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
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
‘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
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
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
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
‘Milk?…Milk!’ rages Nirmal Sethia, clutching the side of the table in ill-disguised apoplexy. ‘If you put in milk and sugar then you have destroyed the taste! Destroyed it!’ I apologise and say I will happily drink my Earl Grey black. The truth is, I don’t have much choice, because I am trapped in a basement
‘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
Jack Nicholson’s moving portrayal of a lonely old man in About Schmidt convinced me that I should sponsor a child. You may remember the scene at the end: he gets a letter from a nun in the Tanzanian village where a little boy has been receiving his largesse and realises that his life has not
‘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
