Family time - and ancient photos of moi

  I shall be quiet for a couple of days (unless, of course, I am wide awake in the middle of the night again . . .)  as Danny's here, and Tam and Rosie.  Danny's working from home, but came for moral support as Tam brought Keith's ashes back with her today.  I fully expected to be totally in pieces but no, I am glad he is home, and there has been a little Gallows type humour.  I dare say the grief will hit me later, but today I have them here, in a beautiful wicker basket, and am fine.  Gabs phoned me from Greece to see if I was OK.  She said it's REALLY hot there - 32 deg C or so - about 90 deg F.  TOO hot for me.  

The lovely grey pony had been a stallion till he was about 8.  He was a Norfolk Trotter - a really rare breed.  Anyway, he ended up gelded, as a super riding pony.  I remember he had the softest coat I have ever felt on any horse.  We were having a talk on conformation here and I was talking about heart room and him being deep through the girth.

I remember temps that high back in 1976, and again in another couple of not recent summers.  Pony Club Camp one year had temps like that and I had to instruct wearing rubber riding boots and start the day with my jacket on too, for Inspection.   We were staying in the accommodation block which the grooms used (it was Salisbury Racecourse) and there were bedbugs and my legs were bitten to pieces and I was going mad with itching when the boots went on.  There was no hot water, and I was having 3 cold showers a day. It would have been 1980 or 1981 I think, when I was working for Price Waterhouse and spent my summer holiday at PC Camp.  Happy times.  There's an article featuring me in their in-house magazine - I still have a copy each for the kids upstairs.  I look very young and very slim . . . about 8 1/2 stone I think.

Looking in an antique shop window in Fisherton Street, Salisbury.  I remember I used to collect little sifter spoons (50p a time they were then) and micromosaic pieces - small brooches mainly, which didn't cost much more.

Gosh, that's been a real trip down Memory Lane.  A couple of years later, I met Keith . . . and that's another story.  Have I told you about the £1 mirror?