A Bloggy Blog

Just to prove that I do leave the house sometimes! And yes, today’s account thus far is a little boring, but I have no intention of writing these very often.

Got up at 8 (a lie-in for those who keep ponies!) and decided to brave the cold and cycle to the stables. And because this trip involves cycling down a very muddly bridleway, this involves cycling in wellies (took a bit of getting used to, but I am now fully competent in this discipline). And this marvellous cycling helmet fleece cover thing Sarah gave me. Yes, it looks like I have fleecy roadkill on my head, but … it has earflaps! It is warm! And I’ve never been one for vanity when it really is uncalled for (I never understood girls who save on the cloakroom and stagger around town in miniskirts and strappy tops at 3am in February. Aren’t you cold?). Said Hello to pony Alfie and his new donkey friend on the way, and was thinking, once again, how nice it would be to have a donkey, but dismissed this idea (again), because I can barely cope with the one pony.

Got to the yard to find pony in a mood. Don’t blame her, the poor thing isn’t allowed out in the field at the moment. She is, however, allowed half an hour in the dirtpaddock every day. Once I managed to get her in there, after being dragged across the carpark by an eagerly trotting pony (with her current ailment, she is NOT supposed to trot around, let alone on hard surfaces such as carparks. But since she is on industrial strength painkillers, she doesn’t see the point of this). Then I had a chat with my friend Helen while I mucked out. Helen is currently in pursuit of an interesting soil sample for her college class (Helen is in her fourties and in pursuit of a new career. She is technically an arborist but getting a bit old for climbing up trees for a living). Overall, Helen is ace, if slightly mad (but since I much prefer slightly mad people to sane people, that is okay!).

Meanwhile back in the paddock, pony Angel decided she now had enough of being in there, because there was a) tractors going past (she sees those every day, but likes to pick random ‘Today all farm machinery is LETHAL!’ days) and b) her friend walked past on his way to the field (so she got annoyed that she wasn’t allowed to join him). Cue more running around on hard ground (noooh!), cue angry huffling (take me out! Take me out!). Cue me caving in and bringing her back to the stable somewhat prematurely.

I also managed to soak best part of my jeans with the help of a leaky hosepipe. When you turn on water you do not expect a jet of icy water attacking you sideways! But, since I was going to get drenched later, anyway, hanging up a soaked haynet (ever tried this? These things are quite heavy, they’re dripping water and they’re very unwieldy when you’re trying to hang them on a hook that’s about 4ft above the floor, whilst trying to keep it up with your knee).

Then I dragged my soggy self back on the bike again and headed for home. Stopped on the way to say Hello to my friend Saskia’s pony who was stood by a hedge (more about this later). Next stop Post Office. An internet friend from back home had sent me some stuff for Angel which I have been arguing about with Parcelforce for weeks now. I was expecting a small packet containing a small bottle of colic drops for ponies. I was NOT expecting a massive parcel. I somehow managed to get it home by balancing it on the handlebar whilst pushing the bike. The whole contraption only fell over once, which is not bad going. On opening the parcel, my faith in humanity was restored once again. Dear Christina had packed it full of interesting wares! Like a pile of German horse magazines, a whole selection of homeopathic remedies (with handwritten instructions!), linseed, haypellets, some other stuff you can turn into a mash for sickly ponies and a lovely letter from her, too. I will have to return the favour! Amazingly, I opened up one of the magazine on a random page and … what should I find but a long article about a TV series I LOVED as a kid. It was set in Iceland and shown in about 1985 (a story about two brothers somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Iceland) and it was that series that made me obsessed about Iceland (I STILL haven’t been!!). The article was about how they filmed it and even had a little interview with one of the main characters (who is now grown up and an opera singer! How weird is that!). I had a massive crush on this then- child-actor when I was little and even wrote him a letter once! In English! Despite the fact I didn’t speak (let alone write!) any English in the mid-Eighties. He never replied, of course.

Ah now I forgot to mention what happened when I got home. Went upstairs to find my flatmate and a strange man (yet another!) staring at a map. ‘This is Pierre, my navigation teacher!’. You WHAT? ‘Hello Pierre, the navigation teacher!’. I still have no idea what this was about. Home tutoring in navigation? Huh? And where did this Pierre come from? Mind you, there’s so many strange comings and goings in my flat, I have stopped asking questions by now.

I then had a bath (reading LoveIt! Magazine, because I LOVE reading utter trash in the bath. Did you know that Nicky from Big Brother has now developed OCD?), some pasta, fixed an Aldi candle, cooked some Henna (I am wearing a clingfilm Henna turban on my head as I type this, by the way. Looks a bit like a sludgy space helmet) and stuck it on my head.

Then I got a text from my friend Saskia (who own aforementioned pony that was by the hedge!) informing me her pony had been bad and escaped through a hole in the fence and was finally found eating grass he really shouldn’t by the powerstation next to his field. Oops, baaaad pony. Hope it won’t make him sick.

Later on, I shall be going to the cinema to see Juno, because Barnet Odeon has it on a week early and I read the soundtrack is really good (Moldy Peaches! Kimya Dawson!). Reuben rather helpfully braved the automated ticket hotline. According to his text, this went along the following lines: bloody automated voice recognition. And jaunty voice ‘you wish to book nine tickets for alien 5 for mon-day the ninth-of-july 2000 and 11. To confirm, say ‘cabbages’. Sorry, I didn’t under-fivesecondgap-stand. Did you mean ‘mattress’? Say ‘nautical’to confirm.

And I will not be able to attend Andy’s birthday do at Stay Beautiful, after all, because I have to be up early for pony duties tomorrow, because I shall venture down to Camberwell in the afternoon too visit a hospitalized friend. I was going to lend him an amusing book, but since he had his appendix removed recently and then had another operation, I figured it’s probably best to not have him laugh too much, as laughing is likely to cause the poor guy agony. Having had my amusing dad visit me after I had my appendix out, I know what I’m talking about. You do NOT want to be laughing with a gaping hole in your stomach. My dad was only trying to be helpful, of course. He did this to my mother as well and thought it would help things (well, me in that case!) along if he cracked lots of bad jokes when the poor woman was in labour. So I was basically born to the sound of some atrocious Knock!Knock! type jokes and an array of very bad puns … which would explains a few things about me.