WelshD
Well-Known Member
***Disclaimer - this thread is tongue in cheek and absolutely no disrespect is meant to anyone***
My city dwelling brother loves coming to our house for weekends, he sees it as a slightly humorous jaunt to his little sister's hovel in the country with the bonus of eggs and sausages to take home afterwards
still. his financial shareholding is the sole reason the horsebox still clings to MOT-worthiness so he is of course welcome to empty our various chest freezers in to his car anytime
Being sisterly and not wanting him to get bored I had a little list of jobs I needed doing which ranged from 'get rid of the big spider that lives in the airing cupboard' to 're-tile the roof' and 'move the garden so it faces South'
The replacement of the tarpaulin on the roof of the hay store was number seventy four on the list, this is a regular brother task, I have a love/hate relationship with this lean-to creation, it leaks incessantly and so every now and again brother has a sigh, climbs a ladder and puts a new tarpaulin on the roof, heaves a few tyres up there to keep it on and prays it lasts longer than a month
Yesterday I announced that I had pushed the boat out and bought a most superior heavy duty tarpaulin costing no less than twenty of our Queen's English pounds. In high winds we unfolded this, gave it a shake and stood watching as it disappeared over the county border.
my brother squinted at the ramshackle hay store with its existing tattered tarpaulin hanging down "fine as it is that" he declared then asked if there were any indoor jobs on my list
I shuffled my papers and pointed to number ninety seven 'buy hay' and we duly retired to the van and headed up the A5
Watching someone wrestle half a dozen hay bales in to a small van is always fun and I watched from the warmth of the drivers seat while my brother and a head scratching teenager took on this Tetris-esque task
Hay on board I turned to my soaked brother and ever-so-casually told him that the local Equestrian Centre had a wonderful cafe and we should go there for lunch.
We braved the long boneshaking driveway of the centre and drove on to the car park. the car park looks like the surface of the moon at the best of times but today it was a series of lakes which my brother regarded in horror. I drove him and his city shoes to the shore and he disembarked thankfully from the craft on to waterless tarmac while i returned to the car park, parked up and sloshed cheerfully back to him in my muckers
"there seems to be a show on" he said suspiciously eyeing the myriads of horseboxes floating in the water. I expressed a high level of mildly convincing surprise at this news and we progressed to the cafe in silence
My brother has never been to a horse show before in fact I would be quite happy to bet that he has never been within fifty feet of any horse not belonging to me and even then he refuses to handle muddy rugs
He proceeded to ask questions, each one getting louder:
Why is that horse shaved? (it gets too hot when worked)
Why is that horse wearing a rug? (to keep it warm between classes)
Why does that one have more duvets than Ikea? (its a show pony)
Why is there an air hostess? (that's a lead rein mum)
Why is that person in tweed, that one in a short sleeve shirt and that one in a navy coat? (its complicated...)
Why does that person look like a Gothic funeral director? (ahhh.... that's miniature horses, its a whole other kettle of fish)
I don't like the ones with socks on (those are feathers they are part of the breed standard)
They aren't feathers (its complicated...)
Plates of lasagne purchased we sat and watched the classes, annoyingly my brother is one of those people who excel at anything he does and he was quickly picking out winners usually by finding some unique way to describe them loudly such as 'the pony with the mullet haircut' and other somesuch tactful delights
Excited he texted his girfriend to show off how worldly wise he was being by branching out and watching a horse show. She texted back one word - TWEE
The Concours class had him flummoxed for some time, "no its not fancy dress its a nod to historical dress" I floundered clueless as to the actual facts behind the class. Being a legal bod my brother was unhappy with this and so closely questioned me at length until I was a quivering wreck and eventually he concluded that it was simply a class for 'kids in nice dresses'
The supreme classes had my brother on the edge of his seat, predictions were made and various entrant's form over previous classes dredged up and analysed, multiple cups of tea were consumed and afterwards a hefty post mortem had over why his chosen combinations did not win resulting in me getting blamed because he didn't realise it was judged as a separate class
Later he gallantly hot footed it across the car park to the van dodging reversing horseboxes and once seated cranked up all the heating dials and blowers.
When we got home I asked him what he thought of the horse show
After a long silence he said "that lasagne wasn't worth five pounds fifty"
My city dwelling brother loves coming to our house for weekends, he sees it as a slightly humorous jaunt to his little sister's hovel in the country with the bonus of eggs and sausages to take home afterwards
still. his financial shareholding is the sole reason the horsebox still clings to MOT-worthiness so he is of course welcome to empty our various chest freezers in to his car anytime
Being sisterly and not wanting him to get bored I had a little list of jobs I needed doing which ranged from 'get rid of the big spider that lives in the airing cupboard' to 're-tile the roof' and 'move the garden so it faces South'
The replacement of the tarpaulin on the roof of the hay store was number seventy four on the list, this is a regular brother task, I have a love/hate relationship with this lean-to creation, it leaks incessantly and so every now and again brother has a sigh, climbs a ladder and puts a new tarpaulin on the roof, heaves a few tyres up there to keep it on and prays it lasts longer than a month
Yesterday I announced that I had pushed the boat out and bought a most superior heavy duty tarpaulin costing no less than twenty of our Queen's English pounds. In high winds we unfolded this, gave it a shake and stood watching as it disappeared over the county border.
my brother squinted at the ramshackle hay store with its existing tattered tarpaulin hanging down "fine as it is that" he declared then asked if there were any indoor jobs on my list
I shuffled my papers and pointed to number ninety seven 'buy hay' and we duly retired to the van and headed up the A5
Watching someone wrestle half a dozen hay bales in to a small van is always fun and I watched from the warmth of the drivers seat while my brother and a head scratching teenager took on this Tetris-esque task
Hay on board I turned to my soaked brother and ever-so-casually told him that the local Equestrian Centre had a wonderful cafe and we should go there for lunch.
We braved the long boneshaking driveway of the centre and drove on to the car park. the car park looks like the surface of the moon at the best of times but today it was a series of lakes which my brother regarded in horror. I drove him and his city shoes to the shore and he disembarked thankfully from the craft on to waterless tarmac while i returned to the car park, parked up and sloshed cheerfully back to him in my muckers
"there seems to be a show on" he said suspiciously eyeing the myriads of horseboxes floating in the water. I expressed a high level of mildly convincing surprise at this news and we progressed to the cafe in silence
My brother has never been to a horse show before in fact I would be quite happy to bet that he has never been within fifty feet of any horse not belonging to me and even then he refuses to handle muddy rugs
He proceeded to ask questions, each one getting louder:
Why is that horse shaved? (it gets too hot when worked)
Why is that horse wearing a rug? (to keep it warm between classes)
Why does that one have more duvets than Ikea? (its a show pony)
Why is there an air hostess? (that's a lead rein mum)
Why is that person in tweed, that one in a short sleeve shirt and that one in a navy coat? (its complicated...)
Why does that person look like a Gothic funeral director? (ahhh.... that's miniature horses, its a whole other kettle of fish)
I don't like the ones with socks on (those are feathers they are part of the breed standard)
They aren't feathers (its complicated...)
Plates of lasagne purchased we sat and watched the classes, annoyingly my brother is one of those people who excel at anything he does and he was quickly picking out winners usually by finding some unique way to describe them loudly such as 'the pony with the mullet haircut' and other somesuch tactful delights
Excited he texted his girfriend to show off how worldly wise he was being by branching out and watching a horse show. She texted back one word - TWEE
The Concours class had him flummoxed for some time, "no its not fancy dress its a nod to historical dress" I floundered clueless as to the actual facts behind the class. Being a legal bod my brother was unhappy with this and so closely questioned me at length until I was a quivering wreck and eventually he concluded that it was simply a class for 'kids in nice dresses'
The supreme classes had my brother on the edge of his seat, predictions were made and various entrant's form over previous classes dredged up and analysed, multiple cups of tea were consumed and afterwards a hefty post mortem had over why his chosen combinations did not win resulting in me getting blamed because he didn't realise it was judged as a separate class
Later he gallantly hot footed it across the car park to the van dodging reversing horseboxes and once seated cranked up all the heating dials and blowers.
When we got home I asked him what he thought of the horse show
After a long silence he said "that lasagne wasn't worth five pounds fifty"
Sort of thing my dad would do, if only he weren't so uptight !! :lol:
