Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite

Real life | 3 March 2016

Darcy trod on a screw. Five little words which, if Darcy was anything other than a thoroughbred horse, might signify nothing more dramatic than a rummage through the medicine cabinet and the application of a plaster. But of course Darcy is a thoroughbred horse. And I did end up mothering equine and not human children.

Real life | 25 February 2016

The last time I bought a set of tyres in south London I came away not quite knowing whether I had just been asked to become a jihadi bride. Of course, it was only the merest suspicion. If I had had hard evidence I might have gone to the police. Or I might not. These

Real life | 18 February 2016

My upstairs neighbours are terribly nice, but too naive to be allowed to renovate their flat in peace. The two brothers in their twenties bought the apartment together and are doing it up, I suppose, because they hope to sell and divide the spoils so they can buy one flat each. Such are the struggles

Real life | 11 February 2016

After the £1,100 quote from the vet in London I drove down the A3 and out the other side of the Hindhead tunnel in search of affordable healthcare for the spaniel. On the Surrey-Hampshire border, I found a well-recommended vet who had been in practice for 40 years and appeared to be still engaged in

Real life | 4 February 2016

If these speed awareness courses get much more entertaining and informative they might become a dangerous incentive to break the limit just to get on to them. I qualified for my second one by doing 35 in a 30 at night in a strange place. Being lost and mercilessly tailgated as I crawled along a

Real life | 28 January 2016

My attempt to have a small cyst removed from the spaniel was always going to be fraught with difficulty. My vets are in a posh area of London and have a name that sounds like a multinational reinsurance broker. This is because similar amounts of money go through their books. To save their blushes, let’s

Real life | 21 January 2016

When in India, I always appal my highly educated tour guides. They despair of me, as they drag me round the cultural sights, trying to force education and refinement into me as I lounge about on the walls outside temples soaking up the atmosphere. This trip was no different. My guide had come to pick

Real life | 14 January 2016

All disputes are now a clash of rights in which both sides compete to see who has the greatest claim to the backing of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I’ve realised this because the other day I took on a road resurfacer who I caught fly-tipping debris and as the ensuing row almost came

Real life | 7 January 2016

‘Start at the back and try to pass as many horses as you can,’ said the trainer, as we stepped on to the all-weather track at Lingfield. It was only a practice gallop but I couldn’t have been more excited if I’d been lining up for the Gold Cup. Darcy had been loaded on to

Real life | 31 December 2015

‘Sadly, the world is filled with apathy,’ said my friend, as we looked at our sad little list of conscripts to the cause of fighting left-wing lunacy in our local neighbourhood. He’s right. But I can’t help feeling, as I enter another year of what will surely turn out to be non-stop trouble, that a

Real life | 3 December 2015

Go on, they said. Go on a date. Let your friend fix you up with a nice eligible man. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Try something new. Be open-minded. Give it a chance. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll tell you what’s the worst that can happen. It started with me trying to get to

Real life | 19 November 2015

I got on a bus. Well, I wasn’t to know, was I? I just saw a bus stop by the Science Museum and thought, ‘I know, I’ll get on a bus.’ That’s how long it has been since I’ve ventured on to the London roads. Since driving became unfeasible due to congestion charging, I’ve been

Real life | 12 November 2015

By the time you read this I will have delivered my long-awaited speech to the World Horse Welfare annual conference in the presence of the Princess Royal. I say ‘long awaited’ not because I have some inflated sense of how important I am. But because I have been working myself into a right old lather

Real life | 5 November 2015

A letter has arrived summoning me to parents’ evening to discuss Cydney’s progress. Yes, I am aware that Cydney is a dog. But it seems that my vet is not aware. Or if he is, he is doing a good impression of pretending she is entitled to the same checks and balances the state affords

Real life | 29 October 2015

‘This is a two Voltarol day,’ I thought, as I popped another pill and settled into the bath after Darcy’s first hurdling session. Well, three Voltarol if you count the one I gave to the young jockey who parted company with his horse at the first hurdle just in front of me. He knelt on

Forty is a feminist issue

If Emily Hill is right in her cover piece for the magazine last week headlined ‘The end of feminism’, then women like me are in a whole world of trouble. And by women like me, I mean women over 40. The nub of Ms Hill’s argument was that all the big battles are won. She

Sabs don’t want to stop fox-hunting; they never did

Devotee of the old ways though I am, I can just about understand why a misguided animal lover might oppose fox-hunting. If you enjoy eating KFC while pretending the chicken you are eating hasn’t suffered, then it follows that you will worry about the feelings of a fox who would rip the same chicken to