My Weekend

By Brennig, aged 12-1/2

Where the hell did it go?

One minute it was Friday night and Soph and I were sitting in front of our Microphones, giggling (as we do). The next moment there’s GMTV on the bedroom TV, Soph’s in the shower and I’m lying in bed wondering what I can do to avoid getting up.

Hmm….

Saturday:
First thing in the morning I drove to a place just outside Chippy (as we locals call Chipping Norton) to walk a cross-country course where Tom and I were scheduled to compete the following day. It was a very long cross-country course walk: an hour and 20 minutes.

The fences were all fairly straightforward and included drops, steps, hedges, walls and the usual assortment of cross-country obstacles; there was a nasty little timed section that began after fence 3 that included a gate to be opened and closed whilst mounted, but that was the only real technical obstacle.

I came away – if not bursting with confidence, at least – thinking that Tom and I could have a good crack at it.

Then I drove to the train station to pick up K who came out from Oxford to ride Vin and then Tom.

While she cracked on with Vin, Becky and I went up to the yard’s cross-country course to watch Sammi schooling her youngest, prior to a one-day event.

I don’t know what happened precisely, but whilst watching Sammi something in my head started wibbling at the thought of taking Tom around a course of cross-country fences the next day – so soon in to our relationship. It was only a little niggle but it definitely began then.

When Sammi and her ginger ninja had finished working, we all tottered back to the yard. K was finishing with Vin so I untacked him, groomed him and rugged him up while she tacked up Tom.

It was very interesting to watch K work with Tom, he’s a very different stamp of horse and a very different character to The Vinster, but it was lovely to see how hard he tried for her.

Afterwards we cleaned and oiled the saddles and both bridles, then sat and drank tea and generally gossipped (about Vin and Tom obv, K’s recent trip to southern USA and her overall progress on her Doctoral thesis).

I dropped K back at the train station and made my way home where Soph soon joined me from her day in Stratford with friends.

We went to bed and were very rude and then we fell asleep. I got up later, made us mugs of tea and we sat on the couch in our bathrobes and watched Harry Hill’s You’ve Been Framed, Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Harry Hill’s X-Factor.

Sunday:
I woke up and the wibble had grown overnight. I did not feel confident about the cross-country.

You see, if you’re in the dressage phase of a one-day event and you screw it up you just get a barrel-load of penalties, but you get to go home safe and sound at the end of it.

If you’re in the show-jumping phrase of a one-day event and you screw it up you just get a bundle of jumping penalties as the timber falls in the arena, but once again (usually) you get to go home and have a cup of tea at the end of it.

But if you’re in the cross-country phase of a one-day event and you fuck it up you get very seriously damaged, and so does your horse. Those fences don’t move and hitting the ground from a significant height at a speed of 30mph can break bones and do more soft-tissue damage than you can shake a stick at. As I can testify.

So I wimped right out of the cross-country.

I don’t know why, I just felt less than 100% confident and that, believe me, is no mental frame to go cross-country in.

We bumbled around the house, eventually leaving to forage in Costa for Latté. How the times of being a hunter-gatherer have changed!

While Soph sat and sipped and read I may have fallen asleep whilst listening to The Bitterest Pill.

After a while we packed up and headed down to the Little Chef just north of Oxford which surprised the hell out of me by listing on the menu: ‘Mushroom and Pepper suet pudding, served with a vegetable mash and peas’.

As a vegetarian, how could I resist? It was excellent winter nosh.

When we were stuffed to the brim with food and hot chocolate we drove down the Oxford ring-road towards the cinema.

We were ridiculously early, so we detoured to the garage to clean the car and briefly considered calling around to see if Mike and Jenny were in. They had a lucky escape though because we decided they didn’t deserve such punishment.

We sat in the cinema car-park and read for 45 minutes before going in to see an Over 18s showing of UP.

Can I just say here that surely – surely – that’s the only way to see this film?

A cinema-full of kids would surely ruin the experience completely? And they wouldn’t get half of the gags.

And was it wrong of me to start fancying the adult ‘Ellie’ character around the time she got married? (only people who have seen the film will be able to understand the magnitude of this question)

It is, though, a very good film. Do go and see it. Without kids, preferably.

When we got home we had an episode of Angel before falling in to bed and instantly becoming unconscious.

Neither of us wanted to get up when the early morning alarm went off, but we did. Eventually.

So yes, it was a nice weekend; restful, peaceful.

But no cross-country games because I had a crisis of confidence.

On that score, I have decided to take Tom on a cross-country course this Thursday. Hopefully this should get my confidence back up to where it used to/should be.

I have also decided that Tom and I are going to ride out – at least once – with a local Bloodhounds hunt.

And now I need to write, otherwise my deadlines won’t be met and I won’t get paid and all manner of nasty things will happen.

But while I’m writing I’m wondering about digital photography and whether I should upgrade or stay with my current set of hardware.

Anyway, that’s me.

How was yours?