We have had a very sociable week-end - it's been wonderful but now I'm all partied out...
On Saturday morning we were hoping to go hunting, it was just over the road at the Thames, but because of the frozen ground it was abandoned, instead an e-mail went around telling everyone that it was hunting on foot with a few 'refreshments' afterwards. Because we had three parties lined up for that day we decided to be sensible and give it a miss. Instead we put the horses on the walker, courtesy of the salt from Chipping Warden, while we cleaned the stables out. I then took the dogs for a long walk - it was absolutely beautiful with the sun shining on the snow.
Our first party was at Andrew and Louisa's, who live in a beautiful spot just outside Market Harborough, second stop was at West haddon, Bean McCalls yearly bash and then finished off with Emma and Albert's at Sawbridge. Albert was celebrating his 50th birthday. All great parties - it is such a shame when they all come at once, but we managed to spend enough time at each to enjoy them all.
The next day we had been invited to Jude Wilson's for lunch. She has recently lost her husband (Lynn) in a car crash and it was a massive thing for her to do on her own. She did really well and it was another brilliant party. Jude has a really good horse called Punchestowns in training with Nicky Henderson, this horse is only 6 and has already earned over £180,000 in prize money. He is almost certainly going to try and win the Arkle at Cheltenham this Spring. Jude's husband always wanted a big win at Cheltenham and it will be very emotional if he does succeed. Nicky told us the very funny story of how he bought the horse - six of them piled into an 'elastic band' plane to see it in France - The vet and Minty, who are both rather large had to sit at opposite side of the plane for balance. A very French lunch was partaken and a few hours later full of good cheer they arrived at the yard with very high expectations and were shown this hairy yak that was hopping lame. It was trotted up and looked dreadful. Nicky would have discounted it straight away if it hadn't been such an effort to get there and if they hadn't had such a good lunch, so against his better judgement he instructed the vet to give it a check over. He said he didn't know whether to just get the head and the tail vetted as everything in between looked completely wrong. To every one's surprise it passed the vet - the lameness was just down to sore soles, Jude and Lynn were very keen to buy it and so they made an offer and the rest is history. Just so sad that Lynn isn't around to enjoy his success. He was a wonderful man and we all miss him dreadfully.
This morning the ground was still frozen but Ben Case had harrowed the gallops first thing and they were just about rideable. We could ride there because it was too slippery so we led Dove, Harry and Dream. I had the nice ride this time with Dream and she was beautifully behaved, Harry had a Hackemore bridle on because his mouth is still sore and he was very well behaved and Dove, who Doug was riding because Lucy and I are too embarrassed to ride her on the gallops in case she plants, was quirky and half stopped, but then went up really well. We were just in front of Alex Hale's string of horses and Doug waited for everyone to go up and then tried her - last year she would flatly refuse to follow other horses as she hates being behind but this time she was determined to play 'catch up Charlie' and seemed to really enjoy herself. We went up three times so at least we have got the work in them now in case the gallops are snowed in for the rest of the week.
I met up with Sally, Trish and Lesley for lunch and then went to do some Christmas shopping. It's now snowing outside - I love it!