Yeah, that's all the clever title you're gonna get when I've very nearly finished my first beer of the evening (Old Speckled Hen, I'm easily sweetened up with good beer or just good booze of any kind, just FYI).

This week has been a mental one and the horses and dog were absolutely bonkers yesterday. Such is life and the grey mare has worked very hard for me today, although I felt she was a bit "brain fried" so I gave her some harder work to do with her body instead of her brain at the end of the session. I must say that she's now moving more powefully through her body with this school of training, which will be much healthier for her long-term. Hard work but very worthwhile work!

I've gone from riding today to taking care of a yard of seven (due to looking after the yard manager's horse too, I normally look after ten horses on a daily basis now) and have been reminded how back breaking doing that size yard is. Can't fault the work on my back hefting the barrows up onto the muck heap though! It's still some of the best physical work that I've taken on to keep myself fit and not sore in my back and shoulder, which I've injured in recent years. The horses are interesting to deal with, although I'm feeling a bit blue that the top mare of the herd has residual pain as she's been on a painkiller trial for a set time and her behaviour has instantly become worse once we took her off the drug. She's been through an awful lot and, although she's a big, powerful horse and hard to handle, I just want her to be out of pain. She's had a set of nerve blocks before to try to identify where the pain is coming from but she's had such a hard life (over trained with harsh gear - why I keep to a french link snaffle bit and plain bridle/noseband, no extras) that it's hard to tell what is coming up from her past and what is in her body physically. There's a lot going on with animals that we don't see until we dig into it and I do feel more and more strongly that something is seriously wrong in equestrianism.

On the car side, the person who crashed into me has conveniently gone into hospital now (funny, isn't it?) so it looks like I'll have to fork out for repairs (new boot/tail gate and new back bumper as the mounts have shattered on impact, plus new number plate) myself as I have an older car in excellent condition that is worth nothing on my insurance. They'll write the car off if I claim and then I'll only have a couple of hundred pounds, sadly, and I'm still rather attached to this little car, which has been with me through everything. Selling the old tow car instead of keeping it for myself as I'll end up with more money this way, even if it's not the "right" thing to do. I don't think I'm going to be as nice to people who hit me in future as I wanted to be understanding (surely it was just an accident and accidents happen) but screwing me after the fact is not on. Life seems to be a series of mini disasters currently but I'm not getting beaten by it yet.

Suppose I've drained my glass by now so on to the next and, as always, have an absolutely fabulous Saturday night!

Amethyst -x-