A busy few days

The last few days have been welcomingly busy as I have been given some consultancy work helping with the Ride Welland Equestrian Tourism & Leisure project. I was full time Project Manager for Ride Welland before leaving for the more secure, permanent position (haha) I was made redundant from. Shortly before I left I started the management of the design and build of the website, and it is this I am working on to bring it to completion.

Whilst a considerable amount of the work is fairly tedious, some bits are fun. I needed some photos for parts of the site, so I rustled up a couple of friends and their horses and hopped in my shiny new car with my trusty Nikon SLR. Firstly I met with Chris and her lovely black mare, Millie, who posed for me outside the White Lion for a photo to illustrate "Where to eat with your horse". Chris is the wife of the Lord Lieutenant for Rutland, a role I still don't really understand, but means they're in the local papers a lot and get Christmas cards from the Royal Family.

Then I toddled off to a village near Uppingham and the farm, livery yard and B&B owned and run by Sue. There I helped Sue groom and tack up the huge and gorgeous bay Rufus, who was good as gold and very chilled, and took some photos outside the front of the B&B for "Where to stay with your horse".

The website is still a way off completion, but should be live by the end of April. I'll post a link when it's ready.

Multum in Parvo

Multum in Parvo is Rutland's strapline, and it means Much in Little. Before we go any further, this is plain wrong. It might work for, say, Tokyo, or Monaco, but the whole point of Rutland is that there isn't much in it. So Not Much in Little would be more fitting.

What you will find in Rutland are two small market towns, Oakham and Uppingham, a dozen or so pretty villages, the odd castle, estate and manor house and lots of farms. Most of the land is either arable (predominently wheat at the moment) or horses. There are an awful lot of horses in Rutland. So perhaps Multum in Parvo actually started out as Multum Equus in Parvo, then lost the Equus somewhere along the way.

As well as buildings and horses, there are two polo clubs (more horses) and two military bases. RAF Cottesmore is half a mile down a no-through lane from our house. The lane ends at what are commonly known as the "Crash gates". Quite why they are called crash gates is a mystery to me. Cottesmore in home to Harriers which take off and land vertically (commonly known as VTOL), so landing on the gate would be rather careless and stupid. Saying that, one did crash into a field near Ashwell last year; perhaps he was trying to land on the crash gates and missed by a couple of miles.

Despite living so close to the airfield, we are generally undisturbed by any activity. The Harriers only fly Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and rarely over the village, and they paid for eveyone to have double glazing installed anyway. On the odd occasion they need to practice at night the CO puts a very polite letter in the Post Office window apologising in advance. The most activity is seen around Families Day (perhaps this is why they need the crash gates - put Great Aunt Vera in a Tornado and what else is there to stop her?) , when there are all sorts of shenanigans. Last year we had aerobatic displays plus visits by the Vulcan Bomber and Eurofighter. Very exciting, and all visible from our back garden.

The one glaring ommission I have made so far is, of course, the whacking great inner-sea that makes up much of Rutland. Rutland Water is a giant reservoir that swallowed up whole villages a few years ago to provide a home for some ospreys. It's very lovely from a distance, but get close up (if you can afford the astronomical parking charges) and you'll find it heaving with the sort of people who are scared to go into the real countryside in case they get spiked/shot/poisoned or slightly muddy. In the nearly two years we've lived here, we have only been to Rutland Water once, and had a great time watching Annie plant muddy paws on horrified Townies.

If you want to learn more about Rutland, this is a lovely book. I have also put some links to Rutland websites at the bottom of the page.

Ruminating on horses

Are horses ruminants?

At the moment I am horse-free, having sold my gorgeous arab Rocco (see me and the mad arab in pic) in the autumn after nearly four mostly happy years. This is in many ways a blessing - in fact let's count them:

1. It's been a sh*tty winter and I haven't had to wallow about in the mud and dark, scrape mud off horse, pick poo out of 6 inch snow drifts etc etc etc (etc etc etc)

2. It saves a LOT of money not having a horse. Especially a Rocco who seems to cost more money than most (I'm still paying off his last vet bill). This is especially helpful when one has just been made redundant.

3. It saves a lot of NHS time and taxpayers money (yes, horse riding really is more dangerous than ecstasy, well it is when I do it anyway).

4. I'm actually quite scared of riding (see number 3), so getting on my horse was stomach-clenchingly stressful for me at times. Falling off was quite a relief in a "see, knew that would happen" kind of way.

The problem is, having owned a horse or three for the last seven years, and ridden since I was fetlock high, not having direct access to one is rather like not having access to a handy loo. I'm getting this overpowering urge, but nowhere to relieve it, and it's starting to hurt. I know the last couple of years have challenged my confidence (and the occasional orthopaedic surgeon) but I still remember the happy days of tearing around the countryside with wild abandon and zero control and loving it.

So, when it comes to horses, a warning to my nearest and dearest - like with the job, I think I am "resting" rather than giving up.....