The young lad behind the counter of the betting shop looked at me askance. ‘This horse is 200–1.’ ‘Yes. I know.’ He leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. ‘Have you had a tip?’ I looked around me to see why he was whispering. ‘No.’ He stared at the betting slip. ‘You’ve had a
‘The last owner who tried to ride his own horse got tanked,’ said the trainer, looking up at me as I perched on Darcy, knees nearly up to my chest like a pixie in the racing saddle. ‘After three circuits he threw himself off into the muck heap.’ ‘I get the picture,’ I said, running
At least two insurances are going to have to go, as I grapple with fear of penury, I have decided. My health insurance is looking increasingly pointless, because I never use it. I just keep it going because I daren’t stop it. And I think the same can be said of my ‘Being A Cool
After pulling out of my flat sale and U-turning on the idea of moving to the Cotswolds, it took me a while to realise why. But there is a reason I can never seem to find what I’m looking for. No matter where I go to house-hunt for the cottage of my dreams, nothing is
‘Are you afraid of falling over?’ asked the bored young radiologist, as he started filling out the forms. I had been recalled to St George’s Hospital to have a bone density scan. I must explain that the issue of whether or not my bones are disintegrating has been somewhat tinged with hysteria ever since I
Exciting news. We might be expecting. I say might because I haven’t done a pregnancy test yet. I thought about doing one then I thought, what the hell, I will leave it to fate. If it happens, it happens. If not, I will look on the bright side as it will save me a lot
‘Yes, you can report it, but it’s going to take ten minutes to go through the process,’ said the oppressively cheerful bureaucrat at Surrey Police when I rang to tell them about my stolen saddle. After the first 30 seconds I could see why. She kept asking me to verify that I was all right
On the basis that I might need a new boiler soon, I thought I had better sell the London flat and move to the Cotswolds. Fine, so it wasn’t just the gurgling noise coming from the Potterton Performa. I had been pondering my place in the world, which is never a good thing for a
If anyone wants to know why the Labour party is about to elect Jeremy Corbyn as its leader then they should come and sit in my back garden in Balham. I have just heard, while lying on a sun lounger, the most absurd and yet horribly revealing conversation between two neighbours talking to each other
Surely it can be no coincidence that the road by which one enters St George’s Hospital, Tooting, is called Effort Street. The taxi trundled along this road, pulling up at the drop-off point in front of the Lanesborough Wing, home to the specialist I have been assigned. It has taken the best part of two
The vet bill has been sitting on my desk for three weeks. All vet bills are cruel and unusual but this one is even more so than most. It only came about because the owner of the yard where I had the horses until recently kept telling me they were lame. They didn’t look lame
‘No, I do not do WhatsApp.’ That’s pretty much all I ever seem to say to people nowadays. They ask me if I do WhatsApp, I say I don’t do WhatsApp and they never bother with me again. I deduce from this that not only can we not now meet in person (so 80s), we
‘Cydney, we are not moving to Cobham!’ I told the spaniel in my best outraged Margot Leadbetter voice. What a sad moment. All my adult life I have worshipped Cobham as a haven of everything good and right and well-functioning in the world. A place of old-fashioned values and comforting, staid right-wingery. A place of
Insomnia has a lot to answer for. I have not been sleeping well for years but a few months ago I stopped sleeping at all. By that I don’t mean I sleep a little bit. I mean I sleep never. And since I stopped sleeping, I have been teetering on a knife-edge. It is, I
Here is what I thought happened. I thought that as I tided my store room at the stables I put my car key in a boot for safe-keeping. I had been reorganising all the tons of horse stuff I have accumulated over the years, from rugs to bridles to brushes, numnahs, girths, lunge reigns, lead
This much I know, I never want to live in an ‘executive home’, and neither do I want to live in a house that belongs to a ‘collection’ of homes that have been built to a ‘high specification’. And which feature bi-fold doors. Quite frankly, having been house-hunting in Surrey for the best part of
Why won’t the middle classes shout at their dogs any more? My suspicion is that the bleeding heart liberals, having succeeded in stopping right-minded people from shouting at their children, have moved on to stopping us from emotionally scarring animals. The result, of course, is that our four-legged friends are becoming about as unpleasant as
Aren’t the police getting younger nowadays — and ruder, and scruffier and more intolerant of middle-class women? In other words, why am I always getting pulled over for no apparent reason? If I were a member of any other minority group I would be complaining to my community leaders of terrible bias and of hideously
The doctor eyed me suspiciously as I walked into her consulting room. ‘Ye-es?’ she said, nervously, eyeing me up and down, after I knocked softly and entered apologetically, as I always do. Whenever I go to see her, my GP gives the impression of being taken totally by surprise, and put to astonishing inconvenience, by
Foolishly, I have this wild notion that one day, if the stars align in my favour, I might be able to reduce my Sky subscription. I know, I know. What a crazy, idealistic dreamer I am. But I just feel it ought to be possible to watch television for less than a thousand pounds a
