“It’s only trying to run away from Carol’s shorts”


I spoke with Amanda, the nurse who is looking after Mum last night.
She was very pleasant & said that Mum was ‘comfortable’ after her ‘op.
Why do they always say that ?
She also said that she had been looking forward to my call – aah.

Apparently I won’t be able to speak to her until Sunday tea-time (UK time)
which will be Monday morning for me. I will try & call her from work & let you
know how she is doing.

I received a telephone call from Stan, aka Queenie today.
It was 0035 UK time & it commenced with a bellowed ‘HELLO NEW ZEEEEEALAND’.

Lovely Col informed me that it was a very good turnout for Stan’s do,
which doesn’t surprise me. If you don’t know him, you would never
believe he was Old Bill.

He was calling from his leaving do & it was difficult to grasp that he was in
Kingston with lots of people I know.

Speaking to one of them in particular was a real treat.

You know who you are.

Your text messages made my day.

Isn’t it funny how you can e-mail & write to people quite calmly without feeling
homesick ? The sound of a person’s voice however, is so evocative, so immediate,
such an assault on your senses, that you experience a physical pull.

I have lots of news so excuse me if some of this is in abbreviated form otherwise
you’ll be reading for hours.

Eric has been butchering one quarter of no.47 for most of the day, having let the meat hang for a suitable time.

The house smells pretty ripe but the contents have filled lots of ickle polythene bags
& yes, Bill, it will be steak muffins from now.

Michelle has just returned from dropping the girls at a sleep-over party.

They start their 6 week holidays soon & will be fantastic company for Stan.
Perhaps he can get them out of the habit of disagreeing with, or complaining
about everything they are asked to do ?

‘Come on Uncle Stin…’

I did some Xmas shopping for Mum in Cambridge today. Amazingly, due to an Xmas
parade, the shops were actually open. Usually, they close at midday on a Saturday,
an oversight which I find hard to excuse in such a dedicated tourist trap.

The weather here is doing bizarre things. It is either fiercely hot or torrential downpours.
I burned at work yesterday, despite being slathered in Factor 30.

Shorts & vest tops are de rigeur every day at work, if it rains, you get wet, then
dry off when the sun next comes out. It is simply too hot to wear anything else.
I caused a bit of a sensation in the shorts I wore yesterday.

Stu – remember those blue & black striped Adidas numbers that matched the
vest-top you had ? Well – they seem to have ended up in my suitcase.
Don’t know how ?

As I walked onto the yard yesterday, Natasha said ‘Bloody hell – look at Carol’

Dean passed some comment about the legs but Millie got the laughs by saying
‘Never mind the legs – I want a pup out of those shorts’

I didn’t hear the end of it all day & every time one of the horses played up the cry
would go out ‘It’s only trying to run away from Carol’s shorts’.

I consoled myself by knowing they were only jealous.

Work continues to be hard, absorbing & mostly fun, apart from a new member of
staff who appears to be making it her life’s work to make my life a misery.

I have found her antagonism particularly tough to swallow this week, when my
priorities are elsewhere. She is one of those women, scarily common in the equine
world who seems to think success can only be gained by being tougher & more
coarse than the men. And smoking roll-ups. Classy.

I think we may be having words if her attitude towards me continues.

Inca retrieved a rabbit shot by Eric recently & we haven’t heard the end of it.

It is a family joke that Inca is Eric’s ‘gun-dog’. Eric would love to have the leisure
time necessary to train Inca & use him for that purpose. The fact is that the closest
Inca has come to being a gun-dog is when their neighbours threatened to shoot him
for being in the same paddock as their sheep.

Now, Eric calls Inca ‘my gun-dog’ all the time & Bin has fallen even further from grace.
He is simply referred to as the ‘useless fat knacker’. That will screw up the Job’s firewall system Hadders.

The boys diets are going very well. Stinky is now 40.8 kgs, having been 42 & Bin
is looking less Hattersleyesque at a newly svelte 42.4kgs. His commencing bulk
was 46kgs, I seem to recall. Bin is even starting to develop a chin & jaw rather than
a head which seemed squodged onto his body like a child might model in Plasticine

This week, we were allocated the neddies we are to prepare for the sales in January.

The next few paragraphs will be neddy-oriented, so to avoid boredom,
please skip, unless you are that way inclined ie.Trudes, Cocky, Mx or Taff.

I was very pleased to be allocated Sustaad & What Can I Say.

Slightly less so, Real Success & Racey Belle.

Sustaad is the most handsome colt on the farm & can be a bit of a handful.

He is very dominant & tried, at first, to place his head over my shoulders & bear
down on me. He has also tried to bite a couple of times.

I have explained it isn’t acceptable & we have got on famously, if with a little reserve
since. He seems clever & appears to think a lot about things. He will often lunge
forefeet-first for the person who goes to clip him up to lead him off the walker .
Having said that, we seem to respect one another & I was very pleased to be trusted
to manage him.

He is very dark brown with a tiny speck of white in the centre of his forehead.

What Can I Say is the filly who I have bonded with most closely.

She is bay, with an elongated white star, in the centre of her forehead & white bits
on her feet. She can be very head-shy for other people but will allow me to hold her
head & scratch her face all over with a rubber grooming mitt. The next bit will sound
a bit nauseating I know, but please allow me a moments smugness.

Kylie asked me for a hand yesterday, doing up the front of Watties (as she is more commonly known) rug. She would not stand still for Kylie & was weaving around the box, generally being a pain.

I entered the box & told her to stand still. She immediately came over & dropped her
head into my hands to allow me to do her rug. It was very touching & Kylie said
‘Aah – she really likes you doesn’t she ?’

She also had ultrasound treatment on her leg yesterday & as she is so highly-strung, requires sedation for it.

After the treatment, I called to her over the top of the door to see how she was feeling. She raised her head & whickered at me. That lovely, soft rumble which horses usually
only make when there is food on the go.

If you are non-horsey I suspect this will leave you cold, but it was a lovely moment
for me, as it is the 1st time I have heard one of these horses call to anyone.
Indulgence over, forgive me.

Real Success is a bay colt (by Zabeel, Taff) with a long white stripe down the centre of his face.
I know very little about him so far, except that he has,
in the past, deliberately stood on my feet a couple of times when I have been leading
him. He is very fidgety to groom & so far we seem to have no real connection.

The last horse, Racey Belle, is probably the most challenging.

Remember the occasion when Trina was dragged by a colt who promptly ran through
a gate lacerating his chest ? That was Racey. He ran away because he was flighty & disrespectful
& he lost ground being prepared as he has had to have box-rest to allow
his chest to heal.

His chest has healed beautifully but the numerous visits from the vet with sharp, pointy things have left him
distrustful of people. He takes the longestto groom as you have
to be very slow & calm with him. He also tries to bite & you have to be very tactful in
your punishment as his fear leads to him trying to charge away from you around the box.

He is probably the showiest of the horses with a lot of white & I will be interested to
see how he develops with our one-on-one relationship.

Non-neddy types, please re-join here.

Justine, you will be pleased, I know, to hear that I have got all the staff at the stud
using my catch-phrase for when horses are playing up.

For the rest of you not in the know, here’s what you do.

Weeny, I expect you & the other girls to be doing this out loud.

Grit your teeth, do not, under any circumstances, open them when you speak.

Now, in a very threatening manner, mixing in a bit of a growl, shout


‘PACKIIIIITIIIIIN !’ all in one word & still without opening your teeth.



I find this most effective & much more rewarding than the rather effeminate ‘Quit it !’
which all the Kiwis were saying upon my arrival.

I am pleased to report it’s usage is now commonplace.
I expect it to feature in the 2004 OED.

Brent informed us on Friday, that the horses we have been given, will be swapped
around before the sales. This is for three reasons. Firstly, the horses could be groomed
by many different people in one day at the sales. If they only experience the one
handler at home, this could make life difficult, especially for the sensitive ones.

Secondly, the way one person grooms, is totally different from another, although we
are all supposed to follow a basic template.

(If you’re wondering Linda, this is what we do …

All over curry with grooming mitt, rub down with damp cloth soaked in Dettol,
pick out feet, firm all over brushing, wash face eyes & nose with Dettol-soaked cloth,
damp mane down to lie on off-side, pick shavings out of tail DO NOT BRUSH, in case they have no tail at sales ! ,
wash bottom with Dettol-soaked cloth. Do not touch ie.clean, colts portions unless you want someone to come peel
you off the stable wall afterwards. )

Your grooming kit must be washed in disinfectant & your Dettol water discarded between each horse to avoid passing on any infections.

Thirdly, different people spot different problems with horses, the more people groom a horse prior to it’s sale, the better chance of a fault being detected.

I know all the above makes perfect sense but I am already dreading someone else grooming my Watties !

I will take some pics of MY neddies to show you soon.

We paraded all 38 horses on Thursday to a couple of bloodstock agents.

This entails the horses being turned out to a very high standard & led for the agents
to get a good look at.

What was interesting was that because you seldom get to see the horses individually,
you can tend to take them a little for granted.

Seeing them looking immaculate & being paraded by someone such as Ledge,who can really
get the best from them was a complete eye-opener.

I looked at Watties & Sustaad in particular & thought what utterly stunning creatures
they were & how lucky I was to handle them. Thoroughbreds can certainly stir your soul.

The Stud is home to hundreds of birds, sparrows & starlings especially love to nest in
the stables. Sadly, lots of fledglings fall from their nests, into the beds. Every morning
we find dozens of baby birds at advanced stages of development. Some can be
released into the comparative safety of the yard, others are too early to be released
& always die, despite my best efforts at putting them in safe spots.

Claire has made a spectacularly quick recovery & has returned to half days this week
after only 3 weeks off. Her face shows very little scarring & the only indication of her injuries
are small, vivid, red marks at the corners of each eye.

The surgeon says these will fade. She is on every vitamin & skin cream known to
mankind & has to massage her body bruises daily to prevent clots.
She has very bravely made no fuss about leading horses again, although at this stage
it’s just fillies. She says she is happy to lead colts again & explains that because she
can’t remember the accident it doesn’t faze her. For those of us that saw the accident,
it’s a slightly different story.

This week, Kylie & I went to see ‘Calendar Girls’ in Te Awamutu.

We were much more organised this time & had a full hour to eat our Indian.
Although more satisfying to eat that way, it was much less exciting.
This time I threw the popcorn all over the floor. It was HER fault though.
She patted a space next to her seat & invited me to set it down instead of holding it.
I deposited the box where she had indicated, and it fell into the space where her hand
had been & all over the floor.

Neither of us had enjoyed a single piece of the popcorn & it was some time before she could stop
giggling, & compose herself to reply to my question asking if I should go buy some more.

The man in the kiosk (that’s correct - our chum from last week)remarked pleasantly
that we must be ‘very hungry’ to want a second box of popcorn so soon after
taking our seats.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he would be clearing up the contents of the 1st box
after the film had finished.

If you haven’t seen ‘Calendar Girls’ I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Even Eric said it ‘wasn’t just a chick flick’. I suppose the fact that it is set in Yorkshire
& tells a story about leukaemia made it particularly poignant for me. But Kylie enjoyed it hugely too,
even if she did have to politely murmur ‘Mmmm, really ?’ every time I jabbed
her in the ribs pointing out a selection of Yorkshire beauty spots.

Mum, the next bit’s for you (& Stu, you may know some of the places too)

Featured are the Cow & Calf, The Tennants Arms in Kilnsey, Skipton High Street
(Helen Mirren goes shopping there !!) The fictional village which the whole film is
set in is Knapeley, which I am convinced is Burnsall.

Do you agree ? I am also pretty sure that Penelope Wilton’s character runs after her husbands car in Lothersdale.

Remember the place at the top of the village where we had a hot toddy before doing
that very long, cold Boxing Day walk ?

Anyway, it’s a terrific film, with a stunningly good cast & Helen Mirren, in particular,
steals the film. One to watch again & again to make you feel good. Watch out for
Mirrens’ speech to the WI in County Hall

‘I ‘ate plum jam me’ Superb.

When I first moved to the Waikato area, I remember Michelle telling me about the spectacular mists here. I was a bit non-plussed at the time, wondering how a mist
could be described as such. I envisaged damp fog everywhere & it’s only just recently
I have understood what she meant.

I travel to work just after 0600 as the valleys are warming up.

The mist sits in cobweb pockets in the most extraordinary way.

It caresses the hills like a casually discarded chiffon scarf. I will take some pictures but
I fear even Pearl will be hard pressed to accurately represent how ethereal the valleys appear at dawn
in their wispy shroud.

Stu, I know had a very hard time getting hold of me by phone this week.

To clear up any discrepancies & to make it easier should any of you want to call,
these are the hours I do at the moment.

We expect to start earlier & earlier as the season gets busier & once in Karaka it will be 0430 starts for the sales.
Deep joy.

Leave home at 0600 to arrive for 0620, for 0630 start.

My fone is silent all day as it would be just too ‘Father Ted’ to have mobiles ringing
around these young horses. Picture the scene, just as you’ve succeeded in picking up a hind foot to pick out,
your phone trills the Blue Danube & it’s a one-way ticket to ICU.

I check my messages at morning smoko (Kiwi for tea-break)

which is between 0930 & 1000. We finish at 1630 & I then turn my fone on.
Feel free to ring the mobile or the landline in the evening (any time after 0600 UK time)
but try to not to call after 0800, which is 2100 here & the kids are likely to be in bed.
Me too, for that matter.

I do those hours, 6 days a week & get either Sat or Sun off.

All in all, it’s probably best to tx 1st & ask if I am about ?

By all means leave voicemail messages, especially if you like the Kiwi chick’s accent
but remember, I can’t always pick them up immediately.

So – that’s all clear then ? Good.

Eric & Michelle are going out for an Indian tonight. The 1st one, newly-opened in
Matamata, your average Kiwi could not best be described as a bon-viveur.

I have declined their kind offer to join them as I think they should enjoy a non-child,
non Mummy & Daddy evening.

I also have to finish some e-mails to accompany Christmas cards.

Harriette has kindly put a notice on the dining-room wall asking us to name 3 things we would like for Christmas.

My list reads

1. George Clooney

2. A tractor

3. A Californian Sea Otter.


I am so excited, only 12 sleeps to go, I worry if George will like NZ and my blue & black shorts ?

Must go forage some dinner now, anything but beef.

Take care all,

Cx

ps. I have found Blog very enjoyable to do this evening, it feels odd when you lot
aren’t up to date with all the news. I can relax now.