Up to canter (!), circles, go large, across the diagonal, counter canter and repeat on the other rein. Awesome, really really awesome. I can't explain what a joy it was to ride him in this work and feel the confidence in him - he was rock solid. We had a few steps of passage and finished there.

Quinito's lesson
Q also was a wild man and we went through our calming warp up routine, in which he eventually stopped yelling enough to relax a bit and settle. Really nice to ride him with that buzzy energy and feel how beneficial it can be to shape that into work. Began with a few shoulder ins and leg yields interspersed with medium trots and then played with some extensions, with the idea to extend the neck and go. This produced some really flying extensions and he felt grand. We did some work playing with extended trot to piaffe and back again; this really helps him with impulsion in the piaffe.

Up to canter, shoulder fore and HP on the left rein, thinking forward and using the energy to ease the movement, with suitable conviction from myself. Really enjoyed this and he produced some very nice HP. Had our first piaffe-canter transition! Awesome it was. Just there, ready to be brought to the surface.

On the right rein I began to struggle. The shoulder fore was ok but to get the HP I was really struggling and it took a while before the penny dropped and I realised that it was my right hip getting very sticky that was causing him the problem - just couldn't do it for the life of me. Had to get Rui to have a sit to get it so he wouldn't stay confused. Poor Mr Q, bd mummy. Rui put in a couple of changes to finish and we all left it there; hot, sweaty and completely bollocksed.

Completely chuffed with both boys though as it was a very exciting day for them and they did really well. Also thrilled to have done all that work with T and feeling a bit more like the rightful owner of that pair of Big Girl Pants which I keep in the cupboard for an occasional outing.

There's still the matter of the bulk of those plants to attend to but with Phil's help (and Rui and Fiona) we have got two of the three raised beds done and ready for planting. Must just sit and dribble for a bit though before I do anything else.

Farm doings

I've been clinging on by my fingernails all week, trying to fend off despicable levels of tiredness in anticipation of the long weekend to come. Had to come home early on Monday, being of no use to anyone, whereupon I slept for almost three hours in the afternoon and only woke up because I had to go and get the littlun from the garage.

Said littlun, our trusty little Civic, alas must go to the crap heap in the sky, for she is old and decrepit and needs almost £1K of remedial work (I know this feeling well). For a car whose gross worth stands at about £50, that maths don't stack up in her favour. I have found a charity which will collect cars for scrap and take them away free so that they get the proceeds, so I think I shall do that. And how auspicious that we got the ovlov when we did, or we would be royally stuffed about now.

I had Friday off to attend to a number of matters, which went something like this:

1) Go to local plant wholesalers to collect 20 leylandiis (why is it that everyone I mentions this says "leylandiis Rach, are you sure?" - so just for the record, yes, I'm sure, and yes, I do know how big they grow) and 100 hawthorns. Oh, and one very beautiful dogwood. I can't resist dogwood. Managed to fling myself away from the abulous array of Japanese maples though, so there was a modicum of restraint.

2) Return and unpack said 20 leylandiis and 100 hawthorns, and one dogwood.

3) Clean house for estate agent

4) Show estate agent around, discussig plans and probable worth, etc

5) Do a load of gardening, as has become the Friday evening tradition

6) Enjoy a candlelit barbecue a deux, principally because by the time we got around to eating, it was dark.

Young Phil (or Pheeeel as we like to call him) is here with his trusty Massey doing the fencing for the second day today, and is thus able to hang on to his gonads for a few more months yet. We have devised it such that the boys can come and go to their summer grazing unmolested by the need for me to physically accompany them. It's all geared towards them being able to get to and from their stables so that we don't have to build field shelters, plus I think with limited acreage it'll much easier to manage the grazing with smaller paddocks. We were going to make a corridor from Q's winter paddock to his summer one but instead have made a reasonable sized paddock.
So of all the things there are to worry about with horses, one thing that I no longer need to be concerned about is the thought of them standing out in the midday sun with no shelter, as they have had to in years past. It's never been an option to have them out over night before so this is a big step forward in terms of their lifestyle and comfort - 24/7 turnout AND access to shelter whenever they need it. Like the Mastercard ad: cost of setting it all up for them: £££; the value of having it installed: priceless.

Binky and her babies are going great guns and they now have access to the dining room. I am very much enjoying being used as a kitten climbing frame and from getting much love and fuss from Binky herself, who I swear is expressing her gratitude to have a safe haven for her babies to grow up in. It's all very very sweet.

Right. Off to do stuff.

From thing to unicorn

Well now I feel bad. Some sort of transmogrification has occurred which has seen our house guest transform before our very eyes from Posh Pestilence to Really Rather Nice After All. Last night she returned bearing (a) all the doings to make a cake for us and the boys to say thanks, (b) flowers for me and (c) strawberries and cream! :O I had to physically restrain her from her offer to make us supper (!).

After watching me working T she was full of praise for how lovely and unicorn-like he is and for my horsemanship skills in being calm and quiet in our work.

OK so the other side of the coin involved her telling us (including young Phil, who popped in to discuss the next bout of fencing) how we should fence the rest, how to make a curry and what to do with the kitchen, but come on, this is real progress.

So I thought that was probably worth some sort of public announcement.

Long hot busy weekend

As weekends tend to, ours began on Friday but again with a flurry of last minute cleaning before the arrival of our unknown guest who would be staying until Tuesday morning. As everyone knows, proper cleaning involves first making a mess, and so as it was with the perfect timing most closely associated with the Law of Sod that our visitor arrived at the exact moment when the patio was awash with clutter, most notably a collection of rancid, poo-stained litter trays. Nice touch Rachibum. We couldn't have set it out better if we'd planned it. There's only one way to deal with that sort of situation IMO and that is by ignoring it utterly, and so it was that I showed her up to her room on the top floor, pausing only long enough for her to reflect on how she liked the tiles in the bathroom but not much else. It was about then that I realised not even 20 years of living with a French person can prepare you for the reality of having a complete stranger come to visit who finds it perfectly acceptable to pass comment on items of decor or furnishing with such startling honesty.

I showed her to her room and on her request the view from the top back window, enabling her to comment that it wasn't very big was it and were those my two Lusitano "things" in the field. It's at times like this that I am truly thankful for my qualities of patience and forbearance and the fact that I didn't have the axe, the chainsaw or any one of a myriad of power tools to hand with which to hew her head from her body in a riot of bloody gore and unplanned energy expenditure. Not only that but it turns out she runs a B&B. Once more the Law of Sod deposits upon our doorstep a paying guest who happens to own and run an upmarket B&B in Sussex. You couldn't make it up.

Off she went for supper with the boys, enabling Sid and I to crack on with some gardening (which appears to be our new Friday night thing), only to return a few hours later somewhat the worse for wear, which, setting aside the braying laugh for a moment, was pretty funny. Off she then tottered to bed.

Next morning, up early to drop the car in for a service and horses began arriving around 8am. Nice to see some new faces over the stable doors, and the boys seemed very chilled. So chilled in fact that I rather suspected they hadn't yet noticed. Next time I went up the yard though, Q was in munching hay and remarkably chilled about the whole business, as was T.

Had to take Dora to the vet for some advice on how to treat what turns out to be wet excema, during which time she resolutely refused to let the vet near her with the clippers and we agreed for the sake of all concerned that I would do that bit at home. Also, where once I had imagined that it would be easier to give a tablet to a recalcitrant Rottweiler than it would to a determned cat, I learnt that a resolute Labrador can also prove a bit tricksy. Got round that with cat food in cat bowl - she couldn't believe her luck, as we looked on indulgently.

Made the most of the company on the yard by riding Q in amongst the comings and goings. He was a bit of a spooky fart at first, but lots of hard work and other things to think about cured him of that and we had a good session. Worked T in hand and had some nice piaffe work.

Went over to the neighbours' in the afternoon to watch some of the dressage clinic, which was not at all bad. One of the highlights, bearing in mind that I arrived still wearing my riding clobber, was being asked by our guest if I ride. Er, no. In fact I'm a sexual deviant who enjoys wearing britches and long boots (with spurs on them) in the sweltering heat and hanging out at random dressage clinics. What do I do? Dressage. On the Lusitano things? Must be difficult with horses like them doing what we understand as dressage in this country, and don't they have that funny up and down trot?


Back home to do some gardening, then quick wash and brush up to go back the for barbecue and what turned out to be a general pissup, catching up on local doings and watching the lesson videos with trainer and rider commentary. Not, however, before our guest quizzed Sid about his accent before pronouncing "ah, a Froggie!".

Somehow made it up about 7am this morning, which was a good effort given the amount drunk and lateness going to bed, was going to feed round except there was someone on the yard in their jim jams that wasn't me who'd already done it. Nice!

Our guest wandered up the yard and asked, pointing at T, if this was my little Lusitano stallion, like he's some sort of My Little Pony. I resisted the urge to say ok love, here you go, have a sit on him and then tell how much bigger you think he needs to be. He's 16 hands, for fuck's sake! Arrgghhh.

Over coffee, some light finally dawned on why our guest might be a little bold with her opinions. I'm not sure whether the reference to her "mummy" or "the family money" came first but as they did so in quick succession, all the pieces starting joining together and I was able to reach the inevitable conclusion. The woman has a terminal case of poshness. Not your common or garden poshness, but one that is several notches above that and deserving of some sort of plaudit.

After said guest had departed, I went to poo pick Q's field during which I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, Q got between Dora and me and next thing I know he was galloping after her with teeth bared chasing her out of the field - with me running full pelt behind him screaming like a banshee, brandishing a shavings fork. I really thought that was it for a moment and he was going to kill her but he eased off and she was able to get out of the field unscathed. Jesus Christ - that was an appalling moment. She was ok though and thereafter I made her stay in the next field while I finished my doings. Poor puppy :(

Rode Q mid-morning to maximise horse and human traffic coming and going as a training exercise. He was really good and although it was hot we did a comprehensive session that left us both sweaty and mullahed. really pleased with how he conducted himself and indeed how they have both behaved throughout the weekend. Awesome boys.

For the rest of the afternoon: foal visiting, barbecue, a spot more gardening and a session for My Little Pony.

Stand Off

It was a lovely evening and I thought I know, I'll ride Q.

For his part, Q had other ideas, and it went something like this.

Q comes into stable in time to see me walking up the yard with his tack. He promptly turns around and wanders off out again. No worries, I think, he'll be back, I'll just get on with yard jobs while I wait. Q thinks "hmmm, looks like mother has plans which are going to interfere with my evening off; better avoid her". About ten minutes later, he wanders back in with great caution. I walk to his stable door and he wanders back out. I wait at the door. He stands outside, eyeing me up, thinking "hmmm". He wanders in and out a few times, torn in equal parts between wanting his tea and not wanting to expend any actual energy by having to be ridden. FGS, surely I hadn't forgotten he'd worked the last two days? What was I thinking? Could I not see he was wasting away before my very eyes?

I wait at the door and he decides to risk coming in. He spots the headcollar and wanders off outside, then stands there looking at me again. "Hmmm", I think. I open the door, turn my back to him and enjoy the view, humming along in the pointless fashion of one involved in a game of artful manoeuvres involving fastidious ignorance with a particularly determined stallion. Q wanders around a bit, ostentatiously sniffing a handy poo pile and going through the elaborate dunging ritual that he and T like to do several thousand times a day. I maintain my air of utter nonchalance. It's a waiting game. We each have our pieces and our tactics, and we approach the game with all the art and subtlety of the grand master of chess. With hooves and big hair and a black hole where his work ethic should be on his part, a pocket full of bits of apple and a headcollar on mine.

This goes on for roughly 45 minutes, until eventually I out-manoeuvre him with an artful double bluff involving a bit of apple and the headcollar. He's not chuffed, but submits with reasonable grace. We go out onto the yard to prepare.

Thing is, I don't particularly want to go in the picadeiro either so decide to ride him in the field. Tack up (not as easy as it might be with the moving target of half a ton of "don't wanna") and off we toddle to field. Get him to stand by mounting block, just about to clamber on when he pulls away and buggers off across said field, directly to the stallion on the other side of the fence.

Catch up with him just as they are doing their "who might you be?" ritual and immediately send him to work on a very small circle to underline the point that such behaviour is Not Allowed and always, always makes for More Hard Work. Point made, return to mounting block, clamber on without incident and put him through a range of lateral movements in a large figure eight; shoulder in; travers, renvers and half pass. Once comms are sufficiently restored, off we toddle around the field on a progressively longer rein and closer to the fence until we can get around the entire field with complete focus. The ground is too hard to thrash around and besides, we thrashed around last time and I don't want him thinking that riding in the field automatically equates to thrashing around.

That successfully concludes the evening's doings. Little shit :)

High drama and horsey doings

Sunday afternoon, Ted got wind of the fact that Binky was in the porch with her babies, showing a great deal of interest in getting in there. I had subsequently gone off down the field to poo pick, completely ignorantof the fact that he had somehow bludgeoned his way in there with her. Sid was in the house and heard a commotion, dashed in there to find him with one of the kittens in his mouth. He rescued the kitten and between them he and Binky saw Ted off. I got back to find Sid cradling the kitten, who appeared none the worse for his/her ordeal. As a result we have barricaded the cat flap with some handy bags of cement and installed a number of anti-Ted devices, who has now been banished to the yard. The kitten seems none the worse for the experience and Sid gets top marks for his Athena pose with the little one.

Rode Q and decided to work on transitions. He was in good form and ready to work, and I felt like it was a good seat day. Ever settle into the saddle and feel "ahhhhhhhh" where the two of you just fit? Well it was like that and I get the impression he is enjoying his work much more now too from the way he takes the bit. Of course, he doesn't particularly want to leave the mares but once he has he's ready for it. The benefit of not riding for a bit is always that sense of joy when you make back into the saddle.

We'd done an in hand warm up so went straight to it; usually I will spend time in walk but not that day; straight into the transitions first between walk and trot then bringing in halt to trot, trot to canter, canter to trot, canter to walk and for once I had a clearer sense of the degrees required for the more direct transitions with a bit more success than usual, feeling like I was connected to each hindleg in turn. Doubtless this contributed to a large degree to Q's availability and it was delightfully "touch and go".

Then the phenomenal thing; the arrival of the piaffe. I wasn't even planning it but suspect the prep work had caused us to arrive at that point and suddenly it was just there, so I rode it. WOW.

It felt so much more of a natural progression than it ever does setting out to ride it and the thing I took most to heart from the whole was how the session led us to that point with almost ridiculous ease, and there it was, bang. Awesome!

Decided to work T in hand; he'd had the week off because he was a little sore after the farrier but I could see straight away he was back to normal, so we had a good straightening session. I have been experimenting with tapping the belly for more engagement and it's been working like a charm. Good to be working him again and he was well up for it. We did some milling and I've started doing this first on a larger circle (say 10m) and then down to the smaller one (around me) to make it harder. We did some piaffe in hand and he's straight into it, well established in terms of the request and needing to get stronger and engage more. There's no danger of me overdoing it but I feel I could perhaps do more to assist said strengthening.

Was very much looking forward to riding T last night. He was as chilled as it is possible for a horse to be in the warm up and I was bursting for a waz so by necessity kept it short and clambered on.

He immediately presented with a lovely soft contact, very relaxed and feeling mighty fine. We worked on flexions on both reins and maintaining bend through corners, leg yield and SI on both reins before going up to trot. Preparing with bend and then the transition made for softness throughout and the most relaxed he has been yet in our first forays to the trot, softly blowing. Very very very very lovely and, I feel, significant progress from what's happened before which has been tension at first and only then settling. I believe this is a combination of the devil being in the detail and growing confidence in one another. Less easy to maintain the bend on the right rein than the left and I had to keep more than one brain cell on what my own body was doing and feeding back to him.

We did a small canter on the left rein just to say we did really, and this is a mirror of what was happening with the trot before - ie not best prepared, a bit tense etc, so I shall really know I am getting somewhere when we break through that barrier to the canter transition and what I will be setting my sights on as the next goal. But what joy to be able to have him soft and relaxed from the get go.

After the canter he was a bit jiggy so we worked on counter shoulder in and he settled then really quickly back to previous levels of relaxation. Did a couple of walk pirouettes and finished there.

Such a pleasure to be riding him on a warm spring evening :happy sigh:

Q and I did a lunge session and some milling.

Binky and I had our first chop rubbing session and she had some chicken :) Darling little cat she is and her babies are a glory. I'll get some more pics soon.

Busy busy busy

What a weekend. Spent all day Saturday cleaning and primping to get the place into a state habitable by others (for our part we can cope with life in sub-optimal conditions, largely by necessity and the fact that the average day comprises only 24 hours, but it's a different thing when you've got friends descending). Lucky for us we were able to bank on M&B being late, in the time honoured fashion that has endured since our university days, and sure enough we got a couple of hours' grace to cram it all in.

Sid came home with a GAS BARBECUE. This is bad and wrong in a religious sense but it was either that or build a fire as the local garden centre didn't have any proper ones left. It does have one small benefit though in that you don't have to wait an hour for it to be ready once lit.

M&B arrived with their two kids and after much bravado in the car about riding the horses, it turned out that in fact they were quite worried about stroking the big animals with all that hair, all those teeth and feet, but we got there eventually to sample the soft velvety texture of T's nose.

Sid pulled out all the stops for another splendid barbie and we all ate ourselves senseless, followed by a game of belote and lashings of wine. Thing is, sometimes it can take 45 minutes to play a single hand so the punchiness and attention usually required for the game can often be said to be somewhat lacking. I had to crawl off to bed at a shade before 2am fearing that I was in danger of actually yawning my head clean off.

Left the cats out overnight for the first time, partly because it was warmer and partly because of Danny's appalling habit of pissing and shitting in the kitchen, something which could catch the unassuming visitor very much unawares.

Fell out of bed about 9am (!) and discovered two things in quick succession:

1) That the cats had tried to get in through the porch cat flap and Binky was no longer in there with her kits

2) That T had got about a third of the fencing down in his paddock.

Arses. Big fat hairy arses.

Went looking for Binky, trying not to flap, but she was nowhere to be found, so I did the only thing I could which was to open the porch door and leave some food inside, brief our chums about the situation without alerting the kids to the presence of the kits and go fix the fence.

T had managed to mullah six insulators so that took me a while to fix. I don't know what it is they do out there at night but I wish they'd stop.

By the time I got back to the house, I was unspeakably relieved to see that Binky had returned and was in with her babies :phew: I don't know what I'd have done if the night's doings had scared her off. Clearly she's made of sterner stuff.

M&B's kids are great: Jess and I had fun playing with Dora and she helped me feed the horses, getting over her fear of both to a large degree. Nice to spend a bit of time with her and equally nice to have quiet restored now that they've gone, Binky back with her babies and the fence reconstituted - for now.

All I have to do now is find some energy to work those boys, which I intend to do by sitting on my arse for a while.

Such a pleasure to see M&B though; it doesn't matter how long it's been, it's always as though we got together last weekend. Our oldest, dearest friends :)

Arrrr

So as usual it's been a busy couple of weeks. The Concluder Producer in me (and come to that, the OCD tendencies) needs to get to grips with the fact that there's always so much to DO around here. Sid and I both wrestle with that one so as a coping strategy, every time one of us says something along the lines of "Christ, there's so much to DO around here" the other will finish off with "isn't it great?" Only time will tell if it will ultimately be successful.

Most normal people will go to the pub or catch a movie or something on a Friday. For us it was more along the lines of lighting a giant bonfire (and watering the fence to ensure it didn't also catch fire), usual evening stable doings and a shitload of gardening which conrinued through dusk and on into really quite late. The wisteria should be magnificent at this time of year but som years of neglect has meant it's got really out of control and needed some hard pruning. Poor thing. Hopefully next year it will be able to put on a show commensurate with its status as one of the most beautiful plants ever. Actually we think the garden has at some point in the past been planned out by someone with vision and an eye for design and only last night discovered a path we had no idea was there :O

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks what with Binky having her babies (all eyes now open and cute overload reaching ever higher levels) and the discovery that our neighbours are selling their land. We knew they would eventually but hadn't anticipated it would be quite so soon. The long and short of this is a lot of scrambling on our part to see if we can secure another five acres. As for the rest of it well there's nothing we can do and it's in the lap of the gods as to whether we end up living next to a large contingent of pikeys. The only thing to do in such a situation is trust to the universe and not worry about it, so that is what we're doing.

Sitting here writing this is a small oasis of laziness before the storm of activity that is to come. We've got friends coming over later which necessitates a complete clean of the house, shopping and the purchase of a barbecue. Next weekend we're hosting five horses for next door's clinic and someone is renting a room. This morning I got up to find that this time it was T who had the fence down, and spent a pleasant hour rebuilding it even before my first coffee. The saving grace about these sorts of situations is that there is nobody around expecting me to talk to them, so I can come to some sort of human level of consciousness in my own time.

Someetimes I wonder why I put myself through these extra things when it adds so much to an already burgeoning to do list, but there it is; I always enjoy it and it helps out the neighbours.

Right. Better get to it.

Fencing, war zones, zombies and multi-species evening strolls

So there I was undertaking an impromptu pre-6am fence repair this morning after some bugger who shall remain nameless (Q) had at some point during the night taken down a roughly half mile stretch of the lower strand between the top end paddock and the gate, including for good measure six insulators which were found to be in various states of distress and of no further use to anyone. Arses.

While I was toing and froing to the garage and rooting through the rug room for spare insulators, I had a brief time to reflect on the extreme weirdness of the previous night's dream, during which the boys and I found ourselves in Afghanistan, of all places, with the attendant need on my part to keep them from harm, and also from harming one another. And from harm being done to me. The bit I remember most clearly was them being packed away side by side in something amounting to a giant crate for the night, a long thin crate which meant they could barely stand properly let alone move around. True to form, I distinctly remember being quite stressed by this situation and concerned as always for their comfort levels. It was only later that I wondered if the two were connected in any way and my subconscious was trying to alert me to the fact that they'd created their own mini war zone out back. I guess I'll never know.

Did a botch job that was sufficient to get the juice flowing again and hurried indoors, conscious of the time. Sid appeared at the bedroom window. "You're taking too long", he said, rather unnecesasrily I thought. "The fence was down" I replied. "You're taking too long, have you seen the time?" he said. "Yes I know", I said, "the fence was down. I've been fixing it." "Oh - is it fixed?" "Yes". "Did you test the current?" "Yes". And so we continued with the morning ritual.

Later on the train I related the strange dream to him, during which time it transpired that he had had a torrid dream of his own involving a zombie invasion, the chainsaw and the perils involved in running out of petrol for said chainsaw at an inopportune moment. Who's the nutter now eh? Which is the weirdest out of those dreams, eh?

I was itching to get home from work, mainly to check that my botched fencing job had held throughout the day (it had) and to check that Binky and her babies were ok (they were). Spent much of the evening fiddling around taking far too long doing evening stable duties (especially as the boys are living out, albeit still coming in to wee in their stables, which I believe to be wrong and unnecessary in the extreme yet I still can't bring myself to put the beds up and leave them up) before going for a mooch around the field with Dora. Ted decided to come too and spent the first part of the walk rubbing up against my legs, which is not as straightforward as it might be when you're trying to walk along. He then spent a bit of time playing lions, before something approaching a game of tag with Dora. Sweet.

Gave the mud monsters a quick groom - well, as quick as a groom gets when the bulk of the surface area is mud-based - and enjoying the expression on the back of T's head as I picked bits of smeg out of his sheath and Ted rubbed around his legs.

Creaturetastic

Just a few snippets from the day that highlight some of the most quietly amazing aspects of a life shared with creatures:

Binky and her babies, safe and secure in their new den. Every time I look in there they are bigger and stronger.

Putting another rug on Q in the wind and rain next to the mares' field with their fence gone down and him all of a lather in a state of some excitement; he still stood to let me put it on and grub around under his belly to do the straps up.

Putting an extra bale down in T's stable; him moving around without being asked so I can pat it down, then raising a hoof, again without being asked, so I can get the last bit :)

The nightly ritual of walking back down the yard to the house, with Dora and Ted trotting along companionably beside me.

Binky's babies

It's taken ages for a name for the little pregnant black cat to become apparent, almost as long as it's taken me to be able to get near her. All that has now changed; her name is Binky and as she became more heavily pregnant she took to following me around the yard. Then one day last week as she was mere days from popping, it seemed she decided to take the next step by letting me in to her space to give her a fuss. Most of the barriers came down that day and there was purring and chop rubbing. We walked around the yard and I showed her one of two possible locations for her to have her babies that I'd prepared for her, but she didn't seem interested. Hmmm, I thought.

Friday dawned and I set off for work, pretty sure that today would be the day. Sid was home to help out if need be, though he didn't know it yet. I could hear her miaowing constantly in the background when we were on the phone about lunchtime; hoping she'd hold on until I got home, I did a google search for how to help a cat give birth and printed off the wikipedia page on the subject. Next thing; panicked phone call from Sid saying a newborn kitten had appeared on the patio and what should he do? Arrgghhh! Arrggghhh! Quick, grab a box or something and something soft to put in it for her. So he ran and got a large cat (or small dog, depending) carrying box from the garage (we have about 6 cat boxes, which does seem excessive), put Dora's bed in it and immediately she weent in, checked it out and went to get her baby.

Thereafter she took care of business and produced what we first thought to be three, then five, and finally six babies! Four are black and two are tabbies with bits of white. One might be a tortie.

She looked so serene and happy by the time I got home, I burst into tears on the spot. There then followed the question of whether to leave her there or bring her into the house. She'd obviously decided that we were trustworthy by now and was expecting to be safest nearby.
A black tom came sniffing around shortly afterwards and she was very very anxious about his presence, so that decided us that she needed to come in. OTOH, Ted also came visitng a little while later and it was as though she wanted to show him her babies :) She and Ted are pretty close though. Ted may be the daddy.

So I cleaned out the porch which now seems tailor made for a mother cat and her babies, set out food, water, litter tray etc and then lifted the whole kit n caboodle sorry) in the box into the porch. Job done.

Two days on the kits are getting stronger every day and Binky is doing a marvellous job. She seems to be enjoying this time of ministering to her babies, being catered to with bits of cooked fish and generally not having to worry about anyone getting to her babies. The plan is to socialise them and then try to find homes for them when the time comes. Binky and Ted are staying but will both need to be spayed. Beautiful as the kits are and utter privilege as it is to see Binky caring for them, there's still plenty of cats in the world without loving homes as it is. Hopefully Binky will be over any residual fear by the time the kits are weaned and we can get her to the vets without too much trouble.

But oh God, it's so sweet.

This n that

Yesterday I felt the need to get out of the office for lunch, so went to one of the local cafes with the intention of eating myself senseless. It's hard fpr me to avoid maxing out on carbs in such a situation, but I have realised only latterly that a big plate of salad with half a portion of chips satisfies my need to eat for at least 30 minutes and get some carbs without going the whole hog and the inevitable pressing need for a kip shortly afterwards. Bonus.

Less good was finding myself behind a couple of young blokes in the queue. "Can I get a full english? Can I get a cup of tea?" What is that? An Americanism I presume, or is it all dwn to Jay-Z? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_I_Get_A...
Well I don't know, of course, but what I do know is that it makes me want to flail my own skin off and fling myself in a vat of rock salt by way of distraction from the giant holes of wrongness bored into my brain every time I hear it. Even with the benefit of a reasonably wide vocabulary, I find it difficult to describe with sufficient accuracy just what that does to my innards. Argghhhhh. It feels like such an apt expression for this culture of entitlement in which we live. Boil my fucking brains!

But that wasn't all, far from it. As I ended up, by dint of not paying sufficient attention, sitting on the next table to said blokes, I was then subjected to a continual stream of AQI - that tendency of ending every sentence as though it were a question. Oh God.

And just to seal the fate of a million synapses, walking back to the office I was assailed by a girl having an animated conversation into her mobile, in which EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE went as follows: "I was like, yeah anyway, and she was like yeah whatever and I was like well I don't care....". I'm just glad that my life thus far has been adept at teaching me the art of forbearance, otherwise, like, dawg knows what might have happened.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I've been doing a spot of stallion training today, making use of the neighbour's large collection of horses to brush up on the boys' social skills. Or put another way, reminding them that willy waving, ignoring mum or talking to them is not what good boys do while in a tack-wearing situation. Very pleased with both of them and also nice to have a big space in which to work - T came out with some very nice extensions.