17. June 2010 by admin.

It was great to spend time with Tony as we won’t see each other now for a good few weeks. I finished this blog on the Eurostar on my way back to England. It is the most civilised way of travelling to Paris by far and I was back in time to walk dogs, see the horses and catch up with emails before packing for my trip to the US. I am going to New York with my daughter, Emily, to visit my other daughter, Daisy, travelling to Connecticut to see my sister and nephews, then flying to Salt Lake City on Saturday where I will meet up with friends. We will then drive to the Bitterroot Mountains in Wyoming.

I will be spending six days at Bitterroot with young horses and writing more articles for a UK magazine and some South African websites, and I am so looking forward to the trip. I haven’t been to Wyoming for well over ten years and it is a brilliant place to be. So the next time I blog I will be sitting in the wonderful mountain setting of the Bitterroot Ranch whilst Arabian horses mill around my cabin. Divine

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17. June 2010 by admin.

We were picked up at 10.15am and are now in Pierrefonds where Merlin is filmed and the castle is spectacular. I feel full of the joys of life (or should that be joie de vivre?) and totally clear headed today and am so happy that I have been able to accompany Tony to work. This is the third series of Merlin and for the past two years I have been trying to come and visit him in France but the parts that are filmed in Pierrefonds have always clashed with my own work commitments. Tony has been filming in the courtyard this morning and I have been wandering between the two sets as tournament scenes are also being filmed in the castle grounds.

One of the horses that they are using in Tony’s scene has to stand quietly whilst the cameras roll as Arthur makes his way down a stone staircase leaving Morgana and King Uther standing on the castle steps. Arthur then bids farewell and mounts before riding off through the castle gates. As the word ‘action’ is known to the horse, and usually signifies the start of some exciting activity, the word ‘casserole’ is being used instead to ensure his hooves remain firmly on the spot until he is mounted. I hope this isn’t a threat!

The second horse is rather livelier in spirit but is so beautifully trained. The handler was using a long stick fashioned from a length of willowy branch to gently touch the horse on his legs and on his hindquarters to ask him to step neatly onto a small length of carpet when he wasn’t being filmed so that the sound of hooves on the cobble stones didn’t disturb the filming. Fantastic to watch and I am thrilled that I have found a use for the willow saplings I managed to drown last year. Both horses take all the cameras, cables, lights, tracks, trucks and noise in their stride. Nothing seems to faze them and they are genuinely calm, not just trained to remain rooted to the spot.

The tournament horses are stunning and of course their training is also supreme. There are several horses in this scene and the moment ‘action’ is called, the horses and the riders engage immediately in close combat. There are horses whizzing around in a tiny space whilst their Knights do battle but the minute the word ‘cut’ is heard they all stop moving and stand quietly waiting for the next direction. It’s very impressive. I have been talking to the trainer and he has invited me and Tony out to the stables to watch the horses train. It’s an offer I am most definitely going to accept. I like his philosophy - he takes what the horse offers and if one is reluctant to rear on cue he teaches it something else instead. As he said “why make a horse do something he doesn’t like to do? Some people are good at Maths and others English - it is the same for the horse.” How true.

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17. June 2010 by admin.

Je suis en France! Merveilleux! Tony and I had a very civilised night near the Bastille watching England vs USA in the World Cup (how disappointing was that?) and we woke up divinely late this morning and walked down into Le Marais to eat lunch in a wonderful restaurant. I so love sitting outside drinking coffee watching life go by and Paris is the best place for that. We wandered around the Jewish Quarter all afternoon and bought some beautiful decorative wall tiles by a Canadian designer named Sid Dickens, which would make beautiful gifts, and then collected our luggage before heading back to the Gare du Nord to catch the train to Compiégne where Tony stays when filming in France.

It’s been good taking time out and great fun wandering around Paris, but today for some reason I feel totally disconnected from myself. If I had to put it into words it would be like having a cold and knowing that the fine cuisine that you are eating is a glorious, aromatic medley of perfect flavours but you just can’t taste or smell a thing. I guess it has been a strange few weeks for me in terms of emotions, and spending time away from home without any responsibilities has given permission for these emotions to surface. I thought I would feel a sense of achievement and relief on reaching the anniversary of my father’s passing on June 1st as the months that followed my parents’ deaths were filled with constant reminders that they were no longer with us. But I don’t. We had all, in our own ways, prepared ourselves for the first birthday celebrations, the first summer visit from my sister and my nephews, the first Christmas and the first Easter and so on without them and in truth each event was far more joyful then I could ever have imagined or hoped it could be.

I have become used to not calling my parents when there is good news to share but despite all those potentially huge emotional hurdles that we’ve all met, and survived, I probably miss them more than ever. I fully understand why people continually drive themselves forward to keep feelings hidden and I have many friends who are constantly in need of the next great adventure, and whilst goals and ambitions are not bad things, stillness is also in order. I love to be busy but it’s also good to be quiet. It gives me time to reflect and focus on what is important in my life.

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17. June 2010 by admin.

Going through the boxes in the attic has been good and necessary but emotionally draining too at times and I feel that I need to take some time out and escape for a few days. I am therefore planning a quick trip to France to see Tony before I leave for the US to go to Wyoming, as we won’t see each other for weeks and I am desperate to visit the castle where Merlin is filmed.

The frightened mare is now carrying a bridle and saddle and can walk under wands, held by people standing on mounting blocks either side of her to accustom her to the sight and sounds of someone above her eyeline (we made a video of this with another horse on Horse Hero). Tina and I have ground driven her around the farm and she is such a sweetheart. If she worries about anything she tenses her hindquarters, but walking along side her and stroking her gently all over with the long dressage schooling stick has stopped this pattern of behaviour and helped her to stay calm and relaxed.

All our animals are in fine fettle and Leo is frightfully pleased with himself as we came upon a trespassing jogger whist out walking across the fields. The man quickly became a trespassing sprinter and now Leo has to tank off to the spot in the hedge where the jogger ran through to the neighbouring property every time he is let off lead. His recall has gone out of the window!! It’s all very well turning and walking in the opposite direction but Leo knows full well that he can easily catch me up in his own sweet time, so today I drove him up to the fields in my pickup and when he shot off across the pastures, I called him once then jumped back in the truck with Miss Cookie Dough and drove off. It worked a treat and we are hopefully back to an instant recall - well for now anyhow!

I went online when I came home from the farm and am THRILLED to have found two emails in my inbox. One is from the relative of the Neen family (who now lives in Australia) and the other is from the lady looking for the Ansonias. What is more remarkable is that the Neen and the Ansonia families joined on June 10th 1927 when Joseph Conradi Ansonia married Mary Esther Neen and I think it’s neat that both got in contact as the wedding anniversary of their ancestors approaches. I have emailed them both back telling them everything I know about their relatives or potential family members.

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17. June 2010 by admin.

It’s the end of another varied week and my quest to find existing members of my friend’s family has been slotted in around an interview/training session with a journalist and her dog for a magazine, a photoshoot for Horse and Rider covering six different articles and an interesting day with vet physio’, Barbara Houlding, talking about the overlap between TTouch and physiotherapy. There are so many parallels and overlaps with both techniques focusing on improving movement, balance and proprioception (the sense of the orientation of one’s limbs in space) and it was also fascinating hearing why and how each different body TTouch influences the nervous system of the animal. I am not sure that all our Practitioners truly understand the benefit of the slow ground work exercises, and the importance of helping both dogs and horses to develop core strength, and I think they would enjoy a weekend session with Barbara, so my brain is whizzing away wondering what sort of workshop would be best.

It was great working with Karen Bush (journalist/writer) and the lovely Bob Atkins on the articles for Horse and Rider. We have worked together on and off for the past sixteen years and are all close friends. Karen was saying how much she missed the early days of TTEAM. We all had more time to spend together planning new features instead of doing it all by email and phone. She is right. Whilst it’s fantastic to be so consistently busy doing something that I love and that helps other people and their animals, I do sometimes get the feeling that I need to come up for air and spend more time with my friends than I do.

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17. June 2010 by admin.

When I was starting to box up our memorabilia at the start of the year, I found a photograph of Liverpool’s first horse drawn taxi. I had a feeling that it had belonged to my dear friend Cynthia, who was killed in a riding accident some ten years ago. As all her family had died over the space of a few years I ended up with some of her personal belongings and when I found the single print, I felt sure it had been hers. Today, as I was going through more boxes, I found a partially completed book that contained some information on Cynthia’s family tree and several sepia photographs of her great grandparents and her great great grandfather too. Her great great grandfather was named John Ansonia and he lived in Liverpool with his son Joseph Conradi Ansonia and his wife. After searching the internet I have discovered information on Ansonia and Co who ran the first bus service in Liverpool at the time that Cynthia’s family were living there and I’m convinced that they have to be the same family. This would also explain the picture of the horse drawn taxi, so I need to go to the storage company and retrieve it.

I also have some pictures of the Neen, Harrison and Worrall families related to Cynthia. I feel it is right and appropriate that these pictures are handed on to existing family members and I have joined an ancestry website in the hope of locating some distant relatives. It’s going to become a new obsession. I have searched the forums and have come across an old post from someone who mentions one of the ladies on the Neen side whose photographic portrait is in Cynthia’s book. I have messaged him and hope that he gets in touch although looking at the history on the forum, he started the thread several years ago and hasn’t logged on for months.

I have also just joined an Italian genealogy website as I have found a link to the name Ansonia on this site. The lady who has posted a message is also looking for information on a John Ansonia who was in Liverpool at the same time as Cynthia’s great great grandfather. Her relative came from Genoa, as did Cynthia’s so perhaps they are the same person. I shall have to be patient as this lady has not been an active member of the forums for some while either as far as I can make out and I really hope that she gets my message through the website as I cannot find any other way of getting in contact with her.

It has now gone midnight and I must stop otherwise I will be trawling the internet until the morning. I can totally see why researching a family tree can be addictive. I am hooked and it isn’t even mine!

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17. June 2010 by admin.

We headed home this morning after another brilliant night at the live show of Over the Rainbow. We stayed at the party for a while but left reasonably early as I wanted to get home so I could work with our visiting mare the next day. After several conversations with the original owner it transpires that the mare did indeed have an accident with a pole. She is furious as was unaware of this but asked her team of helpers if they could shed any light on the problem and, as I suspected, the person who was with the horse at the time did not tell the owner what had happened so the mare’s fears were never addressed. Horses never lie!

The plan is to continue with the saddling and just keep revisiting the poles. I have chunked the exercise down further and am now using half rounds so that they won’t move if she touches them. She is able to walk over these but her heart rate and respiration tell us that she is still highly concerned. She is, however, developing trust in us which is the first step to helping her gain self-confidence. She is a delight to train and a willing student so everything else is well on track but I do want her to feel safe walking over things on the ground for obvious reasons. It’s easy to see why we end up with some of the nervous wrecks that arrive at our yard, as so many small concerns are overlooked in a horse’s early training and are not addressed, or made worse by the human’s reactions.

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17. June 2010 by admin.

The little mare is certainly a sensitive soul. She can now walk over the arrowheads poles and the labyrinth is not a problem at all but even the thought of walking over a plastic pole is too much for her to bear. In my opinion this is a learned behaviour and not just a youngster experiencing something new. Her heart rate and respiration elevates as she walks towards the poles. Flexing around them isn’t an issue but she is in a genuine state of fear when we stop her in front of a pole. I suspect that she has had an accident with a pole and whoever was with her at the time did not know how to resolve the issue.

I have filmed my last segment for Over the Rainbow and our chosen dog will be announced at the final live performance on Saturday. Tony and Emily will be coming to the show with me. It has been such fun working on this show and I will miss everyone but with more horses booked to come into Tilley Farm for re-training and starting, I am looking forward to having more time at the farm now that all my film commitments are over.

I am also continuing with my clearing quest and am unearthing some fascinating things in our attic. Tony and I put a recipe book together, many years ago, to raise funds for a local charity and asked friends from the acting world to contribute their favourite recipes. We had an amazing response and I have found all the original artwork and the pictures, autographs and letters too, including a lovely handwritten recipe on personalised note paper for One Fresh Brown Trout by the wonderful actor, Michael Horden. I think I will have this framed and hang it in our kitchen.

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