Life Is Full Of Ups And Downs!

On the upside: I am thrilled to say that Barnaby is much better, he's sound and rideable, but the wound is still there.  Fortunately he let's me pick the bad leg up to pick his feet out, and when he does this, all the leg hair (that he won't let me clip off) moves out of the way, and I can put a big dollop of Sudocrem along the wound.  If he lets me do that every day, it'll heal up pretty quickly now. 
I nervously got on him on Saturday and walked him around in the manege.  I am much better at telling if a horse is lame by riding them rather than watching them trot up, although I know this isn't always feasible.  He felt fine.  In fact, he felt absolutely wonderful, so we went for a quick hack, which turned out to be a lot quicker than I'd intended.  He flew along the lanes and we were back in no time, with him in no pain whatsoever.  So that's one less thing to worry about.  Such a joy to have my boy back.
On the downside: Mr O has been quite ill and now we think it may be gall stones.  He's got to go back to the doctor's tomorrow for blood tests.  Our lovely friend the chiropractor has recommended that he drink cider vinegar with cloudy apple juice, as this will naturally get rid of gall stones.  We have looked into this and it seems she is right, so Mr O is doing it.  I'll let you know what happens.
On the downside: the monotony of life is getting to me.  This is not helped by the number of people, including my sister, who think I am living a life of lottery-winning style luxury!  Some days I work non-stop from the minute I get up until the minute I go to bed.  What annoys me is that this is not our farm, but we do all the jobs on it.  I clean the trough, poo pick the field, level the manege, clean out the chickens, clean out the ducks, feed the cats, water the plants, weed the garden, etc, all physical jobs (did I mention the washing and ironing?) which people seem to think they can pile on me.  I know I live somewhere wonderful and I don't have a boss breathing down my neck, but I don't have a wage either.  Missis has never poo picked the field or cleaned out the trough and only levelled the manege a couple of times before the novelty wore off.  I've seen to their horses while they were on holiday and am doing it again this weekend (and the dogs, too) but we haven't had a holiday this year, and if we did, we'd take the horses with us, and I'd still be poo picking.  At least if you go out to work you get to leave it all behind at the end of the day.  My 'jobs' never seem to end.  Phew!  Glad I got that off my chest. 
Because of this:
On the upside:  A new shop has opened next to the Post Office in the village.  It's called 'Vintage Junk'.  I've been in for a mosey round and really liked it.  There was a little notice outside saying that on Thursdays they have a get together where people bring their knitting and sewing and have coffee and cakes.  Spurred on (mostly by the lure of coffee and cakes) I decided to go down last week and see what's what.  And I'm so glad I did.  It was like a breath of fresh air.  I seriously don't see enough people from day to day, and it was so lovely to sit and chat with some like-minded women and have a laugh.  I actually took down and did some cross-stitch, which is something I haven't done for ages.  It was so nice to be motivated and look at somebody else's four walls for a change.  I am, of course, going again this week, and will try to take some photos this time.
I also said that I make cards and took a few to show them.  One of the women asked if I could do her a christening card that day, so I rushed home and made one.  She was very taken with it, which is a relief! 

So, sorry about the moan, but things have been getting on top of me a bit lately.  I am astonished to be just as busy during the summer as I am in the winter, and it's all physical tasks.  I am not a man, or a machine, and wouldn't mind so much if other people joined in now and then.  I know they say, 'A woman's work is never done,' but this is ridiculous.
Mrs O (climbing down from her soapbox somewhat reluctantly!)

Soapbox Sunday - Are You SITTING Comfortably?

I've been meaning to write this for a while, but I know that if I do you will see a side of me I generally like to keep hidden. I came across an unfamiliar phrase a short while ago - 'grammar snob' and I think I may end up in that catagory after this, but to be honest, I may not be all that bothered. Time to nail my colours to the mast, methinks.
Let me explain. I am from Portsmouth originally, way down on the south coast. Portsmouth has many charms, but its accent and pronounciation is not one of them (no, it ain't!) So when we moved to Worksop I got used to "Eh up, duck!" "I were badly," and various other interesting phrases, all new to me. I don't have a problem with each region having it's own flavour, it all adds to life's rich tapestry, I think. (There's nowt so queer as folk).
But I've only heard people in this region saying, "I was sat," and I thought it was just a 'northern' thing. You know the sort of thing, "I was sat at me desk and this man rang me..." Yes, it makes me cringe. Is it all part of dumbing down? Does it really matter? It's partner is, of course, "I was stood," as in, "I was stood at the bus stop..." Grrr! You were standing, people, standing! It's not rocket science, look:
He sat on the chair.
He was still sitting on the chair at 3.30pm.
So I was thinking to myself, surely there are some bastions of correctness left, surely one of them being the BBC, but I don't watch soaps, so how would I know if the characters in them are not 'sat' and 'stood' somewhere every week?
And the second safe haven, surely, would be publishing? Surely we're not going to see 'I was sat,' in books? Imagine my astonishment a couple of weeks ago, when I grabbed the book, 'The Exmoor Files' by Liz Jones from my library shelf and rushed home to start reading. There are several instances in the first few chapters where she says, 'I was sat,' repeatedly. My points are:
1. It's not a local thing then. Liz Jones is a Londoner (sorry love, but you are).
2. How on earth has a publisher let this pass? Didn't somebody proofread the flipping thing? It's pathetic. If we're all going to be able to express ourselves however we see fit, eventually no one will be able to understand anyone else (you might think that's happening already!) Why don't we just publish a novel written totally in text speak? That would be a long read, wouldn't it? Bearing in mind that we don't write 'kween' anymore, we write 'queen' thanks to William Caxton (so he could set up his printing press and get on with the job) it would be a shame to go back to writing however the heck we felt like it, wouldn't it? Soon there won't be any point in going to school at all.
I will now hop off my soap box (briefly!) but I'd love to know what others think, and if I'm labelled a grammar snob because of it, then so be it.

I do want to tell you a little bit more about the book 'The Exmoor Files,' though. I borrowed it because the jacket said it was about a woman who moves from London to Exmoor and buys an ex-racehorse. The perfect book, then... It turns out I stumbled onto a hornet's nest. The first few chapters are just Liz Jones totally and utterly berating her ex husband, Nirpal Dhaliwal, for the circumstances that led up to their divorce. I am not defending him either, but it does make you wonder if she wasn't who she is (she writes for the Daily Mail) if the book would even have been published.
Once I'd found that out, I started to dig around, and it turns out the book got very mixed reviews, as she's upset all the locals in her part of Somerset. She does write in the book that she lives in the middle of Exmoor, but she doesn't. She also made the massive mistake of slating all the local eateries in the area, claiming their menus were all relics from the seventies. It sounds as though she's actually very unpopular.
I did snort a few times about her antics with her horse (eg. feeding them on organic M&S carrots - like her horse would know!) and the fact that she can't buy anything without telling you how much it cost (three thousand pounds for a handbag) but to give her her due, I did laugh a lot when I read it, and cried twice, too (once when her horse bolted - been there, done that.) Towards the end she shows more of her vulnerability and I nearly started to like her. So it was a very interesting read, but I don't think I'd recommend it, although I'd still like people to read it, as then we'd all have something to discuss over dinner!
There, I've got down off my soapbox (where I was sat) as it's quite high up. In fact, if I was stood up there I'd probably get dizzy. Getting that off my chest has made my whole Sunday worthwhile. Thanks for listening. Food for thought?

Soapbox Friday

I don't want to sound like a 'Grumpy Old Woman' here, but this is something I've been noticing for a while and just want to share with you and hear your point of view. If you think I'm being harsh, that's absolutely fine, too.
The two boys that live on the farm (Seven and Ten) have a lovely little pony. Up until now they haven't been able to ride very much, largely because the winter weather was so bad, and because we haven't really had suitable facilities. We have what we call The Lunge Pen, but there is grass on the ground, and it's very difficult to teach young children to ride on a pony who just wants to eat the grass.
But now, of course, we have the school, so some real work can begin, and this is also where my rant begins. This rant really is about 'The Nintendo Generation'.
When my children were growing up, Nintendo was fairly new, but they still wanted most of the games that came out, and certainly every new console, (Nintendo 64, Playstation, Playstation II etc). We weren't made of money, so supply could not, and would not keep up with demand. They had plenty of games, though, and were deeply into the world of Zelda, Tetris and Buster Move 2 (Remember those?) and I didn't have a problem with it.
However, back to the horse riding lessons. Both Seven and Ten have a Nintendo DS each, a Wii system and a computer. They have learned that if you 'press a button' a great deal happens. Now my job is to teach them to ride. I have been teaching riding for years, to people of all ages and abilities. I can't help noticing that both boys ride as if they are playing a Nintendo game. They seem to think that they can put the minimum amount of effort in (and sometimes no effort whatsoever!) and something huge will happen as a result, as though the pony will know what to do by some form of osmosis or thought transference, or something. I asked Ten what you need to do to get the horse to trot. He said he had to squeeze. I thought, 'fine, he understands' and told him to go ahead, and he just sat there doing absolutely nothing. I was actually speechless, a rarity for me.
In the end I took both boys right back to basics. I decided to teach them to start, steer and stop. That's all. I put some poles on the floor parallel to the fence, but about four feet away to see if they could ride the pony down the long side of the school, between the poles and the fence. Otherwise the pony just walks round wherever he feels like it. It took Seven a long time to work out that the pony is not a machine, and that it would take real effort from him, involving his whole body, and movement from his arms and legs, to cause something to happen. The fact that this was a total revelation to him was written all over his face.
It really made me think what a lazy society we are becoming. I know it's wonderful to have all these new gadgets and inventions, but it makes you wonder where it will end. We love the fact that our TV now comes with a remote control, but why have we invented the remote control? So that we don't have to get up!
Have you seen the Pixar animation film Wall-E? If you haven't, it's well worth seeing. There is a big space station in it, and all the people are fat and lay on beds all day, and get propelled along and fed and entertained as they sit there, there's no need to move. I am really beginning to wonder if that's the way the world is going.
Before we moved to the farm I worked in an office. My desk was my ops centre. I had a head set for my phone, a keyboard in front of me and all my files arranged along my desk, stapler etc in front, handily positioned. I was like an octopus, if I wanted anything I could just reach out my arm, and there it was - no need to get up, just stay right there, answer the phone and type at the same time. I didn't need to leave my chair except to go to the loo and make a drink, and I'm sure the company would have preferred it if I could have abstained from both.
I am well aware that my two sons would quite happily sit at their computers all day and all night and play games, barely stopping to eat or sleep. My youngest son is now pale and very slim and arranges via the internet for someone to keep his game going while he is at work! For goodness sake, what is the world coming to? I totally understand that computer games were invented to fill a gap in the market. No child really wants to play hoopla and cup-and-ball for ever, do they? But what's wrong with going for a walk or playing mud pies in the garden (oh I forgot, children mustn't get dirty) or going out on their bikes for an hour's explore like we used to (oh, sorry, it isn't safe, is it?) It really makes me sad.
I guess that's my rant over. And I really am sad about it. Sad for this generation that has to get its excitement vicariously. This is why I really want the boys to learn to ride. At least it's one thing that teaches them that you only get out of life what you put in, that you can get hurt in real life, pick yourself up, dust yourself down and try again, and progress at something and have a lot of fun in the process. Only time will tell... *climbs reluctantly down from soapbox* but if I really am turning into a Grumpy Old Woman, I'll be climbing back on it again before too long!