Tag: Musketeer

Happy New Year!

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utahbeachDecember was a blast! The first highlight was a trip to Normandy to see a long lost friend with whom I’d gone to the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Kentucky (a total Thelma & Louise trip – it might have been work but it didn’t feel like it).

Hilary (she’s another one) has just come out the other side of the Big C and, given another great friend who’s had a bad time with cancer has also received good news, I’m reminded of the huge progress being made in treating this insidious disease, despite my heartbreaks of the last 18 months.

It was a 48 hour flying visit to what I can only call Chateau Bonkers. It used to boast the best nightclub in Normandy, had a fully operational pub as well as the nightclub when Hils and her husband bought the place, and was once home to the SS. Despite that, it had no bad vibes – I slept in a turret room and can only imagine what those walls would tell me if they could speak, going way back before WW2.

I ticked one thing off my Bucket List – a trip to one of the Landing Beaches (in my case, Utah – pictured) which was incredibly moving. The beach was deserted, the sky blue, but it was impossible not to feel the huge power of history and what had happened there – enforced, no doubt, by having driven through Dead Man’s Corner to reach the beach.

Aside from that it was non-stop chat and laughter, and I can’t wait to go back.

On the work front, Alec hosted a farewell supper for Sam, who has been a lynch pin of Musketeer Events for the last few years – we will so miss her in 2017, although I have no doubt she won’t miss us… her husband has taken a fabulous-sounding job in Australia.

I snuck in a birthday, but given the number I’ve had we can gloss over that one….

Then it was off for Christmas. I am incredibly lucky to stay most christmas’s in a stunning castle, courtesy of some ‘not-quite but sort-of relations’. Every year it is filled to the gunnels with great people, delicious food and more alcohol than is to be recommended. 2016 lived up to expectations 🙂

Riding George, long beach walks with friends, and pub lunches filled the gap between Christmas and New Year – which was wonderfully quiet (bar the monthly White Rabbit contest of course – my surprise White Rabbit website successfully knocked my opponent off his stride!).

And so to 2017. It’s going to be a good one I hope. Time to crack on and do some work!

Mud & Mayhem

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piggytommaxHow could I have thought that having builders in the autumn was a good idea – it looks like a battleground in front of the house. Hopefully things will crack on more speedily soon – we had the time consuming problem of discovering a well when the builders were digging the footings for the new walls, necessitating both extra Building Regs visits and the handing over of more money 🙁 The new room is starting to take shape though, and the re-located office has fresh paint on the walls and no longer sports a shocking artex ceiling!

Work is blissfully containable – Little Downham was my last report of the year for Horse & Hound and it was good to catch up with Piggy French, Tom and baby Max there. I’m sure Piggy will be a force to be reckoned with again when she returns to competing next year. Oliver Townend has finished the season a remarkable 1000+ points ahead in the British Eventing Rankings, while also nipping out to Australia and winning a CIC3* on a horse he had only sat on three times before the competition started – I’m not convinced he’s human.

Closer to home we found out that Sam is leaving Musketeer, her husband having taken a job in Australia – exciting for her but gutting for us. She’s going to leave very big shoes to fill.

This is the time of year where I tend to hunker down, catch up on the things that fell off my To Do list, royalalberthalland make plans for next year – I’m still seeking that elusive light bulb moment as to how to revolutionise the lives of all my clients, but I’m sure it will come.

Growler braved the builders and came to stay for a few days of beach walks, chat and good food, and I have even ventured down to London which is a rare event for me these days. I was thoroughly spoilt with one friend taking me to tea at The Wallace Collection and another to see Michael Morpurgo and Joanna Lumley read the story of War Horse at the Royal Albert Hall.

How things change on the turn of a card though. Louise, who I went to the RAH with, parted company with her horse out hacking two days later and now has a broken back. Fortunately she will recover, but what a reminder that we don’t know what’s around the corner. I’ve been holding extra tight when riding a newly-clipped George recently; strong winds and a plentitude of pheasants in the hedges is proving exciting.