It’s raining. Heavily enough the ducks and geese are the only ones looking cheerful and the horses are all inside. George claimed he had cabin fever when he tried to pull me into the barn by my sleeve but I suspect what he meant was ‘feed me more nuggets!’. We did some head-away practice so he got his nuggets and I got to hang haynets unmolested. It’s keeping his neck nicely flexible – important in a relatively short-necked, thickset chap like a Suffolk! It is amusing that he carefully turns his head away, then comes back to check I’m watching, possibly giving my arm a nudge to remind me to watch, then turns his head away again and waits for the click before coming back for his treat!

I’m not going to be doing much today, between the weather and the lack of sleep. I stayed up until about 7am, caught an hour’s nap and then started on the critters, so I’m bushed!

I have quite a lot to digest, politically, after last night. It’s going to take some cogitation but my initial thoughts are as follows;

1 England and Wales voted to Leave the EU all over again and have largely gone Tory as a result, with a stonking great Tory majority, that despicable piece of alleged humanity Johnson handed a free ticket to do whatever he wants for the next 5 years.

2. That’s not a political agenda I find acceptable, let alone palatable. I don’t want to live in a country that espouses values such as those the Tories have demonstrated for the past decade, regardless of what they may say in election campaigns.

3. Luckily, I don’t have to live in England. I live in Scotland and we voted massively for the SNP, who will be asking for another referendum on Independence shortly.

(I have to admit, at this point, that I suspect the SNP top brass are very comfy where they are and don’t necessarily want independence, which will be a great deal of hard work, but they’ll ask for a Section 30 order regardless, knowing full well Johnson will refuse to discuss it, let alone grant it, regardless of the will of the Scottish electorate.This will enable them to whinge about the nasty English Tories while pocketing their generous salaries and still look as if they tried to do what they claim to want.)

4. Northern Ireland returned more Nationalist than Unionist MPs for the first time in history. They might push harder for reunification with the Republic, given they’re getting dragged out of the EU (where Eire is quite at home). They may be offski from the Union before we are! The Unionists don’t like the Brexit deal the Tories will ramrod through before the end of the year, either, since it puts them the wrong side of the customs barriers from the UK and thus in effect part of the EU/Eire anyway! With a big Tory majority, however, they know very well nobody at Westminster gives a toss about their opinions. Sinn Fein don’t take up their Westminster seats, either, since they refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, so that’s effectively less opposition to the Tories. Really Sinn Fein and the DUP need to sort out their differences and get the Stormont Assembly running again, because at the moment Northern Ireland is being ruled from Westminster instead of being able to use their devolved administration effectively for debate and airing their opinions of BRexit arrangements, but I’m not holding my breath.

5 Regardless of whether we think we want independence, actually want independence, want independence within the EU or want to be subsumed into the Federal States of Europe, we desperately need a public, open, non-confrontational and frank constitutional debate in Scotland. We need to be able to discuss our differences and find common ground without rancor or professional politicians stirring up trouble. Only then will we be ready to hold another referendum (if that’s what we decide to do) and move forward as a community and a country.

6 My opinion on patronising toffs from England telling us uppity Scots what we’re allowed to do remains undiluted.

When I get time, I want to teach George to put his hooves on a hoof stand. I think I start by teaching him to stand on a mat on the floor, then work upwards in small increments. At least horses are honest and don’t play politics!

Roughly what I said to him this morning as he coolly stepped over a fence made of stock netting, misjudged the height and pulled two fence posts out of the ground!

Net result, the electric fence has been restricted to just the short length stopping George coming out of the orchard and into the yard altogether, given a freshly-charged battery and a new earth rod, which means it’s frizzling along at over 8,000V… hopefully enough to make even that fence-buster Dancer jump if she touches it!

To my surprise, I’ve unearthed a manhole cover in the yard near the broken bit of wall – what’s under it I don’t know but it looks like an inspection hatch type of thing so presumably there’s some kind of pipe under the ground there. Water, perhaps? If I get time I’ll investigate.

Two more of the young bunnies have been despatched. I wish I could have sold more but there you go! It looks as if the new homes for the adults have fallen through, too – the woman who said she wanted them has disappeared off the planet. It’s very bad manners not to tell people when your plans fall through like that – flipping time-wasters!

I voted first thing this morning, as soon as I’d fed everyone, and then this afternoon I drove Mum and Michelle to their polling station (it’s only a couple of hundred yards from the house but Mum can’t walk that far uphill anymore so Michelle hitched a lift!) where Michelle undoubtedly chose wisely in making her mark on the ballot paper – Mum said she couldn’t remember who she voted for but it was the middle one… a slightly puzzling remark when there were four names on the paper, but never mind!

I’ve bought a fresh bottle of milk so I shall be well set up by 10pm with a big thermos of tea and a slow cooker full of rabbit stew to keep me going through the night’s results-watching.

 

I don’t normally spill my political opinions in public – like dirty socks, voting intentions should be kept private. On the other hand, there is a general election tomorrow which could have profound and long-lasting effects on our lives.

Because I live in Scotland, politics is more complicated. It’s not only about Remain or Leave the EU but also Remain or Leave the UK.

Some of my English friends and family are passionately pro-Leave (EU) and are therefore convinced the sun shines out of Boris Johnson’s behind. I detest Johnson – I don’t think he has morals, let alone moral courage (or, indeed, courage) and the only principle he seems to have is ‘I want more for me’. It’s no surprise he’s a long-time associate of that other self-aggrandising serial liar, bully, alleged sack-athlete and domestic tyrant, Donald Trump. Like clearly attracts like and frankly if either (preferably both) were on fire I wouldn’t even pee on them. I’m certainly not voting for the Tories!

Jeremy Corbyn is clearly a man of strongly held principles, a fair, honest and moral man who has his opinions and sticks to them regardless of party whip or public scorn. I respect that in him. I do believe he would at least do his best to bring about the policies he’s campaigning on, and I also believe he has the quiet grit to stand his ground on the international stage, too. I don’t think, though, that Labour will win a majority in the election tomorrow – they’re struggling to retain English Leave voters and, whatever the other kingdoms, principalities and duchies of the UK may say, England has the bulk of the population and the bulk of the seats in Westminster.

In any case, I live in a constituency where the choice is very definitely between Tory or SNP, so I won’t be voting Labour tomorrow – to do so would be to acquiesce in a Tory MP returning to the House of Commons to speak in my name.

The LibDems are a party hampered from gaining broad support by their adamant Remain ideology. They can’t appeal to Leave voters by definition, which means they’re fighting an uphill battle. Again, voting LibDem here would be to endorse the Tories.

That leaves me with the SNP. They’ve always been a one-trick-party, in that they are founded and grounded in the principle of Scottish Independence from the UK. On the other hand, they’ve run a sufficiently competent devolved government here in Scotland for many years, so nobody could argue they don’t know how to do the day job. Like many UK citizens, I have a mixed ancestry and background – Scottish father and Anglo-Irish mother, brought up in England (because my father worked there) and yet my daughter’s half-Welsh and I’ve spent more than half my life in Scotland, without any wish to move back to England (or anywhere else). I speak Scots Gaelic (though not Doric, despite being brought up in a household where Scots vocabulary did make frequent appearances!) and have a degree in Celtic Studies. For a long time we mongrels have been content to describe ourselves as ‘British’ and avoid trickier issues of self-identity, but this election may well force us all to examine our identities more deeply.

On the other hand, the SNP used to hold this constituency and now are the only credible challengers to the Tories here – so I will be voting SNP tomorrow.

What about the results and their consequences?

If the Tories win a majority in Westminster, they have the votes to push Brexit through. The Leave Agreement will come into law and they’ll start the tortuous business of contrapting trade agreements with other countries – including the USA, where Johnson’s friend Trump must be salivating at the thought of the NHS being handed over to US companies. The NHS has long been the Third Rail of British politics – touch it and die – and yet the Tories have succeeded in sneakily privatising swathes of it already, meaning the taxpayer now subsidises the vast profits of commercial enterprises while enduring falling levels of staffing, equipping and maintenance within the cash-starved NHS. I’ll just break that down more simply; people in Britain are dying because shareholders are getting their dividends from the public purse.

Unacceptable.

The Brexit Leave Agreement also puts Northern Ireland into an untenable position, where they will, de facto, be forced into reunification with the Republic of Ireland because the customs barriers will be between the mainland and NI, not between NI and Eire. I’ve no problem at all with Irish reunification – provided it is the freely expressed will of the people of Northern Ireland. To be hacked off from the country they want to belong to and forced to join themselves onto a country they don’t want to, however?

Unacceptable.

Bearing in mind that during the Brexit referendum a majority of Scots voted Remain, not Leave, the SNP have frequently stated that Westminster ‘dragging’ Scotland out of the EU will be their trigger to demand another Indyref. The Tories and Libdems are vehemently opposed to allowing an Indyref2 to take place – which, I have to admit, sticks in my craw. Is Scotland a sovereign nation, or are we not? If we are (and I believe we are!) then the decision to hold another referendum should not require ‘permission’ from anyone outside Scotland. If we want to hold a referendum then London can damn well bog off and wait to hear the results when we’re good and ready! Whether or not we choose to leave the UK Union or not is, in that sense, irrelevant. If we are told we are not a sovereign nation and do indeed require permission from Westminster to decide our own deepest constitutional issues, that’s going to make a lot of Scots hackles bristle. James the VI was King of Scotland before he took over the English throne – in that sense, England should be a colony of Scotland, not vice versa! Why not let us have a referendum anyway? Are they opposed to democracy, by any chance? Or are they scared they know the answer to the question and it doesn’t suit them to be scrambling about trying to find a new name for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Duchy of Cornwall, etc? Not to mention amputating the Saltire from the DisUnified Jack!

If the Tories don’t gain a majority, they’re unlikely to be able to make a minority administration work in the House of Commons – they’ve alienated all the other parties and nobody will support them in a coalition or even a supply and demand agreement. At that point, we hand the baton to Jeremy Corbyn, to see if he can form a working government.

He might be able to, with the SNP’s support, but at a price – that being Indyref2 fairly soon, either 2020 or 2021. Labour have repeatedly said they have no objection in principle to a second Indyref, though they’d rather put it off until their second term of office (assuming they win it…) There are problems in that alliance, though – Corbyn himself has been a lifelong Eurosceptic and has committed to negotiating another Leave agreement with the EU before bringing it to a second UK-wide referendum, but many Labour voices are strongly Remain (which is why Labour are struggling to retain their Leave-voting traditional supporters in England). The SNP have nailed their colours to the mast as Remainers and are campaigning on the slogan ‘Stop Brexit!’, so this manifesto pledge to renegotiate Leave is hardly an easy thing for them to swallow.

Difficult territory!

I don’t think Labour will have the numbers to form a minority government without support from other parties, of which the SNP will probably be the largest.

If Labour can’t form a government we have the whole thing to do over again in January/February 2020.

Meanwhile, the rest of the business of governance goes hang, and the environment continues to burn….

Unacceptable!

I should, for the purposes of clarity, say that my heart tells me that Independence is good and sovereignty lies with the people of the land, not with a foreign elite, though I voted No in the last referendum on economic grounds, voted Leave in the Brexit referendum because I wanted to ensure we had that constitutional debate out in public (rather than being subsumed into the EU by default per SNP ideology) and actually can’t see how ‘independence’ can be from Westminster but not Brussels, or vice versa. And now I’m off to meditate on the question of my identity and nationality while feeding the beasties before it goes dark….

On maximum zoom on the phone, there they are – far end of the field, but all 5 of them together, amicably! Rhapsody even lay down and rolled in the middle of the bunch, so she’s clearly not feeling intimidated.

Yep, winter’s here. I got up to the staccato rattle of little white iceballs on the windows this morning. Rhapsody was standing with her bum to the wind looking resigned, the others were all inside and the geese and ducks were hiding behind the hen house. The moment they saw movement in the house windows, every head perked up!

When I opened up the barn to get the horses’ feeds mixed, I was followed by a trail of waterfowl. The silkies were miffed by the invasion and I had to herd the big birds out again before closing up after feeding time – otherwise they get stuck, since they won’t walk under the horses’ legs the way the chooks do! Blondie, of course, was slow on the uptake so I picked him up and carried him while I herded the rest. He was a bit worried at first but then discovered he can tuck his feet up on my arm and was apparently perfectly comfortable about it from them on!

He didn’t want to let go when I tried to put him down and ended up having to stagger slightly to get his balance again, despite my best efforts.

Overnight the wind has ripped some of the rails off my mother’s fence, so I’ll have to get them screwed back up. I’ll try and remember to put the drill, extension cable and some screws in the car for tomorrow.

George has mastered a new subtlety. I can’t always be feeding him treats, and he’s decided that if three or four nose-nudges don’t work as the human is trying to tie up a fresh hay net, it’s worth trying a head-away or two. If that doesn’t work, lean your nose heavily on the human’s shoulder and sigh loudly…. that works, because as my knees buckle under the weight of his head, I feed him in self-defence!

Last night when I got home Abe was standing innocently in the yard with the others, while Rhapsody was looking puzzled in the field. This morning I fed everyone, then went out to find out what happened to the fence while they were gainfully occupied elsewhere.

By the time I’d sorted things out, however, they were no longer busy scoffing! Should I feed them more? (I know what they’d say!) I looked up from tying the last knot to the splatter of many galloping hooves and Poppy was leading the charge at an elegant fast canter, Dancer behind her with tail straight up in the air and George manfully pounding along at a flat-out gallop trying to keep pace.

It’s really not what Suffolks are built for but he does work so hard to keep up with the racehorses – and usually succeeds, albeit by cutting corners when he can!

Abe slouched quietly out behind the mob and padded delicately over to join Rhapsody, grazing at the far end of the field calmly. He gives the impression of mincing like some Regency dandy!

More to the point, the fast bunch were all aiming straight at me and having that much horseflesh bearing down on you when you’re in the middle of a muddy field is not the most reassuring of experiences. Hurriedly, I hid behind a fencepost while shouting things like ‘steady!’ and ‘whoa there!’ (along with a few probably less helpful comments like ‘great steaming hairy nitwits!’) and they did all manage to skid past and stop safely. There followed quite a bit of cavorting about, bucking and plunging, all carried out on what had been grass but now resembles a motocross track, but eventually they settled down and I headed off to pull up spare plastic posts and gather up extra wire. They now have one big enclosure (all the field bar Bog End and the strip closest to where the big sycamore was) and Poppy appears perfectly happy to let Rhapsody alone in that much space. After another ten minutes or so of Poppy snorting about the place at a fast canter – with Dancer in tow and George doing his rocking-horse bouncy-ball impersonation behind them – Poppy and Dancer went back inside and settled to devouring hay, while George joined Abe and Rhapsody to consume grass calmly at the other end of the field.

Half an hour later he was inside again, scoffing hay, but Abe’s stayed out all day. Rhapsody seems happy outside and hasn’t ventured in, yet, as far as I can tell.

I have to say, it is quite impressive watching George at full steam. He has an admirable moment of suspension and gives the impression of being a one-horse-heavy-cavalry-charge in action!

Since Dancer was due to get her flu jab this morning, I asked to have Rhapsody checked over while the vet was around, because her cough is still there. Randall (excellent vet who likes ferrets and has a lovely Irish accent) duly arrived this morning and stabbed Dancer (she did not approve!) before applying stethoscope to Rhapsody in various places. He detected a few basal crackles, he said, though it’s probably change of environment or all the hay she’s stealing from Abe, and he’s left a ten-day course of antibiotics and some bronchodilators to be added to her feeds; as he remarked, at her age it’s better to nip any possible secondary infection firmly in the bud.

After that Autoglass turned up to fix my cracked windscreen, so while the chap was working on that I got all the hay that was delivered last night under cover. The weather’s due to change for the wetter and windier over the weekend, apparently, so it was fairly important. George was somewhat startled as I dragged a large pallet into the duck space next to his favourite hay net, but snorting and sniffing satisfied him that all was in fact ok and several handfuls of nuggets confirmed his opinion nicely. He was very good while I hauled in all the hay and built a stack, too – mostly he just munched hay and watched, but a couple of times he asked politely for attention (which, of course, I gave him). There was a notable lack of sleeve-tugging or laid-back ears, pleasingly, and he’s now decided that standing nearby and turning his head pointedly away from me deserves treats – which, to be fair, it does, since I’ve been asking him to do that so I can tie up haynets unmolested for the past few weeks. If I don’t notice how beautifully he turns his head away, though, he can be quite grouchy!

I haven’t found out yet what the ducks may think about me installing a hay stack in their space. I suspect they may sleep on top of it.

Once the car was sorted, the Autoglass van proved to be stuck in the soft ground. I’d left the car at the corner of the house so he could pull across into the yard with room to turn, but instead he’d run down next to the car on the field side. I ended up towing him out again, though there are some serious muddy ruts in the grass now!

This afternoon saw the fruits of Michelle’s gallop to Glasgow yesterday; she went down on Tuesday night for a Wednesday morning interview with JP Morgan & Chase and today she has a firm job offer! We’re celebrating – the job starts next September but at least it’s definite and she knows she has a good career waiting for her in due course. Apparently one of the interviewers has asked for her to be in his department, even – head hunted before she’s even employed!

Apparently George, Poppy and Dancer don’t remember what Abe looks like rugged up!

After they’d all skidded about and sniffed him they realised it was indeed just Abe, not another weird new horse. When I got his rug out this morning, Poppy and Dancer had minor conniptions at the sight of it – possibly Poppy, who hates rugs, thought I was going to put it on her – but Abe himself didn’t even blink as I slung it over him and did up all the clips and straps. He is such a good lad!

George is feeling a bit lonely, as he’s lost Abe to Rhapsody and Poppy doesn’t encourage him getting close to her or Dancer, so he’s turned needy on me. Every time he sees me, he comes flying over, whinnying, and demands attention, poor boy! We’ve been practising a great deal of ‘stand!’ and ‘back!’ in doorways as a result.

Dancer seems to be slowly getting her head around being polite in return for treats – twice today she’s walked up with her ears relaxed rather than pinned in her usual ‘feed me or else!’ expression, so she’s had a lot more treats as a result – as long as her ears stay pricked, the treats keep on coming! As soon as the ears go back, the sweetshop door shuts.

I also managed a brief session with Rhapsody this afternoon – I feed her in the yard rather than where Abe can insinuate his greedy nose into her bucket and steal all her dinner! Once she’d finished eating and started looking around for mischief to get into, I went over and we did a short session of clicker training together. She thinks it’s ace – this mug keeps giving her treats for doing what she’s known how to do for decades! All the same, I’m fairly sure she doesn’t normally get to practice walk on, whoa, stand, back at liberty like that and we’ll move on to standing on a mat in a few days. She’s also learning my repertoire of gestures nicely through doing basic things with me. Like all horses, she’s very alert to body language and understands what I’m asking of her far better than the reverse!

In other news: Snowball the white Silkie was strutting about in the yard crowing when I went up to feed – clearly he’s found his way out by himself. He’s gone back to their corner to sleep, though, rather than going into the henhouse.

The ducks, having mastered this flying lark, are getting lots of practice in. The entire flock flew up the field together when I went out first thing, having been foraging somewhere out in the middle of the field, just so they could steal the corn from the geese and chooks! This evening as I carried Abe’s haynet out for him, I was accompanied across the yard by knee-height gliding ducks, too. I may have to get the council to put up low-flying-duck signs on the road soon!

It looks like Rhapsody has found her friend in the herd – Abe!

They’ve been grazing together either side of the fence for a couple of days, so this afternoon I asked him to walk through the paddock gate and join her, and they settled straight down to grazing together. They’ve been inseparable ever since, though I did have to step in at dinner time and stop Abe nicking her feed!

Here they are this afternoon, sharing a haynet peacefully.

Abe seems perfectly content to stay out with her rather than coming into the barn, but I’ll get his rug out tomorrow. I haven’t rugged any of mine because they can come in at will and shelter from bad weather, but if Abe and Rhapsody can’t do that (and with Poppy’s cranky attitude I’m not willing to risk Rhapsody getting kicked!) then they need their rugs for weather protection instead.

The other three have been in the barn all day – though there’s fresh mud on their legs tonight so I suspect they popped out to the field when I wasn’t around to see!

We had an interesting moment this afternoon – I took the dogs out for a run around the yard before putting them in the car, and Wicket (the wicked one!) bounced at a duckling. There was no risk to the duckling as the dogs were on the lead, but the whole flock took to the air and flapped across the yard! They were only a couple of feet off the ground but they were definitely flying – and even the geese flap-ran after them, though they’re too heavy to get airborne. The dogs were very surprised!

It’s been rain, rain and more rain for weeks now – and the field is a mud bath. The walkway is over the horses’ fetlocks and well up my shins, so I haven’t been criticising the herd’s decision to stay inside and guzzle hay more.

It has, however, been a bit tough on the barns! Poppy chased George through the (closed) door between the barns the other day, so before she chased him into the feed room as well Michelle and I have repurposed an old horsebox partition into a barrier between the horse barn and the small dairy shed – it’s working very well and even George isn’t likely to break it, given that it has a sturdy metal frame!

This does mean, though, that until I rebuild the door between the two horse barns, I can’t segregate Rhapsody from Poppy (the only one who seems to object to her) so Rhapsody has been living out rather than coming in. She liked being in and does a determined job of emotional blackmail over the field gate at me several times a day, but I’m being determined in ignoring that, too.

George also destroyed the electric fence the same day – I turned Rhapsody out and George saw her across two paddocks, whinnied cheerfully, started to come over and stopped when he reached the fence…. then did a mental ‘who gives one?’ and trotted straight through it.

It was the line of fence that had electric rope rather than wire, so not only did the rope come down but he’s uprooted two of the wooden posts as well as the plastic poles. I’ve removed the debris so they now have one big enclosure and only the fence keeping them out of Bog End is up, along with the perimeter fence. Rhapsody still has all the grass, though, in her stretch outside the perimeter!

Following on from all this, Odette came to trim hooves and in order to get everyone where I needed them for that, I shut George out in the field. That involved putting a head collar on him and leading him right along the outside of the fence before popping him through one of the paddock gateways; he led beautifully, was brave about wading through the thickest patch of docks and nettles after me and clearly enjoyed the change in routine. I took the head collar off once he was through the gateway and walked him back to talk to Rhapsody, in case he decided to come back through the fence after me!

Once all the horses were all in the proper places for hoof trimming, I went down to open the field gate so George could come round again if he wanted to. I had to go through the mud to unbolt the field gate, and then I thought I’d come back along the walkway before picking up the string to the gate from Rhapsody’s paddock and hauling the gate open that way.

So much for plans.

I unbolted the gate and started slogging back towards the yard – only for one of my boots to get stuck in the mud. At that precise moment, George noticed I was there and came to give the gate a hopeful shove. It swung open, of course, so he came through.

Highly motivated, I abandoned the boot in the middle of the walkway and legged it through the mud in my sock before George pushed the gate right over me.

We ended up with me clinging to the fence, standing in one welly with my mud-encrusted socked foot in the air, while George expressed his delight in finding me in his space by giving me a friendly nudge with his nose that nearly sent me flying!

My other welly was still stuck in the mud in the middle of the walkway.

I gave George the affection he wanted while standing on one leg, and then pushed his head round towards the yard and suggested he start walking and I’d catch up. He took a step that way, so I went to retrieve my boot. He turned back to check what I was doing. I turned him round again, then hauled the welly free. By then he’d come back to see if he could help, so I turned him round to face the yard again. That gave me time to put the welly on again and slog to the side of the walkway, where it’s not as muddy. George had returned to check I really was coming by then, so I led the way in and he followed – right up to the moment when Abe whinnied from ahead of us (he was tied on the other side of the yard fence) and George went past me to say hi.

Odette had her own mud story when she arrived – she’d washed her car that very morning, only to get it absolutely plastered in mud (‘clarted’, in local dialect) coming up my road past the Christmas tree plantation they’re harvesting! She trimmed all mine and Rhapsody, however, who hasn’t had a hoof trim since spring due to her tendon injury (she hasn’t been able to stand on three legs long enough for a proper trim). She did just about manage it for Odette, who gave her very frequent breaks and loads of encouragement, so she has 4 tidy neat hooves now.

Interestingly, Odette now has another client with a Suffolk, nearer Aberdeen – a 7 year old gelding, Holbeache Luke, which means he’s probably fairly closely related to George (whose sire is Holbeache Iggy) and who goes by the stable name of Orion! Odette put us in touch via messenger so we’ve traded photos and admired each other’s big boys now. I’d love to go and meet him one day.

George has been enjoying having me around more over the past few days and has developed a new behaviour – he likes leaning his forehead on my chest while I scratch round his ears! We’re both enjoying it immensely.