29. December 2009 by admin.

As I was mucking out this morning I was in a reflective mood as I have been for the past week or so. I have such a full and varied life and this past month sums it up. In December alone I have saved a dogs life in court, been to a memorial service, celebrated some wonderful moments with my beloved family and with my friends, laughed, cried, worked with some difficult dogs, helped horses in distress, written, blogged, attended some wonderful events with my family with our celebrity hats on, enjoyed the company of our own animals, reconnected with old friends and made new ones too. I have been interviewed on the radio and for a magazine about my new book co-authored with my good friend Marie Miller and had meetings to discuss future television projects. 

This is my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way but if I had to choose one part of my work that I had to concentrate on it would, without doubt, be the rescue side.  Standing in the icy yard at the IHWT last week, drinking a cup of hot coffee whilst listening to Fairytale of New York playing on the radio I turned to look at the bay show jumping mare looking over her door with a look of total joy in her eyes and I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that this aspect of my job is where my heart truly lies.

May 2010 bring you all that you hope for and I wish you, and your animals, well.

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29. December 2009 by admin.

Sometimes I despair of fellow man.  The story of the Kilkenny Horses is horrific and I am so proud of Sharon and her team for managing to rescue 41 out of the 60 abandoned horses. Sadly some were sent to slaughter but the IHWT team worked for two days removing the majority of the horses and bringing them into their care.  You can read more about the rescue and, if you are in Ireland, find out how you can help by fostering these beautiful animals by visiting the website at http://www.ihwt.ie.

I worked with ten horses in total over the two days concentrating more on the most needy cases.  Thank heavens for the work that I do.  There were six horses that couldn’t be haltered and three out of these six panicked every time anyone approached.  The sight and sound of traumatised horses throwing themselves around a box in blind panic because a human is near them is desperately sad and also potentially dangerous as they will do anything to keep themselves safe.  I had managed to get two long dressage sticks into my luggage and thank heavens I did.  The calm, gentle process of accustoming the horses to the movement of the sticks, then touching them for the briefest of moments, before progressing to stroking them on the chest, then the front legs etc began on the Monday morning.  When working with horses such as these, I will only spend a few moments at a time working through the steps.  With ten to work with it was easy to remember to keep the sessions short as there was so much to do in such a short amount of time.

Fortunately the horses knew what feed was all about having been at the IHWT for a few weeks and Bev (yard manager) and I worked as a team going from one stable to the next holding buckets of feed and stroking them with the schooling sticks.  From total hysteria in the morning, we achieved calm by the afternoon. One little mare, who has a gorgeous roan filly at foot was perhaps the worst, but as the day progressed I was able to start touching her with my hands.  We were also able to stroke her down her legs with the sticks and tap each hoof as well. I worked along her body and even down her tail which is huge given that fearful horses are usually very sensitive about having their extremities handled. All in all, it only took about 40 minutes to go from sheer hysteria to standing quietly whilst Bev and I worked with her and I always think about situations like this when people try to tell me this way of working with horses is long winded.

 Another horse I worked with was a beautiful show jumping mare who was meant to be put on the slaughter lorry.  She collapsed near the ramp and was rescued by the IHWT . She had the eye of a horse that has given up.  If you have ever had the misfortune to see this you will know just what I mean when I say it is a look that haunts you forever. It isn’t just dull; it is an eye that is filled with such deep sadness that it breaks your heart.  Every time anyone touched her she flinched and trembled so heaven knows what sort of horrors she has experienced.  Although she was desperately depressed, she could be handled if you were quiet and careful with her and I started with the gentle body TTouches.  Although she did initially flinch, the warmth of the gentle movements over her body worked their magic and she began, lowering her head, closing her eyes and sighing deeply.  By the end of the afternoon she stopped moving away when someone entered her stable and there was a look of hope in her eye.

The second day was as amazing as the first.  The petrified mare with the roan foal was fantastic as I taught her to carry a light rope around her neck before making it into a little head collar.  Bev and I were then able to progress to getting a proper head collar on her.  Four more were head collared without any fuss or stress as well which meant that they were able to be turned out to stretch their legs in the fields.  We started teaching another mare the steps for leading as she is off to a new home and the beautiful show jumping mare was unrecognisable. I nearly walked straight past her when I arrived on the yard on the Tuesday as she was looking over her stable door with bright, shining eyes. Wonderful. 

There are more stories too but I cannot write in detail about each and every horse as this blog would be far too long.  Perhaps I will write more in a future blog and I will be going back for sure.  I made it home with only a slight delay and am now ready to finish the shopping and enjoy a quiet Christmas with my gorgeous family.

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29. December 2009 by admin.

I have almost finished working now having seen my final client (dog) on Saturday.  The session was fantastic and I rarely work this close to Christmas but couldn’t turn them down.  The dog was amazing and I will see them again in the New Year.  I am now in the process of packing for a quick trip to Ireland as I received a text from Sharon who set up the Irish Horse Welfare Trust before I went to London.  The charity have recently rescued 41 horses from a farm in Kilkenny and whilst twenty have already been successfully put out on foster, there are several that are in desperate need of help. Some are virtually wild, others deeply traumatised and many have foals at foot.  I am hoping that the snow that is due will not leave me stranded in Ireland over Christmas.

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29. December 2009 by admin.

Another wonderful few days and I am now feeling upbeat and festive.  The past few weeks have been great and the last few days amazing.  It started with the Russell Howard show at Wembley on Sunday night (hilarious) and continued until today as Tony, Emily, Daisy and I were staying in our favourite hotel in Covent Garden to celebrate Emily’s 21st birthday.  We also celebrated Daisy’s eighteenth as we had not been able to as her birthday was in March which was a hideous month for us all.  The girls went ice skating at the Natural History Museum whilst Tony and I watched (my ice skating years are definitely behind me) and I think that Emily made the right decision in turning down the opportunity to appear on Dancing on Ice (or Strictly Come Icing as I call it).  She isn’t quite as sporty as Daisy is and I swear when her class were told to label their new Hockey sticks at school that Emily wrote ‘Please Take Me’ on hers as she only had it for one day.

I also had the most amazing experience on Emily’s birthday.  Tony has been rehearsing in The Cut near the Old Vic Theatre for Six Degrees of Separation and the girls and I walked over Waterloo Bridge to meet him for lunch.  On the way we passed the National Theatre and met him in the Young Vic Theatre which is just down the road from the rehearsal rooms.  One of Emily’s God Fathers is a wonderful man called Michael who used to be a dresser at the National when Tony and I were working there. Michael then moved on to run the cafe at the Young Vic where my mother also worked after leaving the National. I used to take Emily into the theatre on a regular basis to see my mother and Michael and we also spent many wonderful weekends in each others company but when he left the Young Vic several years ago we lost touch. We were all talking about him at lunch whilst we were eating in the new cafe in the Young Vic (it’s not as good as it was in Michaels day!) and I made a resolution to reconnect with him as we still have friends in common.  It must have been nearly ten years since we last saw him.

After lunch the girls and I headed back to Covent Garden and split up so that we could buy some Christmas presents for each other.  I also wanted to buy some truffles for the girls for their Birthday Celebrations but could not remember where the shop was.  I asked several people but their directions were wrong and I spent an hour wandering around, buying gifts and trying to locate the darned chocolate shop.  I suddenly had a brain wave and remembered where it was.  The shop is small and as I entered the store had to ask a customer standing by the till to let me pass.  He turned around and IT WAS MICHAEL!!!!!!! We stood there staring at each other and hugged and squealed and hugged again.  How amazing is that? And on Emily’s birthday too.  I called the girls immediately and they were as stunned as I was to see him again.  He doesn’t even live in the area and had I found the shop straight away I would have missed him. We spent the next few hours catching up and it was as though we had seen each other only the week before.

Emily’s birthday ended with a meal at The Ivy and then drinks for around twenty of her friends in the glorious library and meeting room at the Covent Garden Hotel.  Friends from her school days in Bath, her time at the Brit School and from The Inbetweeners came to celebrate with her and we despatched them to a night club just before midnight before we headed to bed. 

I had a meeting with a television company this morning and then met up with my daughters for lunch. Snow was falling outside and we all felt at peace and very content. I left them in London and caught the train back to Bath in the afternoon. 

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29. December 2009 by admin.

I was up at 4.30am.  I am appearing at Crown Court as the expert for a dog case today. There was a destruction order on the dog and something in the paperwork that I had been reading woke me early as it didn’t tie up in my opinion so I spent a few more hours going back through all the information and photographs I had been sent.  I obviously can’t really go in to details but Crown Court is an alarming experience if you are faint hearted. Fortunately I am not and Tina and I did have a couple of funny moments. The first was on the Park and Ride Bus when we asked which would be the nearest stop to the street we needed to get to.  ‘Oh that’s where the Courts are’, the driver said.  I replied ‘Indeed, that is where we are going.’  The look on his face was hilarious, a combination of shock mixed with a hint of nervousness and I had to assure him that we did require returns, not two one way tickets.  The second was on entering the lift at the Court House.  An alarm sounded and a recorded voice told us in no certain terms to get out, get out, as the lift was overloaded.  The lift was huge, we were the only people in it and we hadn’t even eaten breakfast at that point.

The Judge and the Magistrates were wonderful and watched my video assessment of the dog and read through my report.  After being grilled by the Prosecution for what seemed like an age, judgement was served and the Destruction Order was lifted.  There were tears of relief all round.  This case had been hanging over me for a month, as it had for the dog’s owner and I am so, so happy that we got the just result that we all so desperately wanted. Brilliant.

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29. December 2009 by admin.

I have had a wonderful day.  Tony, Emily, Daisy and I were invited to the Woman’s Own Children of Courage Awards but Daisy is still recovering from the bug so couldn’t come. We all love this ceremony and we try to go every year but sometimes our work schedules make it impossible for us to attend.  This is one of my favourite events of the year and marks the start of Christmas for us.  The stories of the children who are receiving the awards are always moving and highly inspiring. 

The day starts with a service at Westminster Abbey followed by lunch at the House of Lords and it has become a tradition that Tony and I always sit with the hilarious, gorgeous and supremely talented Lee Pearson who also attends every year.  We always have such great fun at this event and reconnect with people that we have worked with over the years so it is always a fantastic day all round.  Tony left early to go back to rehearsals and I headed back to Surrey to pick up Daisy and drive her back to Bath.  I also took Emily’s luggage back to the flat as she is staying in town for a while until her Birthday next week but completely forgot to drop it off.  Fortunately I was only part way round the M25 when I remembered but it did mean that we didn’t get home until later than planned.

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29. December 2009 by admin.

Tony and I attended a memorial service today in London.  It was a beautiful service but incredibly moving and we are both feeling rather low.  The service was held in a theatre in The Strand and Tony and I parked our car in the car park at the National Theatre and walked across Waterloo Bridge.  Tony and I met at the National 26 years ago as my mother ran one of the departments there and I spent many happy years working front of house and also back stage in my mother’s office. Today was certainly a day for reflection and a funny mix of joyful memories as Tony and I reminisced, but marked with incredible sadness at all the losses of the year.

I am not sure how I feel about Christmas approaching.  I usually love Christmas but this year so much has changed and I know that the first Christmas without my parents and Tony’s father is of course going to be emotional at times.  I am also hideously unprepared as I can’t get into the Christmas spirit at all.  I have not been moping about, just incredibly busy and just don’t feel inspired to go Christmas shopping. I am of course looking forward to spending some uninterrupted time with Tony and our daughters but a little of the joy I usually feel has definitely gone this year.

Daisy has been filming in London for the past three weeks but has been struck down with a hideous bug.  After the memorial service Tony and I drove down to Surrey to pick her up and take her to film her final scenes.  It is a night shoot poor thing and the last thing she feels like doing but she will get through it and the production team will take good care of her.

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5. December 2009 by admin.

3 Dec 2009

We arrived home on Sunday and Tony started rehearsals on Monday. After a week of clean, civilised living I was straight back to being knee deep in mud (well almost). The drive that leads to our stables at home was under water on Sunday and I understand that it had been like this all last week. The donkeys were unimpressed. They don’t do rain as they have a different coat to horses. They insisted on making their grievances known by standing by the gate and bellowing as opposed to waiting sensibly in the field shelter until I appeared. And it is soooooo cold.

I have had the usual “can we have an article today please” emails, plus a meeting with the manufacturer of our new dog harnesses and interviews to do regarding the publication of the new book - and I have only been home for a few days! In New Canaan (where we were recently in the US), there is a great community programme that is aimed at enabling the older residents to remain in their homes for as long as possible, offering lifts to the shops and arranging a whole host of social activities. It’s called ‘Staying Put in New Canaan’ and as I was walking across the top 26 acre field in the company of bouncing, muddy dogs, with the biting wind numbing my face and ears and the rain beginning to fall once again, I was tempted to return and see if I could also sign up.

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5. December 2009 by admin.

27 Nov 2009

I think Thanksgiving is a very civilised holiday. There is excitement, good food and great company but without the stress of a manic build up. Unless you are a turkey of course! We spent a wonderful day yesterday with Jane’s friends who invite us every year and we walked around their lovely neighbourhood with all the children in the afternoon before heading back for pie, pie, pie. Apple pie, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. Yup; we went pie mad. (How weird does that word look now that I have written it several times?)

We headed out to Westport today to buy new light fittings and visit a jewellery store. On the way back to the car we all played a silly game of tag as compensation to the boys for dragging them round the shops. We were trying to run around the grass on one side of the car park but I had boots with heels and Tony and Jane had heavy winter coats so we weren’t exactly fleet of foot. ‘Base’ was a piece of modern art, and the trees provided some much needed sanctuary at times, but the more we laughed, the more ridiculous our running became. As we were playing we all noticed a funny smell in the air but desperate not to be the next ‘it’, we paid little attention to the acrid aroma. The game went on for some time until the combination of hysterics and vain attempts to run across unlevel ground to ‘base’ proved all too much. We stopped and turned to face the car and our jaws dropped. Another car in the parking lot, just a few metres away from where we had been playing, had flames flickering from under the bonnet. The Fire Chief’s car, the police and a huge fire truck were all in attendance and the area was filled with fire-fighters and on lookers. So intent were we on running round in circles we had been completely oblivious to the whole thing!

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5. December 2009 by admin.

24 Nov 2009

We are now in New Canaan in Connecticut and Tony is busy building Lego with my nephews. We left New York yesterday after a perfect day, catching the train from Grand Central, which is one of the most stunning stations ever built. The Museum of Modern Art was a great success although it was a while before we tracked down the Kandinskys. They had been moved to the upper floor for the Bauhaus exhibition. On the way around the museum I came across my all time favourite painting - Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh - and I had to keep returning to the fifth floor to stand in front of this rich, glorious piece of work. I have always loved Van Gogh having been enthralled by a visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam as a child.   

MOMA is also home to this lovely Magritte entitled Empire of Lights 11 which Tony and I were both drawn to. I don’t think it is particularly typical of Magritte’s usual style but perhaps I simply didn’t pay enough attention in History of Art class.

It’s heaven here with my family and New Canaan is such a great place to visit. Once the Alien Force Super Duper Flying Whizzing Lego thing has been constructed we will all head out for supper.

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