Where the heck have you been?

Blogging is a discipline, it seems, so the absence of entries for the last few days indicates a certain lack of that quality, or time. So, it is either a question of priority or personal weakness – I prefer the former but suspect the latter also has a part to play.

These words take shape in the buffet car (the last refuge of the unreserved traveller) of a rather grubby train standing at platform 1, King’s Cross. Who knows where we’ll be when they are finished.

The last few days seem to have been busy but not desperately fulfilling, but I guess that is a function of measure rather than reality. One exception to this was my meeting on Thursday last week with Glyn Watkins, a fellow boarder on IM.com, who had said he would be in Bar Tat (still no punctuation) from six, if anyone fancied dropping in for a drink. Never having met Glyn before (but having exchanged posts on I-M.com) it seemed a good excuse to socialise, particularly as Phill and Sophie were at the stables and I had half-an-hour to spare.

As it turned out, Glyn was just leaving as I arrived: he looked suitably puzzled at being hailed by a complete stranger but, following my introduction, was happy to go back inside. We had a beer and a chat, during which we discovered that we share a wholly irreverent disrespect for radish-up-the-bum, self-serving authority.

The weekend was predictably busy: Sophie’s friend was coming to stay on Saturday night, so the morning’s cleaning regime was particularly diligent and involved me having the single mattress from it’s hiding place in the spare bedroom and threading it into Sophie’s room. Once all that was done I disappeared up to White Wells for a cup of tea while Phill went down to the stables.

Mark, the chap who runs WW, had the birthday flag out and he mentioned that it was because someone who was celebrating a ‘special’ birthday was coming up to take the plunge in the spa bath next to his café. He explained that the water is at a constant 7 deg (celcius) all year round, which cheered me up somewhat because I have resolved to start 2010 with a plunge of my own, but more of that in Jan. The plungee arrived and her shrieks, plus the cheers of her followers, confirmed that the deed was done. One of the party poked their head round the door to say that Mark would have eight cold people coming round for a cup of tea to warm up.

I went home with a book of dos and don’ts for horse transport, kindly sourced by Fraser. See further down for more on this subject. Once home I got on the net to book Phill’s flight tickets for her visit to St Louis later this year. I’ve been putting this off for a while because the itineraries, which seemed so simple before Christmas, have become more involved. Another complication is that the pricing offered by the available carriers varies wildly: some include taxes up-front while others don’t, so it was a matter of drilling down to find the true cost and combine the best prices with the most convenient schedule. Just when everything seemed settled I noticed that the return flight involved an unreasonably long layover in the US (Phill will have to change ‘planes both ways), but finally it was settled: American Airlines will have the pleasure of her company via Chicago on the way out and Dallas coming back. This means that she will pull further ahead of me in the “American States I Have Visited” competition. Rats.

We had a carpet picnic tea, mainly so everyone could watch the Eurovision song contest, but after a while I’d had enough and decided to go back on the computer. We were all late to bed, which didn’t bode well because we had an early start for Ilkley show the next day.

We were up at just turned five and I dropped Soph and her friend down to the stables at six. Phez had been plaited by Phill’s fair hand the day before, and just needed to be ridden in and given a final groom before being loaded into the trailer. As usual he went in without a murmur, but this time he was accompanied by my video camera, wedged against the front bulkhead: I wanted to see just what happened when we could feel him stamping about.

After what seemed a fairly steady ride down to the showground I looked at the tape while the others were sorting him out, and the evidence was terrifying! Hoof marks on the wall of the box indicated that he was scrabbling with both front and rear hooves, something that the pictures confirmed. He was leaning quite violently on the centre partition and it seemed several times that he was on the point of going down. We will have to get some expert advice on this one, because this just can’t go on. Quite apart from his welfare, which obviously comes first, my nerves won’t stand it.

The day’s competition wasn’t particularly successful. Soph and Phez achieved a 4th in the part-bred show, thanks to one of the worst pieces of judging we’ve ever seen. The winner’s show wasn’t as good as our two, second was good but wrong-legged it, and the third combination looked as though they’d only just been introduced. Soph, bless her, finished fourth on the strength of Pez’s slightly stiff hind quarter – that’s what the judge told her – which in our book was good enough for a second at least. It is not the done thing to question or complain, but when results are so obviously contrived the purpose of competition has to be questioned.

On the tube in London this morning I noticed that one of me fellow travellers was balancing a printed cardboard box on his knee. The print betrayed that the box once held chilled chips (freedom fries – ho ho ho) and that – get this – they were of a given size: 14mm, or 9/16ths of an inch. Is this a standard size in the world of the chip and WHY is it necessary to have both metric and imperial measurements? Do caterers employ quality control standards? Do they take random samples and test them with the callipers? I know a place that uses chilled part-cooked chips (The Craven Arms at Appletreewick) so will be having a close look the next time we go. Watch this space for a no-holds-barred expose.

The timelines in all of the above are hoplessly out of date, but who cares? There'll no doubt be a catch-up blog over the weekend to fill in the gaps - if I have time, that is.