More Horses

I'm still rummaging through my photographs . heleninwales set me thinking about horses last week and mevennen continued the theme this week with her farrier post.

After posting a photo pf Prince, the first pony I rode back in 1956 I came across a photo of the other Prince, winning the Mountain & Moorland Championship at Weatherby Show in (around) 1973). This was taken with his owner, Margaret Harvey, pretty much an unforgettable character in her own right.

Margaret had been a debutante in her youth but when I knew her was a typical tweedy horsewoman with a booming voice, two golden retrievers and a stack of bills she tried to ignore.

She had a lot of equines, a few of them really good ones, including Prince, a Fell Pony gelding, and a really nice Dales pony mare called Bussy. (That's me and Bussy - right - at the Great Yorkshire Show in about 1973) Margaret bred two or three foals a year, mostly from her thoroughbred/appaloosa stallion Kestrel. I think the riding school was just an excuse to let her keep all her horses. She loved them all.

We discovered her riding school in Menston when I joined the college riding club. I ended up on the rota more often than most because having passed my driving test at age 17, I was one of the few people at college who could drive the minibus legally. (Note I didn't say safely as I never could reverse the damn thing on wing mirrors.)

Even after leaving college and getting married i continued to drive up to Menston to ride at Margaret's because i still had friends there. This is me and Eileen Gomersall (Now Eileen Jack.)

Damn me but after saying I never forgot a horse's name, I can't remember the name of the brown hunter I'm riding. He was 16.2 and a very decent ride. Eileen is on Kestrel, the stud stallion. He could be a bit evil on the ground, but was a fantastic ride if you weren't scared of him.

This was the summer of 1975 and I remember the day so clearly because we'd just come back from taking a party of kids (Best Beloved's school) to Belgium and the night we got back I was given the news that my grandma had got terminal cancer. This was the first time I'd been threatened with losing a loved one to a long slow illness and life was suddenly about to get very weird.

So this was the calm before the storm.

A couple of days after getting the news I went to Menston for - probably - the last time. I'd got my arms sunburned on the ferry home and it was another scorching day, so Eileen is wearing my T Shirt and I'm wearing her long sleeved shirt to keep the sun off.

Annie Bennett. 1900 - 1975.
My maternal grandmother.
When this photo was taken she was the same age as I am now.
That's scary!

More Horses

I'm still rummaging through my photographs . heleninwales set me thinking about horses last week and mevennen continued the theme this week with her farrier post.

After posting a photo pf Prince, the first pony I rode back in 1956 I came across a photo of the other Prince, winning the Mountain & Moorland Championship at Weatherby Show in (around) 1973). This was taken with his owner, Margaret Harvey, pretty much an unforgettable character in her own right.

Margaret had been a debutante in her youth but when I knew her was a typical tweedy horsewoman with a booming voice, two golden retrievers and a stack of bills she tried to ignore.

She had a lot of equines, a few of them really good ones, including Prince, a Fell Pony gelding, and a really nice Dales pony mare called Bussy. (That's me and Bussy - right - at the Great Yorkshire Show in about 1973) Margaret bred two or three foals a year, mostly from her thoroughbred/appaloosa stallion Kestrel. I think the riding school was just an excuse to let her keep all her horses. She loved them all.

We discovered her riding school in Menston when I joined the college riding club. I ended up on the rota more often than most because having passed my driving test at age 17, I was one of the few people at college who could drive the minibus legally. (Note I didn't say safely as I never could reverse the damn thing on wing mirrors.)

Even after leaving college and getting married i continued to drive up to Menston to ride at Margaret's because i still had friends there. This is me and Eileen Gomersall (Now Eileen Jack.)

Damn me but after saying I never forgot a horse's name, I can't remember the name of the brown hunter I'm riding. He was 16.2 and a very decent ride. Eileen is on Kestrel, the stud stallion. He could be a bit evil on the ground, but was a fantastic ride if you weren't scared of him.

This was the summer of 1975 and I remember the day so clearly because we'd just come back from taking a party of kids (Best Beloved's school) to Belgium and the night we got back I was given the news that my grandma had got terminal cancer. This was the first time I'd been threatened with losing a loved one to a long slow illness and life was suddenly about to get very weird.

So this was the calm before the storm.

A couple of days after getting the news I went to Menston for - probably - the last time. I'd got my arms sunburned on the ferry home and it was another scorching day, so Eileen is wearing my T Shirt and I'm wearing her long sleeved shirt to keep the sun off.

Annie Bennett. 1900 - 1975.
My maternal grandmother.
When this photo was taken she was the same age as I am now.
That's scary!

(no subject)

Number one son is in New York and late last night I got an email asking me to print out, bind and post his architectural portfolio for a  PhD application he's making to a school in London. Apparently he's done this once and some muppet behind a desk in New York ballsed it up so it never got to where it was going.

Now it's a last ditch attempt to get the damn thing on to the right person's desk by Friday morning.

So this morning, via (yousendit.com) he sent me the file... which was bloody enormous. A 13 page, A3, graphics-heavy, highest quality pdf for printing on A3 photo-paper (which I luckily have). The file is so enormous that it won't load into my printer memory in one go and so the job, machine, printer and all have been crashing like a banger without brakes... many times. Even when I got it past the crashing stage and on to the (very slow) printing it continued to tie up my computer, meaning I've done no real work whatsoever, neither writing nor music agency. A complete (for me) wasted day!. It's now 3.50 and I've been faffing about on this print job for Son since 11 a.m. and the last page has only just come off the machine - beautifully I might add.

So now all I have to do is take it fifteen miles into Wakefield, get it spiral bound, and get back again in time to leave at 6.15 for the pantomime this evening. And then I have to arrange for a courier - DHL probably - to collect it tomorrow afternoon for a next day delivery... hopefully to arrive with half a day to spare.

The whole day has been a ****ing pantomime. Oh no it hasn't. Oh yes it ****ing-well has!

I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. Keep saying it. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. Keep saying it. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son. I love my son.