Not exactly larkish behaviour, but I was up with the 7am alarm and out of the house by 8.
The roads to the stables were *very* interesting this morning; last night’s clear skies and accompanying sub-zero temperatures had made all of yesterday’s wet surfaces in to very slippery things.
I passed one car halfway in a hedge and saw another in a field.
I had a lesson booked with Tom for 9am but Owen, bless, was fashionably late. I really don’t mind his tardiness, it gave me a chance for a mug of tea and to spend quality time with the horses.
By 9.30 Tom and I were working-in, in the indoor arena; over the next 45 minutes Owen tested us with a series of showjumps that ranged from big, large-spread parallels to incredibly narrow ‘skinnies’.
By the end of the session we were jumping the track at the pace that *I* wanted, and Tom was jumping it very intelligently, going off a long, flying stride or a short one, as required.
In his summing-up Owen said we were nicely together and capable of going wherever I wanted us to go.
I wish I could say what this endorsement means to me. The only potential fly in the ointment is that I screw things up when we get out at competitions.
I came home and Sophie and I pottered around a little, then I showered, shaved, teethed and we went to bed.
We got up around 4pm and nipped in to Burford for a late lunch at the Little Chef.
And now it’s 7pm. Sophie’s doing the ironing in her Bridget Jones PJs, whilst watching Stephen Fry’s ‘America’ and I’m blogging whilst backing up my laptop to External Disk Drive (EDD) #2.
EDD #1 is, sadly, full up, so I’ve just bought another which I’ll run in parallel with EDD #2. It will be called, with startling originatlity, EDD #3.
In other news, I am desperately tired.
I read four hours of work-related papers yesterday when I would have liked to have been writing the sitcom (working title: ‘Sorted’ – though Sophie has just given me two possible titles: ‘On The Shelf’ being the better of the two).
Tom and I are due to compete at Allenshill on Friday; Owen is competing in the same class as us on a novice horse that belongs to one of the girls at the yard.
So no pressure on us then – competing against our trainer!
It’s going to be a mental week at work and I may end up riding at very late o’clock each evening.
Ho hum.
I’ve noticed that too – when the snow is melting, it feels colder and more miserable than when it is still well below zero. Especially with an east wind.
Perhaps because it is damper it feels more raw, and didn’t they teach us something in O level Physics about energy required to melt stuff – latent heat?? This could make what was initially a milder breeze feel really icy as the heat is taken out of it to melt the white stuff. Or something like that.
Talking of Little Chef, I don’t know if you’ve been to the one at Popham but Heston Bumenthal’s performed miracles. It is now possible to construct a sentence that contains the words ‘Little Chef’ and ‘food’ – without gagging.
H