A Room of One’s own-Renewed Inspiration Wednesday, Feb 27 2008 

On Writing livingnow92 9:21 pm

The drought has continued, we have had a smattering of rain – which evaporated before it reached the ground.  So the grey/gray water saving and carting has continued.  Our builder has rushed to put the garage (family room for the haughty) roof and walls up because, he says, it is due to rain and the plumber and electrician needed walls and a roof – I can relate to being an electrician and not wanting to play with the electricity in the rain.  

For some weeks Ive listened to the constant banter between Man Of House and Daughter Of House as to who the garage (sometimes referred to as a shed by us all so I guess we are just cultural deserts) belongs to and who/what will populate it.  Originally planned for DOH so piano, excess books, excess horse gear, excess posters, overly large stereo with woofers [nothing to do with dogs Im assured, we already have two] and guitar which she has her name down for lessons - electric of course, (thanks to movie ‘School of Rock’ & parental adoration for real rock, real R & B and basically anything not manufactured  and performed by teeny boppers who struggle to write their own name let alone lyrics). 

MOH wants space of his own, the other shed/garage is used by the dogs, and the room out the back of that is a ‘tack room’ for DOH horsey gear, and the wee alluminium shed is full of hay for the horse.  For those readers from across the seas, the Kiwi male feels whole only if he has a shed to play in (sorry, ‘tinker’), somewhere to retreat when the woman of the house turns the vacuum cleaner on, or DOH wants to talk about menstrual cramps, or his relatives visit so he scarpers out to his shed and pretends he’s performing something of the equivalent to life preserving surgery on the lawn mower.  No, I do not jest - we even have books on ‘Blokes Sheds’.

Our ‘bloke’ or MOH has resigned himself to the knowledge that the washing machine, clothes drier, piano, chest freezer (full of his meat – another Kiwi male imperative, eating animal flesh with a side of vege and a beer to wash it down with, all low fat of course), and the computer, computer desk, printer, some book shelves and my sewing machine.  I say he has resigned himself to this, but when we went to buy the chest freezer, we ended up coming away with a 32 inch flat screen as well – for the DOH he opines, for when her friends visit and they want to watch rugby – oops, he means chick DVD’s.  Two months ago, he fell on a “real bargain” new stereo, eight speakers and woofers and meows or whatever the technical terms are, for the daughter, a belated xmas pressie – translation – he has wanted a stereo since 1988 when we got for $300 when we bought our first ‘cottage’ (two bedroom, 30 yrs old)  and didnt have a radio.  It was a our first minisystem with a CD player and turntable – which died two years ago, rest in peace, and we have survived on a small portable CD radio since.

Because the stereo is so big and has to be wall mounted (dont go there) it is staying in the boxes until the shed/garage/family room/salon/studio, building is finished, our house is resembling the flat Derek and Rodney (Del boy and Rodders) shared in Peckham in “Only Fools and Horses”, only I swear all the boxed goods are paid for and did not fall off the back of a truck.  We now have a boxed stereo, a boxed TV, and a boxed chest freezer.  None of which will be opened until the paint drys on the walls – good incentive to make sure MOH & DOH dont sit back and watch me do it all.

Meanwhile, I have been suffering, yes – the word is correctly used for the circumstances, suffering as in agony, pain, trauma, and all the rest – with an infected tooth. In actual fact it is the phantom tooth, (no there is no singing going on here), because it is pain in the same place that a tooth was extracted a month ago.  I now find out that the one beside the now empty space, needs a root canal – that is dental surgeon talk for “Im off to travel around Europe with my family, and will be back just in time for your next check up”, or loosely close.  I have had to ask for extra strength pain relief, and they have prescribed something which I found out today is nothing much more than what I was taking over the weekend which didnt really work – plesebo affect Im guessing, but it keeps stuttering along, sometimes the pain is relieved, sometimes it is not – its those “not” times that I have to watch so I dont chase someone down and punch them, or call senior staff in my proximity a prat of the highest order – its amazing what drugs and tooth ache can do to a reasonable diplomatic person.  So I have a week to get rid of the infection in the tooth, and meanwhile the dentist will be getting sessions in at his local sun bed so he doesnt look to pale on the Riveria. 

For me the trauma and tension of the tooth, not to mention listening to MOH and DOH laying territory to the hut outside, has been relieved by a feast of nourishing email chats with a colleague who works in another city (the same employer as me – we are sort of an outpost of a larger branch).  A couple of years ago when we were first introduced by our manager, we were told she likes ‘writing’ and that was that.  It could only have been a male that would reduce a published author down to ”she likes writing” – a bit like saying Michelangelo was a “bit of a painter”.  She has been published, won competitions, awarded a prize from our country’s Prime Minister, and has been writing for years.  Back when I first met her I had been a “closet writer” - nothing published – nothing actually stayed on paper long enough to call it a draft, so I was more of a ‘would-be’ writer, meaning if I stopped pushing the delete button, and stopped tearing up my notes, settings, and character profiles, I “would -Be” a writer.   

Well to cut a long story short (I’ve got to stop editing as I write), this enchanting person has inspired me to get back to wordsmithing, to write the story (or stories) just write!!! Whats more interesting, is that what I saw through my “vision” of my environment was to her, just as interesting as I what I see in settings overseas – but I see our beautiful countryside so often I have taken it for granted, after all it is just a baby compared to Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh for Rebus, and Colin Dexter’s Oxford for Inspector Morse. 

So DOH was beside me in the car on the way home running off all sorts of scenario’s and good ones I might add, for a rollicking good murder – her and I are great fans of Agatha Christie, and Colin Dexter.  No more delays, no more deleting, no more procrastinating… no more….well I did have to update my blog, and I have just got the washing in, and finished dinner, and by the time I finish this, there is no time to write, just read. But by gosh I will be burning a trail tomorrow evening and be published by lunch time next Friday!!

So, the structure out the back of the house, which is made up of two rooms, one smaller than the other with a shower and toilet (sorry, how base, I mean ensuite), is going to be my study!!!! my writing room!  Just what Virginia Woolf recommended, she said we women writers need a room of our own to go off and create – or something along that line, so I will take a flask of coffee, some lovely opera for ambience, a hint of lavendar oil for ambience, and join the literati. 

 

Drought and Gray/Grey Water Wednesday, Feb 6 2008 

Uncategorized , , , livingnow92 8:16 pm

We are experiencing the worse drought for decades. While water, liquid and frozen, is abound in the Northern Hemisphere, we here in the Southern Hemisphere (New Zealand, not all those states of Australia that are now experiencing downpours & storms) are looking out over brown fields and lawns, and dead and dying flower gardens (apart from the sneaks who in the dead of night are floughting the hose & sprinkler bans). 

I am quite use to seeing brown dead grass, because our property was a roading depot in the 1920’s that housed the shingle and sand for all the roads that are the transport arteries around our region.  I’m not sure why they had to gauge at least 8 metres from the top of the land, but I do know that they left behind three huge gravel mounds, leaving nothing but the subsoil and plates of rotten rock and sand.  While there is no threat of ever having a flood here, it also means that when rainfall reduces, or stops completely for a couple of months as is the case now, we are left with conditions not too dissimilar to a desert. 

Desert like conditions are fine for succulants, manuka (known as Tea Tree in Australia), and twitch grass (the evil of twitch will definitely be a blogging entry on its own in the near future but for now its drought), and geraniums (but even they are looking sad).  But I am now witnessing my pittisporums drooping under the heat, the younger ones are actually browning. 

“Get that hose out!!!” you may retort, but, we live in the country and rely on tank water, water we have captured from the roof of our house.  ”Well just fill the tank when its empty!!!” I hear the tree lovers and gardeners shouting.  This I would do – after all why go to work and not spend the hard earned wages on protecting the trees and plants that struggled to survive the near infertile arid free-draining sandy soil.  Unfortunately the tanks that bring the liquid gold are bringing it from a town that is under threat of their reservoir drying up completely.  Parks, equestrian centres (horse bathing), pools etc have all been told to restrict their water use.  We are in a drought – and its not just us rural folk that are suffering this time. 

My heart breaks that little bit more when I hear that the ’townies’ are’nt able to wash their 4 wheel drive land-rovers (which have never seen the terrain that they were designed for, and are used to zoom around supermarket carparks and drop children off at school not more than 5 km from home), and that their pristine handkerchief sized lawns, (laid at the cost of feed for a 100 head of cows), is browning and as we speak devalueing the price of their property.  I am also saddened that they are now having to restrict the refilling of their spa pools, and instead - resort to placing a damp flannel to the back of their necks and wrists to cool off after the hard day in the airconditioned office. 

Since we went feral (sorry I mean rural) 11 years ago we have learned a healthy respect for our water.  God giveth, and God may one day decide not to turn the universal sprinkler on – for months, and we end up as dry as an AA meeting.  Long gone are the days when we would leave the tap running while we brushed our teeth; flushed the toilet no matter what went in it; washed outside of house every couple of months because it was a nice thing to do in the summer to keep cool;  wash the car every other weekend;  leave the sprinkler on the garden all night for several nights because the fuschia’s, lettuces and tomatoes are sagging;  do the laundry every day – full load or not; do the dishes everytime a piece of crockery appeared on the bench.  You got the picture?

While we could carry on doing all those townie things, we would pay the price – literally.  To have a tanker of water come and fill our tank up is quite a costly expense.   Nice if your a media mogel or you have a child celebrity living with you that has’nt spent all their money on drugs or tattooes.  For the rest of us, the average family, this unexpected expense is not one to encourage.  So, here we are in a drought.

Spring had not been a long wet season, which in our region is then followed by a long wet introduction to summer.  The population of the North Island of New Zealand has spent quite a few years bemoaning the lateness of summer (summer doesnt really come late – it arrives on time but generally the initial two months are damp).  Many opine their younger days of long hot summers at the beach or camping etc.  Now, every conversation is about the absence of rain, or rain that appeared in one part of the region or town, but not the other.  While rain conversations are not my normal staple conversation diet, I was absolutely miffed that it rained in town, heavily whats more – on a carpark! There were huge puddles where I park my cark.  Was this a cruel joke from the heavens, or had someone spent hours hosing the agapantha’s dotted all around the carpark?  What is the point of raining on a darn carpark??? But I’m over that now.  

I have never been in a region that experinced drought. I lived in Auckland in the early 90’s and there was low rainfall and reservoirs got dangerously low – to the point that media were speculating that people would have to go to fire-hydrants to fill up containers for domestic use.  Grass was still green, the vast majority of the population begrudgingly turned off their sprinklers and allowed dust to settle on their cars without having to hose it off.  But it was scary because I had just had a baby and I was worried out water for washing nappies (yes, I used cloth nappies!!!!). 

What is a wee bit like the devil expelling flatulance in my face is that we had been cautious with our water because the spring was not as wet as it normally is, and spring rain fell but only in Spring.  When summer started, it really started – no late Spring rains in Summer!At the same time we received notification that the long awaited Council approval (Council fees and Council rates will most definitely be the topic of a future blog!!! – probably under the title “Complete and utter rip-offs – Council laughs all the way to the bank” or something along those lines. 

Any way the garage/sleepout building consent came through the same time as the drought began to be referred to as an official ‘drought’.  The garage is being built on concrete, and concrete does not come ready made – it requires the mixing with water, and hosing on a regular basis to cure the concrete so it doesnt crack in the future.  So I asked the builders if science had come up with an alternative to all that water needed for the hosing – yes!!!!! They put black polythene over the newly poured concrete, so the concrete would ’sweat’ dampening itself while it dried out.  Hooray cried the villagers (well me and the hubby actually). 

Sadly, (there is always a sadly in best laid plans, sort of the “Murphy’s Law Number 1028), on or about 9.30am when the concrete was poured, the lads did need the hose to smooth over the newly poured concrete.  The next day, on or about 6.30am after I had left for work, hubby rings me (he was dropping daughter off so was the traumatised witness to the event) and asks if I had used the hose before I left.  My answer was no, which meant AHA !!! the concrete smoothing bloke had forgotten to turn the tap off about 23 hours beforehand, and we did not notice the constant groaning of the pump. 

We ended up with enough water to flush the toilet for what us Southern Hemisphere people refer to as “Number Two’s”, and a few pots of tea.

I have spent the last few days researching how to use grey/gray water, the waste water from the house, so we can try to resusitate the trees and keep the silverbeet and tomatoes alive until we can eat the rest.  Whooooah!! Before there is readers dashing to the Council or Health dept, we do not intend to drink, bath or consume in any way this recycled water, nor bath the dogs in it.  It is only the laundry water, and it is only going on trees. We have no intention of bottling it and selling it to townies!  And we most definitely will not wash our car with it, because then we will be readily and mistakenly identified as townies and posers. 

We spent this afternoon working out how much water comes out of a washing machine, in earlier days it was about 3 rooms across the floor if you left the plug in the laundry sink.  Nowadays there is modern out pipes that discharge it magically through the floor. I have flexi polythene piping, two 72 litre bins to catch it in, and hubby will be standing by the ‘pause’ button in case our bins are too small, then we will madly dash for more buckets, all in the line of saving the life of a poor tree. 

Trees a cleaning our air for us people, not to mention they are really courageous surviving in our property with all the heat from the sand, stone and nothing to retain water at their roots.   I suppose its a wee glimmer of those doctors dashing around an ER??

Here’s another thought: the absence of water is making us all gray/grey.  Especially the poor farmers who are having to sell of their stock because they cant afford to feed them, and those that rely on milking to bring in the bacon - I mean money, the diary farmers have had to dry off cows way too early.  I also heard that lots of rural folk have found their water bores are drying up, no rain falling on the earth, means no water under the earth. 

So my fellow/ess’s bloggers, think before you leave that tap going. And just appreciate the fact that water is still coming out of the taps.  

 

Review: Angela Hartnett’s Cucina (Italian family cooking) Monday, Feb 4 2008 

Books Non Fiction , , livingnow92 9:16 pm

Angela Hartnett’s Cucina – Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking: Angela Hartnett(2007) Ebury Press, UK. 

 I enjoy anything Italian, and quite frequently loan Italian cook books out of the library just to look at the photographs of delicious meals.  I’m not just talking about how to whip up an average pizza, I’m talking about the red wines pictured being sloshed into the ingredients during preparation,the mountains of garlic,  the Luciano Pavarotti or Mario Lanza look-alikes tossing the pasta and salad with exuberance, parmesan cheese flying like snow, and the kitchen scene which I can almost smell the garlic and onions.  

The extent of my Italian cooking is dried pasta and ready made bolagnase/pasta sauces. Occassionally I will indulge in adding another tin of tomatoes and lashings of extra garlic, serving up with garlic bread (unfortunately also lovingly prepared by the supermarket!).   But I know good value wine when I see it (a trait borne out of our days when husband was at Univerity and I was the income earner – one income no kids, 3 cats, lashings of sausages, mince and pumpkin – pumpkin because it grew prolifically in our garden.  

While that was a bit more than 20 years ago, we can now afford something a bit more special, but honestly, I still prefer to hunt down those surprises in a bottle for under $10.   Last winter (I tend to drink red wine in winter – unless I am listening to opera in summer, or I am reading Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer, the crusty legal hack Rumpole tends to drink the same as me, cheap, full bodied red plonk which he affectionately refers to as “Pomeroy’s Best Plonk”).

I digress…I found a supply of imported gutsy Italian red wine bottled here in New Zealand which I can pick up for under $10 and tends to make up for the ‘ready made’ nature of my not so original Italian meals.  This much said, I have been to Italy, and the wine, the food, the people are just as I had envisaged – warm, wary, and understated.  All the men look like potential tenor’s, and the women – like goddesses in the kitchen and the perfect mother.  What can you expect from only 5 days assessment!!  I digressed again….

Back to this book. I am a judgmental person, or as my daughter would probably say, easily taken in, and sometimes I am drawn in by a flashy cover, only to be disappointed by what I read in the book’s dust cover (inside) or introduction.  So many cook books a full of meals that require hours of preparation, and a plethora of supermarket shelf contents to fill the pantry, before you can dice the garlic.  Not to mention the photographs looking so fussy, so perfect – fine for someone that cooks like that all the time, but I need something that reveals human nature – room for error/oversight. 

This book is sooooo not pretentious.  This is what makes it welcoming, its what grabbed me straight away – from cover to cover, it’s simplicity.  The cover feels like fabric, like the linen fabric of a table-cloth, and the picture looks better than a photograph – its as if you are standing in the room,  it shows a table with a slightly creased white linen table cloth with embroidary in Italian around the edge, and on the table are a couple of loaves of bread. 

This picture of homeliness echoes the theme of the author’s book, recipes she has been given from family.  There are family photographs accompanied by anecdotes about the people in them, who have given her the recipe or taught her years ago how to prepare the dish.  I felt the author had entrusted very special moments of her family life, which for most of us we prefer to keep private, and even more grateful for the simple time-honoured recipes.  It was as if I had visited her family home and she had introduced all these special ladies from her extended family. 

I will not quote from the book, as I have done with previous reviews, as I feel this would spoil the reader’s first ‘visit’ to the author’s family kitchen.  But I strongly recommend that if you are a lover of simple, Italian meals, and love the richness of this culture, then go and have a look at this book.  Please don’t dash past the cover though, take the time to feel the texture of it, because this, along with the picture of the sparten table setting, draws the reader in and sets the scene for the wonderful basic recipes and stories.

I rate this book 5 stars ***** 

  

 

Review: IT Girls Guide to Blogging with Moxie Sunday, Feb 3 2008 

Books Non Fiction , , , livingnow92 11:03 am

IT Girls Guide to Blogging with Moxie – Being a geek is oh-so chic!by Joelle Reeder & Katherine Scoleri (2007) Wiley Publishing Inc. NJ (USA).

It is undoubtably because of this book that I dived into the bloggers world.  This is seriously easy to follow from the point of view of someone who is of mature years and while I work with MS Word, email tools, and surf the web, knows didley squat about blogging, let alone how to set one up.  

The authors have written the whole book in user-friendly non-patronising language.  They introduce frequently used IT (information technology) lingo so the reader can educate themselves and feel more comfortable with the language.

I have just learned about ‘tagging’ (not with a spray paint can), ‘categories’, and ‘trolls’ (no not dwarfs from a Wagner opera), and privacy safety. 

The authors introduce a number of blogging service providers (some free and some carry a charge), to choose from.  They show how to set up a blog from some of these and they have supported their advice with clear diagrams, snapshots of actual screens so you know you are in the right place/screen when putting their advice to work. 

The ladies have also dotted throughout the book various blogs the reader can visit – sort of like window shopping, to take in the vast array of choices on presentation, information to include (or not include) on a blog.  But remember – look – dont steal.  Lets leave the intellectual property with its rightful owner.

Presentation is wonderful because they have used fairly decent sized text so I can read the book with or without my glasses!!  Headings, sub-headings and introductions to new information are bold and accurate – there is no getting lost in this book. 

While I loaned this book from a library, I am seriously considering buying a copy to have by the PC  handdy for reassurance from the authors that I can try to resolve my own IT problems!!  A very empowering book.

I rate this book 5 stars ***** 

 

Review: The Art of Serenity Sunday, Feb 3 2008 

Books Non Fiction , , livingnow92 10:37 am

The Art of Serenity – The Path to a joyful life in the best and worst of times: Dr T. Byram Karasu (2003): Simon & Schuster.

This is a seriously good read and beautifully written book.   It took me a week to read, even though it isnt a big book, just 243 pages – but I chose to read it in the evening in bed when all was quiet and savoured every page so it took a bit longer than I expected. 

For readers who enjoy nothing better than to wrap themselves around with a book with a spiritual dimension but also some sage advice from a writer who has experience and is a professional in the mental health field then this will suit.  The back cover of the book has quotes from Thomas Moore (author of Care of the Soul), Deepak Chopra (author of How to Kow God) highly recommending it.

Here’s a bit of the blurb from inside the dust-cover:

‘We all face adversity, both man-made and natural. How do we survive the loss of a loved one, a betrayal, illness, even impending death, and still find meaning in our lives? Even a “normal” life can seem empty, in spite of material possessions, success, power, and pleasure….Dr Karasu offers us the key to an extraordinary state of mind-authentic, soulful happiness- in the face of everything our life has to offer and take away. The door to this state of mind is opened by a combination of soul and spirit. It involves the soul through the love of others, love of work, and the love of community….Brilliantly synthesizing psychology and spirituality, Dr Karasu will guide you to explore the deepest yearnings of your heart’.

Now this book is not one of those ‘yet another self-proclaimed guru’ quick fix for what ails the world type books. Nor does the author proclaim to “fix” the reader.  Instead it is an honest and mature exploration of the complexity of life while suggesting that if we take time to rediscover the sacredness of life, we will also discover serenity. 

While I am tired of reading the word “insightful” on every blurb from recipes to road maps nowadays, I have to say that what Dr Karasu offers is insightful, but I would expect this from a person that has practiced psychology as long as he has and not being rude, his photo suggests that he is a mature man, and not writing a book having just collected his degree.

Dr Karasu writes with eloquence on the role of spirituality, the importance of being conscious of the easily overlooked importance of honouring the ordinary in our lives to feel fulfilled.  Each chapter is dotted with thought provoking quotes and snippets of poetry, which in my view is befitting the subject because isnt this where wisdom, poetry and art come from?   

I give this book 5 stars *****

 

Had enough of horsing around Saturday, Feb 2 2008 

Horsing Around livingnow92 9:37 pm

Our daughter’s horse has been lame since November 2007 so he had to be taped off with an electric tape from the other geldings. Sounds simple enough. Every day we have had to muck out his taped area, take hay to him and fill up his trough by carting water between the three of us from another trough a good fifty metres away.

Bearing in mind we have been experiencing a drought since December 2007, we have to keep shifting the taped area to ensure he isnt just left with dry dust. The heat is horrendous, hitting between 27 & 31 degrees most days, and tending to all the water carrying and mucking out etc , our usually laid back crew are sweating and sniping at each other along the way.  No matter how late we leave it, it is still hot.  Add to that the times I have electrocuted myself because I have brushed against the tape – who needs a pace-maker, I just get my heart jump started visiting the nag!! On the positive side, these shocks may be what is keeping my mood boyant during the following day – or it could just be the haven of the airconditioning at work.  

Well at the outset we had to invest in fencing ’standards’ to hold the tape, the tape (a reel of about 100 metres), a portable trough and trailer loads of hay bales. We accepted that these were good investmenst because there would come a time when we would need to learn how to set them up etc, and if looked after they were to be a sort of “one off” investment (along with all the other “one off expenses a horse requires). 

Of course, there werent enough standards or tape to make sure that while he was mowing through the first area tapen off, there would be another area set apart from the other horses, just waiting for him to move into. So off we go again and bought another lot of the standards and tape – this time the comments were more negative than positive, the added cost to the already growing vet calls (10 minutes total to come and feel the swollen area, watch the horse trot around, pronounce it is tender and swollen, advise that the horse needs more rest from any riding – then leave), not to mention dinner having to be late at night because we were spending so much time mucking around (pardon the pun) with the darn nag. 

Having never been taped off before there was some anxiety about how he would cope, would he try to bolt through or jump over the tape, of which we had heard similar tales from other owners who had had to separate their horse from the pack (sorry “herd”). Well he took to it like a duck to water and quite honestly I think he prefers it.

He has room service every day, while the other horses have to walk and eat around their own manure, ours just moves aside and watches languidly as we scrape up his doings.

He gets fresh hay twice daily and the others are having to forage for what is left of the now brown grass.

He gets a fortnightly visit from Florence Nightingale who whispers sweet nothings in his ear and assures us that he’s not faking it (which is my theory - I think its just attention seeking and he doesnt want to have to be worked at all through the summer).

He doesnt have to fight for room or for any of his food as it is all delivered, if he decides to leave some of his hay, he can without worrying about other horses eating it.

He has a “knowing” look that my daughter doesnt notice but what I believe is that seen on the face of a con-artist. I mention ‘glue’ around him just to let him know Im on to him!!

Anyway, Im now thinking he should be renamed to ‘Masport’ to reflect the fact that he has mowed through thousands of dollars in the last year and half that we have had him, and warn anyone that sees the glint in the eye of their child when they see a horse, to just hand over a lump sum of cash to them and say go spend it, because any amount is going to be far less than what you would spend on a nag. 

 Another word of warning, there are some “interesting” personalities shall we say in the horsey world so be warned. Your not dealing with the average rational person!  

I have seen from the side-line of a ribbon day competition the same sort of behaviour that is despised in the world of soccer hooliganism and beauty pagents i.e.  parents who loose the plot about the “pleasure factor”, and it is not nice. For example:

#Parents shouting at their child rider to “get in closer” meaning ride so close to  the judge so that they are nearly knocked over - the parent thinks the judge will get a better view of the kid,

#Hails from parent for the child to “smile damn you” as the kid stears their mount while cantoring around the ring

Having said this there are those rewarding moments when those riders just chuck in the towel so to speak and leave ”mommy/daddy dearest” fuming on the sideline because they have trotted out of the ring turning their embarrassed back on their parents.

As for me, well I would gladly swap this “pleasure” and have my daughter take up synchronised swimming or extreme chess, if I could. Unfortunately she is hooked, and while she mainly rides for pleasure, she loves working (whenever he doesnt have a “note” from his vet his excuse for not being able to work) with him in practicing the dressage etc.   This brings me to another horrible fact about the history of dressage – that dressage came about from the training of horses for battle, and certain moves were designed so that the rider during battle could trample the enemy on the ground!!! How “cute” is that? 

The bottom line is we may just as well just have all our salary direct credited to an account in the horses name! 

So much for social therapists concerned about families not spending time together – this isolation time for the horse (coming up to the third month) has us all out of an evening tending to the equine brat’s needs, together.  It could be worse I suppose. We could live in the Northern Hemisphere and have to be shovelling snow so he can get to his hay or trough.