Catching Up

On Saturday Sue had not planned anything as I had no idea whether I would be particularly compus mentis. As it happened I was up with the lark and sparking on most cylinders...

So on Sat afternoon we went over to visit (and drop off the show schedules for the Chiltern and Thames Valley Connemara Show) with Lynda and Elliot Carson who have the Tucker daughter, Braemar Bridie (Churchway Daybreak - Gatcombe Amy).

The Carsons live and work at West Wycombe Park which is now a National Trust administered estate owned by Lord and Lady Lucinda Dashwood. I was absolutuely stoked to be given a drive around part of the estate. The main house was the film set for the film "The Importance of Being Ernest" which starred Judy Dench. The whole estate is often used for film shoots but although Elliot was able to give me a whole list of films done there, that was the only one which meant anything to me (duh!).

The Carsons live in the converted stables for what would have been the riding and the carriage horses - the working horses would have been stabled up the farm somewhat and which is where the horses are now kept.

They have four spaniels, one of which is due to whelp in a couple of weeks.

Up the estate we went past a 'thing' which look like it should have been a folly but was/is in fact the water tanks for the big house (at least) and underneath there is an icehouse. The water is all gravity fed and the icehouse afforded refrigeration way back in the 19Cth.
From up on the hill by the water house and looking to the hill on the left (sorry I have NO idea as to orientation N/S) is a church with a very large gold ball on top of the spire which evidently is big enough for people to sit up in there and party, party.
For those of you with an historical bent, this gold ball above the church is one of the meeting places of the secret 'Hell Fire Club'. Next to the church and easier to see on the side of the hill is the Dashwood family mausoleum. Across the road from where we were standing on this part of the estate is the Hell Fire Caves - which of course one has to now pay to go and gawp at. Although realistically to go in there in times past one would have been paying - one way or another anyway....

On the way to West Wycombe Sue took a detour to RAF Halton, which is where she works to take a spin past the Officer's Mess which is the Halton Manor house. This 'house' was built by the Rothschild family back in 18 oatcake. It is built on the top of the hill - on line of sight (and this line of sight would not have been obscured a lot of the vegetation and other stuff as it is now) in various other directions are other Rothschild mansions. Because they were all on line of sight they were able to communicate with each other although seperated by many miles. No idea whether they used semaphore or lamps or whatever.

As an aside where Sue's property is now there is a BIG shed. This big shed was built over the emplacement for a an even bunker and searchlight emplacement which was used during WWII to act as a decoy from RAF Halton.

SUNDAY - was an arranged day over to Henrietta Knight of the Lockinge Stud. Henrietta is a National Hunt Trainer (Steeplechasing to us). Their season is of course finished for the year so there were only a couple of horses to be seen, but during the season she has a stable of 60 odd. Lockinge is near Wantage in Oxfordshire

From there we went to Sarah Hodgkin's of Spinway Stud at Leafield in the Cotswolds. I don't think that there is likely to be any Morris Dancers reading this BUT went through Duckington and saw the signposts for Bampton and a few of the other 'familiar names'.
Saw Spinway Comet and Atlantic Ace, mares and foals and youngstock - and 'yes' I do have pics (lousy ones of course, but..) Sarah lives near a place called Minster Lovell. The place is unbelievable (or rather the lanes are). I was so gobsmacked that I videoed from the car, just to show people. There is NO room, one lane only, no where to go if it all turns to custard and people regularly ride down these places. Have to say though that on the whole the drivers are a lot more respectful than the NZ ones.

MONDAY we went off to the Surrey County Show. Now this is a 'little' county show - it is a qualifier for the likes of the HOYS and Olympia. It would have to be bigger than Canterbury Show as far as the number of the punters wandering about is concerned but the class sizes and the range of classes is much smaller than what would be standard at say a local NZ A&P show. This may have just been this show of course though.

Sue had never been to it before, so it was a new experience for her. We went on the ring road around the west of London and then on the A3 (I think) to Guildford which is where the show was held. It started out cool and cloudy and we had both taken jackets and a brolly because the forecast was for rain. In the end it was strip off time and the brolly made a sunshade.

The number of people was just 'whew' and I am sure that for every 10 people there was a dog.

The sheep section was virtually all heritage/rare breeds and apart from the Texels and a couple of Southdowns (which did not look much like what we now call Southdowns) there were not what I would call 'sheep'.... Oh there was a Leicester of some sort too but it seemed to have the most enormous ears - much to much roman nose to be a border, so no idea exactly what it was.

The reason why we went to this show specifically (as there was any number of horsey things happening closer to home because of being Bank Holiday) was because one of Tucker's daughters was being competed there. The filly (a two year old) ended up Reserve Champion Connemara.

One of the things I found really weird is that the riders and handlers clip the rosettes to their exhibitor number waist tie. And there they stay, even when they go back into the ring for further classes. Sort of throws the concept of the judging each separate and subsequent class being devoid of preconceptions.

ALSO the bahaviour that went on with some of the stallions was inppropriate, back in good ole' NZ they would have not been 'excused' from the ring - they would have been chucked out, in no uncertain terms.

Today Tuesday I have helped Sue to move ponies about the place. She has three separate blocks from the home block (this is 'quite normal'), Canal Farm, Cow Common and the Old Orchard. So I led Amy (Gatcombe Amy) from 'home' to the Old Orchard which is at the other side of Bucklands village, so I got the chance to walk through the village and have a good pokey nose. Then Sue and I led a yearling and Maisie from Cow Common to home, which meant we had to walk past Canal Farm which is where Oliver lives. Not that this is a problem going past Oliver just that it is in the opposite direction from Old Orchard.

And we also put up a feed break electric fence down at Cow Common for the two remaing two year old fillies to move onto tomorrow. The yearling is off to Cornwall on Thursday - Maisie is going as baby sitter. Sue will drive and meet the new owner somewhere outside Bristol where the gelding will move floats. Sue has a neat wee 2 horse truck, side loading. Be great to have but I have no doubt that there would be some laws agin it in NZ.....

Plus went to poke about in the two local saddlery/feed outlets - just pokey nosing. The place up on the top of the Aston Hill (and this is the hill where the guy Martin who designed and made cars, used to use as his trial track back in the olden days - so guess it - Aston Martin!!!!!!) had a pony club camp going on, so we went and had a llok at that also. Bad, bad, PC mothers present, poor kids. They are the world over sadly it seems, the mothers I mean.

Also say a very interesting noseband (on one of the horses) which none of the people in the saddleries had any idea as to what it is. I was only being nosey as to wanting to find out..

Off to Bicester (pronounced Bisster) earlyish (because of the traffic congestion one does not leave things to chance) to catch a bus up to Edinburgh tomorrow.

And as you all know I am NOT a TV watcher, however the big thing at the moment is the semi finals for the Britain's Got Talent. They are on live all week with the final on Sat. The big soccer cup is on in Rome tonight too. Anyway have been watching the BGT. What you guys will not be aware of, is that some of the acts are, hmmmm, shall we say quite bizarre?

I will put the final results up for you, if you are interested and ask nicely :)

ciao for now