Of prevention being better than cure

This may be a bit gross so please do not read if eating or if you have just eaten or indeed if you are a bit twitchy about bodily fluids.

So Sid has for ages had a sebaceous cyst on the back of his right thigh. It has sat there for some time but grown larger and last week it started weeping. By Friday it was quite painful but, being a bloke, Sid resolutely refused my exhortations to get to the doctor, dammit. The more I insisted, the more French he became. There is a quotient attached to such a balancing act, beyond which it is inadvisable to tread.

By Saturday he was in quite a lot of pain and the thing was huge, hot and very angry, so I stopped by at the pharmacy (actually for T's eye drops) and asked the pharmacist whether I should take him to hospital. One slightly patronising look ensued along with that "there there little miss don't be alarmed" thing that medics and vets are so damn good at (I wonder if there is a module for this at med school that pharmacists also get to take) and he assured me that it would be fine and could be lanced and drained at our local surgery. Alrighty then. Suitably reassured, I went back home and told Sid that the doctor should be able to deal with it and that he was to make an appointment first thing Monday morning come hell or high water. The rest of the weekend passed for Sid in a haze of significant pain while the rest of us were off poncing around in slightly irregular circles in our best breeches at a local competition venue.

Monday morning; I call from the gym (while toiling away on exercise bike) to ensure that the appointment has been made. 3:50pm. Good. By this point the site was a big tempestuous boil of a thing throbbing with pus. Arrange to leave work early and hotfoot it down the motorway to get home just in the nick of time to transport the patient. Doctor: "oooh, very impressive, I'm afraid this has gone past the point of antibiotics or anything we can do here. You'll have to go to hospital". Argh. She makes an immediate call to the surgical team and packs us off to Hospital A.

After a suitable interval we arrive at Hospital A, register the patient and await the triage nurse. Upon being seen, he informs us that they cannot do the surgery there as they have no emergency facilities, and that we need to go to Hospital B. He goes on to explain that the two establishments share a switchboard and, as such, the doctor is unlikely to have been any the wiser about which hospital surgical team she had put on standby. Marvellous. HOWEVER! Since we are here, we cannot be allowed to leave until he has been seen by a doctor. Further waiting. Eventually we are seen. I sign a disclaimer to take responsibility for transporting the patient to Hospital B, thus offsetting any liability on behalf of the Hospital A. Sid is in a lot of pain, with elevated temp (38.6) and heart beat (114).

We arrive at Hospital B, some while later. We register at the desk and I explain about the referral and how the doctor said we would not need to wait in line at A&E. The receptionist is equally resolute that we must wait nevertheless. Meanwhile Sid is looking increasingly grim and getting hotter and more feverish. Those hospital reception seats are not built for comfort at the best of times, and especially not when you have a boiling cauldron of infection on the back of your thigh.

Eventually he is triaged for the third time that night and finally, finally is taken to a room where he is triaged again. I felt like having "no allergies, no diabetes, temp 38.6, tachycardic and nil by mouth all day bar two extra strong mints" tattooed on his forehead. He is put on a drip and has a canula fitted. Actually that's the other way around isn't it. By this point it is around 9:30pm and the lack of food, coffee etc is taking its toll, not to mention the worry as he is looking rather green. I feel like my insides have been scooped out and left in a pile somewhere, to be replaced by a small handful of pips. Nip out quickly for a snack only to find I unwisely offloaded all my change to the barista at work that morning for a soya cappucino and a panini and the pathetic choice remains of machine coffee of a bag of crisps. Opt for crisps. Stale crisps, just for that extra little cherry on top of the midden heap.

Approximately an hour after being transferred to the room, he is wheeled up to surgery, though not before the surgeon (young, posh, friendly) has been in to add his comments to the impressiveness of the site. Even for a relatively simple procedure - albeit one accompanied by a galloping infection - it is difficult to watch your loved one being wheeled off to go under the knife, but the theatre nurses, well practised at this sort of thing, were great. Off he went and off I went to wait for him to come out of surgery. Three nights of very poor sleep must have caught up with me and I think I must have dozed in the relatives' room, waking periodically when my back or butt started to throb unbearably after spending so many hours sitting on so many uncomfortable seats. On the plus side, pretty sure I didn't start dribbling.

The nurse came by about 11pm to tell me he was awake so I was able to see him, sitting up, looking rather more perky, certainly less green, and talking about kebabs. We had a cup of tea and after making sure he was ok, I left him for the night and drove home, rather sedately due to fatigue and the crash that happens once the adrenaline gives way. Wander the corridors for a while (seems I am only person there) before finding the exit courtesy of another snotty medic who insisted on speaking to me in a slightly too loud and certainly too patronising tone, just to finish me off. Unfortunately I was too far gone to take her to task by saying "My dear doctor; I fully appreciate the elevated status that you inhabit on the social ladder and I also appreciate that you are probably inured by now to treating all your patients as the proletariat fuckwits that they undoubtedly are in comparison to your lofty intellect and 15,000 years of training, but please, in the name of all that is holy, employ those formidable powers of observation and just recognise that I've had a hell of a day of stress, worry and sitting on your bloody uncomfortable chairs, and spare me the patronising manner, capiche?"

Home, a tin of soup and bed. Slept like a king with three cats piled around me. I don't think I moved all night, though whether this was to do with the fatigue or being pinioned by cats, or some combination of the two is not clear.

Sid was finally discharged about 2pm and we finally got home around 24 hours after the whole thing began. The wound has been packed and dressed and will need to be be changed daily by a nurse for the next week or so. This sounds innocuous but is in fact a brutal procedure comprising the brisk cleaning of the wound from the inside out by a nurse possessed of only a passing concern for the patient's comfort or nausea levels. The district nurse will visit at the weekend and I just know Sid will insist on me being there to see the wound.

The medical staff are being evasive about how long it will take to heal, this large crater in his leg that is subjected to a vigorous daily scrub. Sid's mum, in her capacity as "un oiseau de mauvaise augure" thinks it will be a good month.

The moral of the story for Sid  is that it's always better to get to the doctor sooner than later, even if you are a bloke. For my part, I learnt that levels of common human decency are much higher in other departments than in ours.

En vacances

When you live on a farm with as many animals as we have, holidays are hard to come by. Last year was a relay event to ensure coverage but this year, by the grace of Noodal, Sid and I spent two and a bit weeks on a much-needed driving holiay in France taking in Brittany, La Rochelle, the Dordogne and the Languedoc-Roussillon. And Orleans on the way home.

We set off at 3:30am after only minimal sleep to catch the Eurotunnel, leaving a rainy UK behind for a torrential downpour in Calais (the sort where even the windscreen wiper setting marked "frantic" barely suffices) followed by around 650km of driving to stay with our dear friends Stu & Rhi in one of the most westerly points in Brittany - this was a triumph of caffeine over common sense, particularly as the satnav sent us the long way round. We spent a lovely couple of days with them, eating a lot and refusing to drive. Most notable eating experience (aside from Stu's amazing butter curry) was the creperie where there were a surprising and most welcome number of vegetarian options. I had a filling of potatoes, cheese, egg and mushrooms in mine, and polished off two further crepes stuffed with banana, caramel and Chantilly cream. I could have died.

Next stop La Rochelle several hundred more km later, stopping off at La Roche Tremblante (which, as the name suggests, is a HUGE rock balanced so precariously on a hillside that one person can make it wobble. Even more awesome, a rock shaped exactly like a mushroom (Le Champignon!). We also stopped off at Carnac to see the stones, which I have wanted to see for a long time. Unfortunately you can't walk among them in the summer, but as this is to protect the vegetation, one mustn't grumble. Temperatures started to climb as we sat on a rock with a baguette for an al fresco (or in this case, al forno) lunch before continuing south.

We had a couple of nights in La Rochelle and on reflection one would have sufficed, notwithstanding the distances travelled. We did the Old Port and the aquarium, which everyone (ie those who left reviews on tripadvisor) raved about but which we found a poor third when compared to Lisbon and even London. Still, Sid got an awesome photo:

Next stop Perigueux in the Dordogne. I fell in love with this region, so beautiful and lush, it was a feast for the eyes and the soul. Less optimal for the vegetarian (or pescatarian in my case), the fact that this is foie gras country and you can't move for it. Veggie options are best described as scarce. I knew this would be the case and had already reconciled myself to the need to subsist largely on omelettes, cheese and fish. Some places literally had nothing that I could eat on the menu. However, we found a fab little place called Le Clos St Front for our evening meal and was assured of a lovely veggie starter and fish for main, so we booked a table for that evening.

This was one of the culinary highlights of the trip - the restaurant itself was extremely "sympa" with an outdoor terrace in a beautiful old courtyard. My starter was an artichoke salad with mixed leaves and a few strawberries and raspberries which set the whole thing off superbly. The main was turbot en papillotte with fondant potatoes, green beans and petits pois. Sublime. The thing that really set it off was the dessert, a millefeuille with apples and a caramel sauce made with beurre sel which quite took my breath away. The service was first class and we particularly enjoyed nice touches like the amuse bouches, local aperitifs (Lillet) and digestifs. We walked back to the hotel singing "j'ai bien mangé, j'ai bien bu..."

Next day was the excessively pretty village of Montignac and a visit to the caves at Lascaux, another site I had wanted to visit for such a long time - chiefly as a result of my love of Jean Auel's Earth's Children series. You can no longer visit the actual caves because the passage of bodies through them was causing all sorts of unpleasantness in the form of spores which were affecting the drawings, but the painstakingly created replica is well worth a visit. The whole thing took 20 years to create. We visited another grotte in the afternoon with a fabulous array of stalactites and stalacmites - to think it had been there undiscovered and unmolested for centuries!

On to Cahors for a one night stopover which, after Montignac, was something of a letdown. In fact, one might reasonably describe it as a shithole. Just to top it off, I had the worst meal ever, a salad with prawns and salmon. I must say the establishment promised little better, being one of those brasserie chains, but we were a bit stuck since we landed in the middle of a Blues festival and the place was heaving. But Jesus, it was rancid. And the hotel! It was like a blast from the Seventies, with none of the good bits. We took a view and were on the road by 8am next morning, replete with pain au chocolat, some diabolical coffee and a firm resolve never to go back there again. In fact the only good thing about Cahors is its relative proximity to the Languedoc.

We arrived at our final destination, a little village called Brissac le Haut, next evening after another epic drive, where we'd booked a gite for a week. Our gite was part of a chateau in the mountains and we had to take some wonderful winding mountain roads to get there and I learned that I love driving in the mountains. The views were spectacular! And so were some of the climbs. The last ascent into Brissac to the chateau was awash with hairpin bends - the combination of the two meant that the air was fragrant for a while there with the smell of burning clutch as our fully loaded Beamer made the last push to the top. Erk. But it was worth it for the view from our bedroom terrace:

 We did all the stuff we wanted to in the Languedoc: we visited some beautiful little villages such as St Guilhem le Desert;

we walked, went canoeing and swimming in the Herault, a truly beautiful river with the clearest water and teeming with life - fish, snakes, crayfish etc;

and spent some quality time in the pool which was extremely deep and as such several degrees colder than the river, but fab just the same:

And so back to Blighty after two days of driving, with an overnight stopover in Orleans. 

Since we were on the road so much, I had the opportunity to form some impressions about the driving habits of our Gallic friends. While I consider myself to be a committed Francophile in many respects, I now know that this does not encompass the way in which they drive, quite literally, nose to tail and will conduct spontaneous lane changes into a space which one would hesitate to chuck a fag paper into at speed, with something that can only be described as gay abandon. Even as a seasoned driver in places like central Lisbon, I was shocked. And the fabled Peripherique in Paris, which we did roughly a quarter of on the way home, is like this but on amphetamines. Driving to work this morning, I remarked to myself just how civilised British drivers are - even the ones in white vans - by comparison.

Weekend in Somerset

We spent the weekend at a hotel in Somerset with a bunch of friends to celebrate a birthday. The hotel is a massive affair set in several hundred acres of parkland and a number of activities were planned. First off Nordic walking, which is essentialy normal walking but with poles. Poles are helpful in helping you get up capacious hills and in striding along with longer strides than you might do ordinarily, but otherwise largely vestigial. It was a beautiful day and lovely countryside with lots of fresh clean air, so a really good start. Afterwards we went to the gym and did a quick 10k on the bikes, followed by a swim and sauna. The hotel also had a room they called a "tropicarium" which was essentially a sauna room for lightweights that none of us really saw the point of.

The hotel had two restaurants and in the one where we had a table booked that night, the menu didn't look too promising, especially the vegetarian options. In fact I probably came out of it better than the others, having chosen a brie, apple and gooseberry (?) tart, which turned out to be very nice - not least perhaps because there turned out to be only one gooseberry in said tart, which I thought was rather random. Everyone else had an assortment of overcooked meat and what looked suspiciously like Smash.

Later we sampled the entertainment, which turned out to be a rather shabby cabaret followed by a DJ, who took some convincing to play anything we wanted to dance to but which was aided by the copious consumption of vodka. We ended up on the dancefloor to the bitter end, pleading for one last tune before staggering off to bed. Not, however, before we got chatting to an older couple who appeared to have (a) swinging tendencies, (b) some very minority tastes and (c) designs on the pair of us :beats hasty retreat:.

On Saturday morning we went walking at a deer sanctuary nearby, where we got to feed them and cuddle some of the friendlier ones. The sanctuary is run by a chap who is passionate about deer and has been for years, who went from seeing some wild deer once in a forest to now running this large sanctuary for more than 100 of them on 80+ acres. And I thought our own slope of creature keeping was a slippery one! What a great (and somewhat wild haired) guy, and the facilities were excellent. It's lovely to meet people who are passionate about doing their best for animals in the way that he clearly is.

Lunch back at the hotel was followed by wine tasting, dinner, a tribute band and more vodka-fuelled dancing until 3am, this time unmolested by swingers although Sid proved a hit with the ladies - lol.

Considering that we rarely drink we managed to escape the after effects of the night before quite neatly, which was nice. I had a back massage then went swimming and spent some time in the steam room, before a very light lunch and what was billed as a chocoholics' tea party for the girls and target shooting for the boys. The tea party was a fest of chocolate based drinks and cakes served as afternoon tea, where we all ate our own bodyweight in choccie doings topped off with champagne and strawberries, until we could no longer move and felt rather green around the gills. Luckily dinner was not until much later, so we had the opportunity to crash and recover for a couple of hours before trying the other restaurant, an Italian. I had vegetarian antipasto (very good) followed by rigatoni arrabiata and absolutely no dessert, vodka or further dancing.  

It was a great weekend and I am very glad to have tomorrow off before returning to work.

More doings

I can't believe how time is flying past at the moment. Since my last stud blog we have at last received word that we are now DEFRA-approved AI technicians, qualifying us to inseminate our own and other mares. Setting aside the impressive range of facial expressions that this news brings to bear in non-horsey chums, it is rattlingly good tidings and we are very excited! We are just waiting for the ground to firm up a bit so that we can install a dummy and stocks, then of course there are the relevant accoutrements to acquire and we are ready to go.

Also, the worm has finally turned and at long last I have begun to assemble my beans in some sembalnce of order to start getting out and about with Q. Last weekend we trucked over to a friend of my trainer's, who had invited us to hack out with her. Following carefully given instructions, off we toddled - me marking off landmarks of note, Q doubtless wondering what was occurring. When we arrived and parked up, I went in to tack him up while Kate was riding in her school. At this point there was no small amount of crashing, banging and yelling  in the trailer and I did wonder what sort of fire-breathing creature she might reasonably expect to emerge at any moment. What she didn't realise was that this was just me - lol. Only kidding.

We had a lovely hack around her property, which is absolutely stunning and makes our place look like a postage stamp - and not even one of those for large letters. Q was on excellent form and it was clear from the expression on the back of his head (in which things I place great store) that he was having a whale of a time, bless him. We had to come back along the fence line where a number of horses were charging around enjoying the sun, so naturally enough they came barrelling up to check out the interloper. If you've never sat on a stallion while he is prancing and issuing forth deep throated rumbles that resonate throughout your entire frame, well it's quite a thing. But he is a very good lad and accustomed to being ridden next to fields full of horses doing star jumps and other activities of an athletic bent, so I didn't even have to deploy my emergency shoulder in. He was a star and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Better still, we now have a hacking bud!

Today we went out for a lesson at another arena about 20 minutes' drive away. We had to park up quite a few hundred yards from the arena and negotiate a range of interesting sights and sounds as we made our way through the yard. I was quite glad I'd opted to lead him down as he passaged and yelled his way along the lane, yet still maintaining an eye for mum. When we got to the arena I couldn't help but notice a small Welshie galloping up and down along the fence line, squealing in the most high pitched, ridiculous whinny I've ever heard (something like what I imagine might happen if you accidentally sat on a hamster), which really lit him up and made me reconsider whether there might be a place for religion in my life after all.

I did let him have a quick look around but got on as quickly as possible since the idea is to get him used to going out and dealing with many sights and sounds, and me to dealing with him dealing with many sights and sounds by getting straight on and not faffing about. There was certainly no lack of forward but he settled quickly and we had a good lesson, notwithstanding the squealing pony. Very pleased with him and we hacked back to the trailer to finish off.

Otherwise, I've decided to stop eating meat again after a number of years having fallen off the wagon. Surprisingly enough it began with a switch to soya milk at Sid's instigation: the surprise being that Sid loves his meat. I've always refused to eat veal which, given its position as a by-product of the milk industry, does pose a bit of a quandary for the milk drinker as he has pointed out. So the household has sitched to soya milk and it got me thinking again about the welfare issues that caused me to spend a number of years as a vegetarian, and, well, here I am, feeling very happy about it.

Roundup

Clearly, I have been remiss in my blogging activities. This might have something to do with the fact that I have been as busy as buggery at work, staggering home with barely enough energy to collapse by the fire and be fed an assortment of home cooked loveliness by Sid or Noodal - for which, thank dawg.

Perhaps the most surprising development chez Luso Towers is that Sid "I'm French I am and I will eat and drink as much and as often as I like" Johnson has gone on a health kick. Yes folks, it's true. Long walks with the dogs in every wood and forest and beach within a 30 mile radius are no longer enough: indeed, he's had his bike fixed and has been out cycling in those same woods and forests like a man possessed. And now that he's bought me a bike as well, a whole new chapter has begun.

A couple of weekends back we went cycling in Bedgebury Forest. Given that I haven't cycled on an actual bike in more than 20 years and my prep was a rather wobbly sojourn around the yard one night after work to the background accompaniment of one snorting, bug-eyed stallion, it is perhaps unsurprising that I was a bit agog at the idea. This wasn't helped by the fact that the car park at Bedgebury was positively awash with clumps of professional-looking cyclists when we arrived, and Sid repeatedly saying "God, there's some really serious cyclists here", over and over until I barked "ARGH!  That's not helping!" before retreating back into my spike-infested, angst-ridden bubble to contemplate the dash I was about cut with my obviously brand new, virgin bike replete with newbie wobble, blood-free knuckles and horse hair-coated fleece and clearly non-cycling attire.

Off we went, Sid like a man born on a bike, and me resolutely not. He roared off with something approaching gay abandon down the hills while I inched along, one hand permanently on the brakes and experiencing some consternation at the idea of riding in a straight line while CHANGING GEARS, let alone freewheeling at 40kph headlong down a muddy, stony track. That being said, it didn't take me long to gain some confidence and I soon caught the bastard on the uphills, repaying the favour by roaring past him going "wheeeee!" and "wow this is ace!". In the end we did about 9k and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Next day we went to Dering Woods, with the dogs this time and a much more technical ride, as I believe they say in the trade. By technical I mean replete with hazards such as mud, roots, fallen branches and wayward Labradors. I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it without the experience of the previous day, but once going we had a fab time. It was Five Go Mad in Dering Woods, only with Sid, Rach, Dora, Willow and Franklin D. Husky instead of Julian, Dick and Anne, George and Timmy the dog.

Since then we've all joined Endomondo and have been enjoying a pleasant competition about who cycled the most. During the week my efforts must be confined to the gym where hitherto I have done 10k max on the bike, but with the goad of Sid pushing 14K upwards I did first 16k and then 18k, on consecutive days. Running has gone out the window for the moment.

However I think we've overdone it a bit as we did bugger all this weekend and everyone was feeling sub-optimal at best, so I missed my planned hack with Liz "balls of steel" Roberts on Saturday and also lesson with Mandy on Sunday. Argh.

Back at the ranch, today is day two of weaning for the Noms. Yesterday was really quite stressful as reported in the stud blog, but today things are more settled, with the Noms doing less fence walking and yelling. I went to see them tonight when I got home from work and they came running over for some reassurance and some hay. Little Nom started belly slapping whilst enjoying a butt rub and Gualter took the opportunity to get down and have a good roll. They were quite anxious first thing this morning but are slowly settling. Meanwhile the mares are doing well and hanging out with Q at the fence. Q finds any change stressful particularly when it involves his mares, so he spent yesterday getting himself in a complete lather, quite literally, running up and down the fence line. We've left T in his all weather area today to avoid excessive blokeishness; he's quite content there enjoying his own special horse TV (Dan's horses on the walker) and with his goatie girlies, especially after a good workout with Dan. I am quite relieved that it's done as I wasn't looking forward to it. So far so good.

Otherwise, we have sent off our application for the AI Technician course, a feat which involved a trip to get the forms countersigned by the vet to enable us to get our DEFRA Accreditation. I did this last week on the way in to work, arranging to collect the forms on the way back home. The surgery closed at 6pm so I left work at 5, on a mission to get to said surgery which, ordinarily, would be quite doable were it not for the array of bottom-feeding fucktards whom I had the misfortune to encounter along the way. Regular or even sometime readers of this blog will know by now that I have an ongoing passion for hitherto undocumented laws of nature, and here is another one which I intend to christen "Rach's First Law of Restricted Motion". In essence, this Law governs the phenomenon which states that the more pressing the need to get from A to B in a fixed period of time, the higher the chances of encountering a mind-boggling collection of sump-dwelling motorised conards whose single purpose in life appears to be to keep you from your goal. Even the expeditory effects of Project FM radio were not sufficient to offset these irritations. However. There is more than one way to skin a cat and, rather than get into a 2 and 8 by ranting impotently as I may well have done in an earlier life, instead I rang the surgery and prevailed upon them to leave the forms outside, thus facilitating a nice relaxing Radio 4-enhanced sojourn at my leisure, contemplating this new Law.

Back to work

I'd like to hunt down that fundamental rule of physics which states that one hour of time spent in the office equates roughly to half a day spent at home during the hols. Everyone returns to work bemoaning this fact and therefore there must be a hitherto undiscovered (or at least, unexplained) branch of quantum physics to explain this curious and deeply irritating phenomenon. If any of you Brian Cox-alikes out there want to have a stab at it, please be my guest, and while you are about it you could also check out why it is so damn difficult to get a good night's sleep the night before going back to work. Kthx.

My return to work goes something like this:

Do lates on the yard a little earlier than normal the night before, giving time to (a) prep suit etc, and (b) have an early night in view of lurgy which has kindly surfaced to add that special touch to my last day of liberty :shakes fist at sky:. Feeling if not ahead of the game, at least fairly on track, I then go off to bed early and am making cute snuffly noises by 10pm, snug in the expetacation of a good night's sleep to help overcome said lurgy. Not wanting to give Sid said lurgy, I have repaired to the den on the second floor. Excellent. Only to then be awoken at 2:49am precisely to a wild rattling of what I suspect to be the attic door, located just outside the den, keeping step with the howling gale that is blowing about the homestead. Mentally refusing to contemplate getting up to investigate, I toss and turn, trying to get back to sleep to no avail at all and, eventually, giving in to small cries of distress issuing from the transitional cells that line my unfeasibly small bladder, I get up and make my way to the bathroom whilst the gale howls about the house and the attic door rattles alarmingly.

But wait! Is that the sound of a cat in distress? I loiter on the landing, listening with the straining ear of one who would not see any of her cats in distress under any circumstances but who really, really doesn't want to have to go all the way down the stairs at this ridiculous hour in the morning when there is a gale blowing around the house and I need to get up in two hours. Moments later I realise Sid has fallen asleep with the TV on so, suitably relieved, I crawl back up to the den, taking care not to loiter beneath the attic door (which is partly ajar).

I know, I think, I'll read for a bit, that should do it. But no. I cannot quieten my mind from going over and over all the things we have to do this week, this month, this year. Arses then, I tell myself, I'll try to stay awake for as long as possible. This normally works a treat in all but the most exceptional of circusmtances, so I'm confident that snuffly noises will soon be issuing forth from under the den door any moment now.

But no. By now I am being consumed by that cloak of irritation and increasing desperation of one who knows she must get up very soon, who really needs to sleep and yet cannot. Bollocks then, the only thing for it is to read some more. Finally fall asleep somewhere in the region of 4:45am, just in time for the alarm to go off at 5. Marvellous.

Nothing for it then but to haul my outraged frame out of its treacherous pit and begin morning doings, for tis Noodle's day off and am on morning duty. Downstairs, greet the smalls, let the dogs out and make myself a coffee. Tea just won't do it after a night like that. Don woolly hat and coatage sufficient to combat the howling gale and step out into the breach, noting as I go how rain is blowing horizontally across the yard and the wind is practically strong enough to whip my feet from under me. Thank dawg for the extra ballast I've accrued from lapsing my gym doings over the hols, or I might have been somewhere over Northern France before I knew what was occurring.

Pausing only to remark to myself how the yard is strewn about with brooms, skipping out buckets, haynets and other equipment which normally has the grace to sit quietly at its appropriate station, I feed the boys, top up haynets and stagger across the yard with a wheelbarrow full of haynets and breakfast for the mums and babies, fully expecting them to all be huddled in the shelter, as they usually are in the event of any inclemence, and indeed how they remained even during the last howling gale which tore sheets of onduline up from their pile and scattered them liberally about the place, including up against the fence next to the shelter.

Mommy Johnson mode swings into action and there's nothing for it but to venture out across the field, thinking about how there's nothing on earth I'd rather be doing at 5:15am on a disgusting Tuesday morning than tramping across a sodding field, practically being torn limb from limb by a capricious wind, looking anxiously for my herd. And there they were, huddled in the corner next to Q, as they always do in the event of anything untoward, the very picture of equine misery picked out in the glow of torchlight. With a bracing cry of "come on you buggers", I turned back for the shelter and they all trooped in after me.This was not a morning to divvy them up into mums and toddlers to make sure everyone got only their apportioned ration of grub; no. Just get on with it so we can all go about our business and you can get into the shelter and dry off. I pile in with the haynets, skip out, check them over by torchlight and repair back indoors having closed them in to their all weather area, only to find that one of the dogs had done a protest poo right in the middle of the kitchen. "You bastards!" I yell, by now near breaking point, and schlep off to take a very hot shower, but not before shaking said wadded poo in Franklin's face, knowing full well it was him wot done it.

Having congratulated myself on making it through the garden in my suit without getting too muddy, I drive out past the shelter, noting as I go how everyone is charging about after the fashion of very agitated horses in a high wind. Argh. What if they injure themselves charging about? Nobody will be up for hours. Argh! But I don't want to leave them outside in that if they're not going to use the shelter. And Argh! I'm now suited and booted and as such ill-equipped for an equine rescue mission after a night of heavy rain. Park the car outside the gates, switch it off and go and stand there for a few minutes to watch, in the howling gale with rain still blowing horizontally across the yard. Fortunately they settle almost immediately, and I am able to leave the homestead unmolested by further indecision.

Arrive at work at 7:30am, and go to a day's work, consoling myself with the fond notion that I could maybe leave at 3:30, what with only having had a half ration of sleep and being still lurgified. Ops meeting at 2: well that needn't be a biggie, it's bound to run on a bit but I'll schlep off after that. Except that just before the meeting, a call in from the Help Desk issuing further mewlings of distress based on the fact that they were being beseigned by students unable to login, further to a pre-Christmas AD rollout in our computer labs. Argh! Argh! So we formulate a plan to combat this and we all go into crisis mode, dealing with our allotted tasks according to our roles and skillsets. Finally managed to get off about 4:15, having checked that I could be of no furtther use to anyone, with one last hurrah in the form of a story of cheese making from the boss to finish me off. 

Get home to find that Sid has my lurgy after all and the dogs haven't been out as a result. Rather than risk a further protest poo, I decide to throw caution and most of my good sense to the wind, and take the bastards for a walk.

Sitting quietly on the sofa now trying to calibrate by how many extra degrees my throat is now throbbing, and marvelling that it could and probably should be a lot worse after all that. What ever else it may be, it is certainly never boring.