On the road (again)
I am becoming very bored of the M6 motorway.
After last week's 1500 mile van-athon, I trundled back down to Wales (another 400 miles - how's my carbon footprint doing?) on Sunday in my parents' car. This is on it's way down to my brother in Devon, but may well end up stuck here a while. I'd quite like to not have to drive anywhere at all for, I don't know, a decade or so.
But no such luck, sadly. Whilst I was on the road last Thursday, an old friend from Fife phoned the Horse Doctor (back in Wales) with a request. He runs a carriage driving competition in Fife. It used to be the Scottish National (and sometimes International) Carriage Driving Competition, but these days it's just a local club event. Before the move to Wales I was involved in the course building and running of the national event for some ten years. Mum and Dad were on the committee and Mum also competed for several years until she lost her bottle after one too many bolting horse incidents. The chap organising the whole thing - let's call him Andrew, since that's his name, mentioned at the funeral that he'd like to have a memorial trophy made, to be handed out to a class winner at the annual event.
Unbeknownst to me, the event is this coming Sunday. And there is, indeed, a David and Juliet Oswald Memorial Trophy that will need handing out. My little brother, who lives just a few miles away, is going to be on the other side of the country on Sunday, so it falls to me to go and say a few words - I think it would be rude not to, really, after Andrew's gone to all that trouble.
The annoying thing is that, had Andrew phoned before I'd left to drive north in the Van of Doom, I could have loaded the dogs in with me and stayed in Fife for a week. There's plenty for me to do there, and sometimes I think the Horse Doctor enjoys the peace and quiet. As it is, I couldn't even stay up and leave the dogs to her tender ministrations, since she's got to be in Cardiff for most of this week.
So having arrived back home yesterday, I now have the delightful prospect of driving once more up the M6 to Scotland later on this week, and then down again (hopefully for the last time in a while) next Monday.
Fortunately for me, Audible are selling Mr Stuart's own rendition of his latest fine Logan McRae novel, Blind Eye as an unabridged audiobook.* So at least I will have good company on the journey.
* and if you follow the link you can hear him reading the first section of chapter one.
After last week's 1500 mile van-athon, I trundled back down to Wales (another 400 miles - how's my carbon footprint doing?) on Sunday in my parents' car. This is on it's way down to my brother in Devon, but may well end up stuck here a while. I'd quite like to not have to drive anywhere at all for, I don't know, a decade or so.
But no such luck, sadly. Whilst I was on the road last Thursday, an old friend from Fife phoned the Horse Doctor (back in Wales) with a request. He runs a carriage driving competition in Fife. It used to be the Scottish National (and sometimes International) Carriage Driving Competition, but these days it's just a local club event. Before the move to Wales I was involved in the course building and running of the national event for some ten years. Mum and Dad were on the committee and Mum also competed for several years until she lost her bottle after one too many bolting horse incidents. The chap organising the whole thing - let's call him Andrew, since that's his name, mentioned at the funeral that he'd like to have a memorial trophy made, to be handed out to a class winner at the annual event.
Unbeknownst to me, the event is this coming Sunday. And there is, indeed, a David and Juliet Oswald Memorial Trophy that will need handing out. My little brother, who lives just a few miles away, is going to be on the other side of the country on Sunday, so it falls to me to go and say a few words - I think it would be rude not to, really, after Andrew's gone to all that trouble.
The annoying thing is that, had Andrew phoned before I'd left to drive north in the Van of Doom, I could have loaded the dogs in with me and stayed in Fife for a week. There's plenty for me to do there, and sometimes I think the Horse Doctor enjoys the peace and quiet. As it is, I couldn't even stay up and leave the dogs to her tender ministrations, since she's got to be in Cardiff for most of this week.
So having arrived back home yesterday, I now have the delightful prospect of driving once more up the M6 to Scotland later on this week, and then down again (hopefully for the last time in a while) next Monday.
Fortunately for me, Audible are selling Mr Stuart's own rendition of his latest fine Logan McRae novel, Blind Eye as an unabridged audiobook.* So at least I will have good company on the journey.
* and if you follow the link you can hear him reading the first section of chapter one.
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