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Post by rosemaryhannah on Aug 19, 2005 12:15:49 GMT 1
I'm not very clever with the camera yet, and the colours are truer in the bottom one. I need to learn how to get sharper photos with this camera. RTFM I guess!
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carolwilts
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Post by carolwilts on Aug 19, 2005 13:42:27 GMT 1
Very smart bag, Rosemary! Is it matching the outfit you are making?
I am very impressed with all this domestic goddess stuff. My sewing is limited to curtains and the occasional loose cover. And i have a tendency not to complete projects.. so several sets of curtains around the house have the hems still tacked up with pins.. OOOpppss. I'm afraid I'm one of those people who would rather be out with the dogs or horses(and we employ a cleaner so I can muck out stables!). The one thing I do like is cooking.. though OH often despairs when the kitchen is full of pans and dishes after I have finished a complicated recipe.
Kofihorse.. nice to have you back.. I've been waiting to hear how your ride went (the one you were organising). And sorry you are not feeling so good. Know the feeling.. i can go there as well.. but fingers crossed this summer has not been too bad.
Nikki.. ditto.. wondering where you were! Is your phone better now? Good to hear you are back to riding again.. does this mean it is now cooling down in Italy? I would definatly do the dressage. Good fun if you have the right teacher. The place that Chloe goes to does, however, sound a bit on the conventional (or is the dressage teacher better?). For me it help enourmously in terms of knowing how to ask a horse to be in better balance.. which consequently makes the ride more pleasurable. BUt i guess the best answer is to have a go and see if you like it.
Aberlemno... I am sure the gods are smiling on Tam.. Sheffield sounds better than Cambridge to me (especially since she liked the archaeology so much) In my experience Sheffield is far less pretentious and equally academically good. And congratulations to her for the ABB - a great result.
Hazel.. welcome back..Sounds like you had a fun time and I too would have done ALL the rides (I love them!). How are you getting on with the house?
Ann NF sounds like you are as fascinated as me about the site censorship and ads.. Girl thingy monologues indeed! Obviously we have to work out what terms are uniquely british and use them. I believe bastard is OK.. how about bugger? I dont normally use swear words in posts but the temptation is getting to me..... I note we now have backpacking ads.. where have these come from? Unless its the references to holidays and travel.
Carol.. hope you are feeling better today! Your wish for cooler weather seems to have been granted at least.
I have had a quiet day after being awoken by my new rescue dog Ellie several times in the night, barking at the cats. Fortunatley it seems OH didnt hear her (phew!) though he did hear her when i went across to the stables and she had another go at barking at the cats. Not best pleased....
We have a temporary truce between the two dogs so far today.. took them out for 1 1/2 hours up to the ridgeway in the pouring rain.. and they are quite relaxed so far today. Ellie seesm to love water as much if not more than Skye.. but disgraced herself yesterday afternoon by lying down and playing in a cow slurry puddle. She came out completely dripping in green gloop and had to have a bath. This morning she spent lots of the walk lying in puddles, but we steered clear of the cow slurry area, so she just came back wet, rather than smelly.
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carolwilts
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Post by carolwilts on Aug 19, 2005 13:44:07 GMT 1
HA!!! Bar steward indeed! should be *b*astard! since when have the two been the same?
And what has prompted 4 ads for LCD displays?
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Post by otherann on Aug 19, 2005 19:34:20 GMT 1
Even though I live in Cambridgeshire I have to agree that Tam will probably enjoy Sheffield uni far more than here. Both Matt and Tams results are fantastic they must have worked hard for them. It's been raining hard all day much needed so not complaining. Ann when is your other son due home from his amazing trip. I thought it would take them a lot longer to do it.
Hazel I know you've just got back but any news on houses? Glad you had a good time.
Carolwilts glad I'm not the only who leaves sewing project half done, I do try but as soon as I have to stop for what ever reason I find it so hard to go back to it. I can do curtains and simple things but would never have the patience to do what Rosemary does. I have to admit I used to enjoy cooking and loved trying new things. I think Vicky being the youngest at 21 and still just at home slightly put me off. She's always been known as the junk food kid if it's healthy and a vegetable other than a potato it doesn't pass her lips. Glad the dogs seem to be more settled together hope it continues for you. Hows Mara did the cough develope any more?
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Ann NF
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Post by Ann NF on Aug 19, 2005 19:56:34 GMT 1
Hi Ann, Chris should be on the last cycling day back to Inverness today. They will hopefully catch the morning Virgin Express back to Hampshire and be home in the evening. They did make good time and apparently they both feel very fit now! Next week Chris starts another two weeks of "seeing practice" at our local vets, this time with the large animal team, so hopefully he will have a few extra muscles to try out on wayward cattle if needs be!
I`m afraid my sewing days are long over. I did a bit when the boys were babies but not much since then. My close vision is not good now so I`ll save whatever I have left for reading which is much more precious to me.
Carolwilts - the bar steward was priceless :0) I just want to try something. When Tam goes to Sheffield she will not be far from a Pennine town called Penistone ( they pronounce it so it does not sound rude LOL) . I bet the censor loves that one ....
Poo picking was abandoned when the thunder and lightening came back this afternoon.
Rosemary, your bag looks amazingly professional and very smart. I think you and Aberlemno should go into business on the internet. Imagine how much you would pay for a hand made bag of good quality in a city store? Did you manage a ride today with the newly mended saddle, or have you also been rained off?
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Ann NF
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Post by Ann NF on Aug 19, 2005 19:58:40 GMT 1
I think the censor is off duty :0)
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Post by aberlemno on Aug 20, 2005 7:26:30 GMT 1
I'll have to keep this brief as Tam and I are off to Llandeilo Show this morning, and I have to get all my chores done early to free me up. There are some rather ominous looking clouds out there though, so I doubt we'll escape without a wetting at some point during the day. Oh how WONDERFUL it is to have my family back home again, even when they bicker and fall out it is so much better than the silence of them being away.
Nikki - glad that you're back on track now and hopefully there will be no more problems with the phone lines. I can imagine your girls have NOT been amused by not being able to get on the phone to their friends and chat. It sounds like Chloe is finding out about riding different sorts of horses down the road at Siena. Tam used to ride a very disobliging Welsh Cob x TB mare (TB part well hidden in shape!) who HATED school work and would just switch off. Jen did "long and low" to perfection, but sadly, the wrong sort of long and low! Tam rode her nearly every week for a year and it was obvious that they were a mismatch, but they had limited horses at the stables, so . . .
Ann NF - And how is the "girl thingy cat" today?! Oh dear, I am still chuckling over that : )
Tam celebrated her A-level results by going out with some of the lads (her female best friends being a) in the States and b) living in Woking now. ) "Tom-he's-just-a-friend Mum" has asked her over to help him paint the garage. Now there's an offer a girl can't refuse! He has now decided to join the ever-growing group of youngsters who are travelling Europe next summer. (Phew says this mum, as he is 6' 3" and quite imposing, and self-appointed guard-dog of no. 1 daughter. . .)
Oh, bless you over mentioning your cousin Heather and offering her as a helpmate for Tam. My best friend Tricia has also offered her niece Carla, who lives in Leeds, so isn't too far away either. Tam is now getting cold feet and worrying about living so far from home, but I have told her she will feel lost as first wherever she goes, and she's still only got to hop on a coach and she would be home the same day. I am quite sure by the time she has "done" the travelling bit next summer, she will come home a different person, much more confident and mature.
I am sure Matt's interest in Archaeology will continue with him throughout life, but it's a pity that the reading matter is so dense. With an A in photography though, he obviously has a serious talent in that direction and the degree course will bring out his artistic streak.
Kofihorse - I am so sorry to hear that you are laid low again. It must be SO frustrating for you, especially when you had been doing so well. I don't even THINK about photobucket as that would just be something else for me to get confused about. I will have to ask one of the girls to help me with it . . .
Carol - Never turn your back on children. You know that old saying, "The devil makes work for idle hands" - sounds like they had a great time cooling off by your water trough!
Hazelhorse - I'm sans knobs and whistles too. I will probably never have an avatar - I'm always busy dashing off to do other things and don't have time ti sit down and actually "play" on here. I do get easily distracted though - for some reason I have been prompted to follow up my "Browns of Totnes" ancestors and have just found out that the old boy of 70 with a much younger wife and 6 kids ranging between 18 yrs and 6 mths was one of my lot who had remarried and started another dynasty! Blimey - 12 kids at the last count and still finding them in the woodwork : )
I'm glad you had a fabulous holiday with no major disasters. Life at home must seem so wonderfully normal now. Hope all the horses were glad to see you back and no disasters there either. What's happened ref. the move? Did your offer get accepted on the yard in Wiltshire, or is is back to the drawing board?
Rosemary - I loved your bag and it is so pretty. Much more professional looking than mine. I think that is what my friend got sniffy about - perhaps mine didn't look professional enough, but then they were the FIRST ones I had ever made. Everyone has to start somewhere. I will try and get photos of them with Dan's camera, but then we have to load them on here, sort photobucket out etc. Don't hold your breath!
Carol Wilts - I have spells of the Domestic Goddess bit. I think it comes out more often on the long winter nights. In summer I'm outside more obviously. Like you, I have a tendency to lose impetus with projects, (it's an Aries "thing") but I do finally get back to them. I have a half-pieced patchwork quilt for Danny over the back of the sofa right now, but I intend to pick up my needle again shortly, especially as the evenings are starting to draw in already.
I hope that Ellie is getting used to the cats now and starting to settle in better. Yuck - a steaming GREEN dog. NOT good for marital relationships, definitely!
Other Ann - I've got one of those too - "I don't do green and healthy!" Having been forced to eat some apple at Nursery school once (she hated apples from the start) she then began to extend her repertoire and won't touch ANY fruit now . . . I am hoping that when she gets out in the real world and has people other than her mother telling her this is a somewhat strange way to go on, she may give into peer pressure.
Cambridge, being such a hot-house, would perhaps not have been quite so good for Tam as Sheffield is likely to be. It's all becoming "real" for her now, even though she is taking a year out to work and get some money together for her travelling next summer.
Off to let the dogs out now.
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carol
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Post by carol on Aug 20, 2005 8:03:55 GMT 1
I know I KNOW I shouldn't turn back on the 'Erberts, but there's about five of them and they seem to be everwhere at once. Individually they are lovely, bright, chatty, funny, but as a pack..um...well !! We are a having a barbeque at out new yard this afternoon ,yes, the 'Erberts are coming, and so is Everybody Else in the Whole World thanks to OH being on the phone until midnight inviting them all from far and wide. If any of you Wakey Wakers are in the Bath area this afternoon do drop by, there'll be plenty of food and drink!! I've been up since dawn making vast salads and worrying about the weather (did I really pray for rain a couple of days ago? gaaaagh). OH has also organised a generator so there'll be lights and music, and he's planning a bonfire and Best Man, of course, will be in attendance. Noooo, I'm not worried. Much.
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Post by rosemaryhannah on Aug 20, 2005 10:29:01 GMT 1
Far from being the first bag I made! This one is in the same fabric as my top and the lapels of my suit. I think I'd say just to experiment with different styles (nick a magazine off Gabby!) and try different stules, til you find what is practical. But I agree, a job for the winter.
All my children except Grace waved me off with big smiles. They now tell me they then went to their rooms and sobbed their eyes out. I drove to the nearest layby, pulled in, and howled till I could howl no longer. Grace burst into tears in Tesco's before I left, but went back to her little flat, and was fine after that. I got back to the car, and cried all the way home, on and off. The first weeks at Uni are usually very very scary - for me, I think, the worst moment was actually going back after the Christmas holidays. As I lived in Hereford, and Uni was St Andrews, no chance of popping back for a weekend. It was 12 hours travel. But actually that second term was jolly good once I got going on it.
But I hate, hate, hate living alone, and as far as I can see, it is what the future has in store. I think I am probably very hard to live with, and I've already made one man very unhappy - I am not convinced by doing the same to somebody else! My family all tell me how happy I will be alone, which I feel is based on a take on the same thing.
I'm going out in a few minuites to drive Mace - while the day is still fairly quiet. Then to ride Jacob, in the lane I think as it is Saturday, and then to print out the readings for this service, take them to the lovely lady (ex BBC reader) who is reading them, and then to word on my skirt and on my sermon. It is all go. Oh and to trim back bushes over the drive ... the hay comes tomorrow.
I hope I do get to my dress making, I'm starting to worry over it, and doing it always cheers me up.
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carolwilts
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Post by carolwilts on Aug 20, 2005 16:44:21 GMT 1
If we hadnt been going out tonight, I might have joined you, Carol,, at your yard celebration.. if only to meet the intriguing "best man"! However, we are, instead, going to wave farewell to a friend of ours who is just about to depart on the Clipper round the world yacht race.
He's very brave.. he hadn't sailed before this spring and wanted to do something before he finally stopped doing things adventurous. He's 69, and has been previously involved in flying tiger moths (in the display team that do aerobatics.... doing a loop the loop in an open cockpit plane is very exciting, I can tell you!). So he sets off in September in the clipper race on yacht "Jersey".
Rather bizzarely, another freind of ours is also doing the same race on yacht "Glasgow". They both live in our village, and both signed up without knowing the other was doing it! So we will be following both of them as they progress around the world.
I'm jealous.. I would love to do this (come from a seafaring family with one brother having already sailed round the world and another en route!) However, maybe I will instead aspire to become a member of the "long riders guild" and do a 1000 mile horse ride instead. You can tell that my wanderlust is rising at the moment!
Mara is still snuffling. She's on the antibios now but still has a horrid mucky nose.. so another vet visit on monday if she doesnt improve. Rather a bugger, actually, as my excellent horsey freind Gareth has just offered to work with her at his yard and see if we can crack the trailer loading. But I can't really take her until she is clear of this bug. Meanwhile she is swanning about the field and putting on weight. I just cannot belive how quickly she gets fat if she doesnt work. I am allowed - indeed encouraged - to go out on walks, so we had a hours walk hack this morning.. She actually wanted to go much faster and is jumping out of her skin.. but can't risk doing too much with her snuffles.
Rosemary.... I don't really know what to say about the living alone bit. Sounds like it is painful for you to contemplate. I'm sure you weren't compeltely responsible for making your ex unhappy. and another person might think completley differently.
Personally I have an increasing yen to live alone but thats probably easy for me to say because its many years since I have. It is so nice on the occasions OH is away not to have to think about another person. But then again I don't know what it would be like on a permanent basis.
What is the special service you are doing?
I have a yen to post a poem.. this by Mary Oliver....called "The summer day"
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?
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Post by rosemaryhannah on Aug 20, 2005 16:53:43 GMT 1
Well, I'm feeling much better - a beautiful day - just about still summer. My mother defined summer as being form the opening of the first bell on the first fox glove, to the falling of the last bell on the last fox glove. We still have determined bells hanging on it there. But the bird song, as tl says, the colour of the grass, everything else speaks of a dying summer ... only it is still gloriously hot in the sunshine. Drove Mace who was a total star with all sorts of heavy traffic, and then rode Jacob. This was his first outing, as once I start I need to keep it up. He was, to be frank, a head case. Mercifully I had gone down the lane (traffic free) so it did not matter too much - but he just wanted to bound and squeal, and who is to blame him! I did tell him off of course, but he was so relieved to be out again, poor chap! New straps very nice.
After that I have managed to finish the service (incidentlly, this signature is the second half of Hopkin's poem the same one as before! A bit heavy for this board, but I hate using half of something!) and I still have much of the evening for dress making - thought I ought to be cleaning the sitting room. But if I can at any rate get half the skirt done I will feel so much less stressed.
I used to be able to cook, but I seem to have lost the ability. Odd.
Cross posted! love and love the poem - you do know some wonderful poets, really you do. What is ... well, how did you get to where you are? (answer in lass than 100,000 words, write on only one side of the paper at a time)
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tl
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Post by tl on Aug 20, 2005 19:03:49 GMT 1
Just dropping in.Rosemary I love that bag,how clever you are. I am afraid my expertise with fabric is zilch,nix, non!
Broken cloud with us today,patches of sunlight,but not too much,and great skeins of geese black against the sky. Autumn,is very definitely here with us!
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Ann NF
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Post by Ann NF on Aug 20, 2005 23:41:37 GMT 1
Well, the summer is still with us here and I have just come in from a glorious evening with DG friends , at Sarahlou`s yard and fields north of Portsmouth. A relaxed, friendly BBQ. Old friends to see again and new DG friends made. Sula`s Mum, Major`s Mum , Jenny with Kite and Abi were there in person as they are on a camping holiday in the New Forest. It was great to meet them and see photos of each others horses. Funny how we "sort of" already knew each other from years of writing silly Bestsellers together late at night on the DG!
Sarahlou`s Exmoor Moorland Mousie pony is SO much braver and better with his groundwork than when I first met him, and her Section A pony is very pretty and such a character.
As night fell it was so beautiful, watching the swallows gradually morph into bats and seeing two flapping barn owls skimming grass tops in the far fields, while a huge, golden full moon rose over the black woods.
I have just driven back across the Forest to find Chris home from the long train journey south from Inverness . He`s pouring over a map and still cannot believe that they cycled the length of the British Isles, plus a bit more. Matt is out at yet another party.....
I took Ginger for a good long walk to see traffic this afternoon. He loves it out there and called out to his mother when we saw her grazing on the village green.
Carolwilts, that is such a beautiful poem. Must go to bed, it has been a long day.
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carolwilts
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Post by carolwilts on Aug 21, 2005 14:24:10 GMT 1
BEAUTIFUL day here.. one of those glorious summer- first hints of autumn days, with clear skies and crisp clean air. Just popped in for a few mo's to check something on the computer and to see how everyone is doing.. then to mow the lawn and be outside as the weather is just too nice to be in.
Party for the world sailors last night went well.. but did nothing to decrease my urges to go off on an adventure. Ditto reading about your son's trip to John'o groats., Ann NF. I am filled with the urge to travel..... breathe deeply and longingly....
Had a good long dog walk with Ellie and Skye.. they seem to be settling down a bit now, so fingers crossed. Took Mara for what was supposed to be a gentle walk (given her snotty nose/cough) but she is leaping out of her skin... i have a growing suspicion that the snotty nose and the excitable nature may be related to the new feed i've just introduced.. so no more feed for a few days to see if that makes a difference. It didnt help that we met two combine harvesters on the ridgeway and we proceeded past as if jet propelled. She was not at all keen just to walk, I have to say.. so is this the food or the fact that she is fit and not ridden very much this week?
hope your yard party went well, Carol.. and ditto your service, Rosemary....
I love the image of swallows morphing into bats.. I am going to have to sit outside tonight, weather permitting, and watch for this.....
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carol
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Post by carol on Aug 22, 2005 7:41:27 GMT 1
Hi all, Don't know about where you are, but it's so dark here this morning, I actually woke up ay my usual early hour and went back to sleep, thinking it was still night. Glorious weekend though wasn;t it? B-B-q went really well, quite a lot of people came, and we stayed up there until 3 am. Lit a small fire and sat round it and watched the moon, all orange, come up over Solsbury hill. All the non horsey friends had left, so we sat around the fire and talked horses for hours, it was heaven. Knacked yesterday but managed a brief ride on Rups, the first since his lameness, and he was fine, so it's back in the saddle this week for me. There was an item on our local news on Friday about a couple of guys who are riding from Land's End to John 'O Groats, western style, on a couple of lovely cobs with a pack mule in tow. They stayed just outside Bath on Friday night. They organised it by writing to local farmers on route and asking if they can camp, they are sleeping out for the whole trip. Sounds really wonderful and exactly what I'd love to do, having had a taste for it when we did our Bath to Winchester ride. Next year.........? For charity...? Anyone else up for it....? Well done to Chris and Matt for their successful trip by the way, bet they've got wonderful legs. Carolwilts, sounds like Mara can't be feeling too lousy with the snuffles if she's boinging about like that. Which feed have you got her on? Hope she recovers soon. Rosemary I just can't believe you would be a hard person to live with, we know that you are cheerful, funny, caring and intelligent, and just because your man did you down (as they say in songs) it was his problem and his loss. So there !!!
I'm going back to drawing board with Tess this week. I think I'll have to start seriously long reining her again and see if she might be a driving pony after all, since she steadfastly and spectacularly refuses to let any child get on her now. A couple of people have said breed from her but it seems very wrong to produce yet another small pony, there are so many in this country hanging around in fields twiddling their hooves with nothing to do. Perhaps if I do the charity ride she could be my pack pony, there's a thought!
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