Hold Your Horses

Photo by Magnus D

I can't let the Royal wedding pass without mentioning it on the blog. I was surprised that the children were more excited about it than me. Daughter number two had to work in the morning so she cleared the Sky box and had the recorder set to record every second of the wedding coverage. The son who must not be named took advantage of the day off school to spend some time with his girlfriend, he should really have been revising for his exams, but it wasn't that sort of day. I listened on the radio, I didn't think I was that interested, but curiosity got the better of me because I wanted to see the bridesmaids, so I kept the radio coverage and watched online with the sound muted. The bridesmaids and the page boys looked lovely and behaved perfectly. 


It was after the wedding that I started to get more interested. Winston Churchill once said "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man". Watching all the horses involved in the ceremonial procession back to Buckingham Palace was the best bit for me. Suddenly my full attention was on the screen when I spotted what I thought was a person struggling with a horse at the side of the parade. It was such a brief glimpse that I couldn't really be sure what I had seen. Then a loose horse was mentioned in the commentary and we saw the horse break away from the other horses and thunder past the coach carrying Prince William and his new wife. It wasn't possible to see the horse after that, but the commentary suggested that the horse had rejoined the parade.


I was worried about the horse (and the rider) and I really wanted to know what had happened to them. I checked online throughout the day and eventually it was reported that the rider was unhurt and the horse had made it's own way back to the stables at Horse Guards' Barracks. So now I just have one unanswered question, how did the horse lose it's stirrup irons and stirrup leathers, did they come off when the rider fell?
There are some good pictures of the riderless horse here.    


I couldn't think of anything worse than having to go to a street party, but the girls went to one and apparently they had a really good time. The star of the day for me  (apart from the horse) Samantha Cameron. She looked lovely, very smart but not dressed to upstage anyone and she was brave enough not to wear a hat. I have a deep dislike of hats and there were some truly hideous examples at the wedding yesterday. During the service I noticed a woman in a huge black tilted creation that totally obscured the view of the people sitting behind her - totally selfish! Apparently some people are saying that Samantha Cameron was disrespectful for not wearing a hat. I don't think so. As far as I am concerned the outfit worn by another politician's spouse was far more disrespectful with a plunging neckline, and another wore a white dress with black dots that proved see through and showed her underwear. Why did that make the story of the Emperors New clothes come to mind? Maybe because her husbands policies are no more substantial than that dress!

Making Demands

Robbie hasn't mentioned his egg box again - but I did find him staring into the fridge a couple of times! He was late home yesterday so it was after 9.30pm before we sat down with a cup of tea (coffee in his case). He told me that he was travelling east on Thursday, that didn't give me many clues, a trip to Moscow perhaps? I could imagine him in one of those Russian hats! He was actually going to Cambridge, it isn't all that far from Northampton but it is very hard to get there by train and he had to go via London.

The subject of Cambridge cropped up again when we went to bed. At 1.13am Robbie decided to run through every station on his route to Cambridge - whatever happened to counting sheep? I told him that I was sure he had Waterbeach and Ely the wrong way round, Waterbeach was before Ely. Robbie told me that I was wrong and he would prove it, the next thing I knew the light was on and I was all I could see was his rear end as he leaned out of bed to get his railway maps. He sat there thumbing through his books and moaning that we needed an extra copy of Bakers Railway Atlas so that he could keep one by his bed - great!

Finally he gave up on his maps and we settled down to sleep, but just as I was drifting off to sleep he woke me up making unreasonal demands - he wanted me to get him some beef dripping - yuck!

This morning was a rush, but Robbie had time to check his Bakers Railway Atlas and grudgingly he had to admit that I was right! He was not a happy man at all.

Confession Time

Yesterday Robbie rang me at about 8.30am, he usually phones at around that time. He said that he was in London and he wanted to say hello before dashing off to his meeting in Cambridge. I asked him how long his journey to Cambridge would take in total, it was an innocent enough question but t elicited some interesting confessions from Robbie. First came the rather sheepish question "What, including breakfast and meeting friends?" He had been to visit his old friends at Euston, and apparently his three Weetabix wasn't sufficient to sustain him until lunch so he had to have a second breakfast! Then came the confession, he made me get up in the middle of the night and miss the end of my dream because he wanted to go on a Voyager! He could have travelled over an hour later but the lure of the diesel apparently justified the early start! In an attempt to distract me he told me what we could have for breakfast when we go on a Pendolino. That man, if he isn't thinking about trains he is thinking about food!!

Lost for Words!

I was cross when Robbie woke me up this morning, I am never to keen to get up but today I was annoyed because I was having a dream about moving house and he made me miss the ending. I don't know where I was moving too or why I was moving, but I was angry with one of the removal men and I was just in the middle of telling him that I had employed him for his muscle power not for his oppinions and if he couldn't conduct himself properly he could take his spurs and leave because there are plenty of other cowboys who would be glad to get the work. That is when Robbie woke me, just as I was starting to enjoy it! I have no idea why I had that dream, I haven't moved house for 18 years and I have no plans to move. When I stopped to think about it, I realised it was 18 years almost to the day since we moved, but I hadn't thought about that before the dream. Spooky!

Anyway Robbie was very organised this morning because he is going to Cambridge via London today. I upset him by suggesting that it would probably be much easier to travel by coach instead, he was horrified by the suggestion and he informed me in no uncertain terms that people who work for train companies do not travel by coach. I could have reminded him that thanks to Network Rail, most regular rail travellers frequently find themselves travelling by coach. I didn't say any of that because my composure crumbled and all my attention was focussed on trying not to laugh. Robbie was standing there hands on hips looking deeply indignant wearing only a pair of socks and a tie! It was only later that I wondered why anyone would put on their tie before their shirt!

The Highlight of the Day! 30.01.08

Robbie was late home and extremely talkative after his expedition to Cambridge. He met lots of people he doesn't see very often but the first thing he told me about was the re-branding of the sandwiches on West Coast!. I asked if that was the highlight of his day and he said that it was. I nudged the conversation on to what I hoped would be a more interesting direction but that led him to tell me all about the queue for the toilets at Stanstead. He should count himself lucky, if he was a woman he would be used to queuing for the toilet! Oh, and the other highlight of his day - the buffet of course!

Windows 30.01.08

Robbie managed to have a reasonably uneventful day yesterday, no delayed trains or railway chaos, but he only went to Birmingham yesterday so there was less potential for disaster. It seems that every time Robbie travels north of Derby he puts a jinx on the entire railway network. He is going to Cambridge today (via London). It is one of those occasions when rail travel really doesn't make sense. It is 57 miles from Northampton to Cambridge by road with an estimated journey time of 1hr 20 mins, but on the railway the journey can take over three hours depending on the time that you travel. There is a bus that goes from Northampton to Cambridge and I suggested that Robbie should go by bus. He was horrified and he insisted that he is a railway man so it would be disloyal to travel by coach. He was really excited about his journey - because his train to London will have pull down windows!!

Dave wearing a red and white sock.

I haven't written much about Dave the cat recently. His foot is still not healing and the vet intends to freeze it to remove the bad flesh and hopefully give it a better chance to heal. His foot doesn't seem to bother him, in fact he gets into so much mischief that I dread to think what he will be like when his foot is better. He has obviously been used to fending for himself and despite being very well fed and comfortable now he is still a scavenger. He has an amazing sense of smell and if I leave food out in the kitchen he is there in seconds trying to steal it. The other day he stole a jam doughnut and when I spotted him he growled furiously and ate every bit of it, he got strawberry jam on the hall carpet! His favourite trick is to get into the kitchen bin, the other day I heard a rustling and when I went into the kitchen there was just a ginger tail sticking out of the bin. Robbie does get cross about the Dave ransacking the bin, but he and Dave get on very well because they share a passion for food. Dave's little understudy Oreo is fine, Dave teaches him all sorts of bad habits but he is still really cute.

Oreo doing a spot of French Revision.