After six months of putting my new website on the back burner due to work commitments and family dramas, I am chuffed to bits to finally be online. No prizes for guessing who designed the site (thanks Neil).
Spring is my busiest time of year; Burnham Market, Badminton, Rockingham and Houghton Horse Trials all take place between the beginning of April and the end of May. Throw in a poorly mother and the resulting need to be in Sussex for much of every week, and it has been a surreal few months.
Surviving through to June is always a huge relief, even if George (my horse) picked his moment to self-harm and is out of action for a while. The plus to that is that I don’t feel guilty about not being in Norfolk to ride him. And it’s not all bad – summer is here, the roses are in full bloom, and Manners Media is now officially live.
We’ve just published our first short film, a promo for web clients Giovanni Ugolotti and Kathryn Robinson. At the back end of last year Gio asked my advice about raising their profile as a means to attract new owners ahead of Rio 2016, and we decided that a film was the way to go. With the obvious delay of waiting for Spring (not much good filming muddy, hairy horses enjoying their end of season holidays), followed by a couple of broken bones – one apiece for Gio and Kathryn, we finally got the footage in the can the day after Badminton Horse Trials.
Not only are Gio & Kathryn the first event riders in the country to make a promo film like this, I had discovered the uber-talented videographer Matt Dunkinson and he was so great to work with that I battered him in to joining my freelance crew. Double whammy!
Now it’s time to crack on. Neil’s To Do list doesn’t seem to get any shorter, with new websites and redesigns for long standing clients; Leigh, who is also a bee keeper, is haring around Norfolk catching swarms and extracting honey for local shops and farmers markets in between photography jobs and keeping tabs on George; and Trevor continues to photograph an ever increasing range of activities, both for Manners Media clients and his own website.
I’m just back from a very interesting meeting in London with the great and the good from Badminton, Burghley, the European Championships and British Eventing so best crack on and write up the minutes while I can still interpret my notes – after I have put my feet in hot water to ease my blisters… living in the sticks, I had forgotten how hot London pavements get 🙁