Naughty Horses!

Just got back from the gym - my 5th time so far, and the 4th since last week. Definitely think it's worth both the money and effort - hopefully there'll be calves lifted and bails of hay thrown before you know it.
Been to the Stables again this morning, and the horses were a little less co-operative than they were at the end of last week. This could either be because they didn't remember me from last week, or (involving slightly more congnitive capability than I think a horse has - though I'm sure some horseypeople will tell me otherwise) they have realised that I am no longer new, and so are not required to be on their 'best behaviour' anymore. Either way - Smartie, Tessie and Molly, who are usually charming horses (Tessie can occasionally be a pain) were gnawwy, reluctant to have their hooves picked, angry about being groomed and generally awkward. Oh well, it's all experience I guess!
Had quite a nice weekend. Spent Sunday wandering round Kingston with Hannah vainly trying to find some coloured clothes for her. Unfortunately neither Topshop nor River Island, H&M nor M&S, Gap nor FCUK, had anything suitable. Everything was either weirdly shaped or itchy. Nevermind! Bumped randomly into Rahul while I was in town. I was queueing up for a bottle of water in WHSmith when my sister whispered "Don't you know that guy behind you?" "Which one?" I replied. "Er, Rahul?". I turned round, and she was right. The girl who had never met him recognised him when I just strolled past. I'm such a man. Anyway, stopped for a quick chat and he introduced me to one of his friends from Selwyn (a Tiffin Girl), who had worked briefly at the same Stables as me. T'is a small world!
Today is also Mary's birthday. If you're reading this Mary, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Tom

b o o k s

Currently Reading: A Visitor Within (The Science of Pregnancy) by David Bainbridge. Written by one of my lecturers no-less, the infamous Dr Bainbridge. While this is going to be a relatively basic coverage of the science of pregnancy, seeing as I'm doing development and reproduction next year it can do no harm. It'll also be fascinating to read one of his books!

Just Finished Titus Groan. It was fantastic. A surprisingly simple story of the first few years of Titus's life, interspursed with the foreground of Steerpike's rise to fame within the Castle ranks. Well written, and thoroughly enjoyable. 10/10. I'm going to read the other two books in the series after Dr Bainbridge's. I'll feel better about reading some fiction when I've read a book relavent to my course!'

I'm really enjoying this stable work that I'm doing at the moment. It's really nice to actually get some one-on-one contact with an animal, rather than generally dealing with them "in bulk" as you do on farms. I'm less daunted by the horses, and so they're less scared by me, and generally things are getting easier. I can now tack-up by myself, and have generally got more confident around the animals as a result of mucking out, leading around the stables (finally managed to decipher head collars!), grooming, and the riding lesson I was given. I also led Sherry out with two other horses on a riding for the disabled hack around the local estate.

Yesterday after work, I wandered into Kingston to meet up with Geoff and Boycie. We had lunch in Wagamama's, caught up and did a little bit of shopping, though I didn't buy anything apart from someone's birthday present. Was really nice to see them - the last time was back in Cambridge, must have been sometime in July!

Mahler's Resurrection

Just been to the Royal Albert Hall with Dad to see Mahler's Resurrection Symphony (Symphony No.2). It's an amazing piece, and, I'm no musical journalist, but I know what I like, and the power and awe-inspiring greatness of this piece amazed me. It was as much a show of how an orchestra can be used as much as it was a fantastic piece of music, and the RAH was perfect to show it off. There were two brass bands up in the galleries, giving their parts a distant, separated feel that you can never experience on a CD, along with two huge chorusses (The BBC and London Symphony Choruses), and a huge orchestra (including 7 percussionists). It's unbelievable, if you ever get the chance to see it, go!

image from here

Gee-up

Just had my first day of Horse-keeping. I mucked out, got stood on (my poor bloodied toe), led horses around, groomed, wormed and drank tea. All before noon. Fantastic! Don't know if the smell of anti-fly cream will ever leave my fingers though!

Met up with Sean in the afternoon for a bit of Gymmage - was good to see him again - has been a while. He's just been to the Edinburgh festival, and was raving over "rolling mystery-machine film pickups" across the streets of Edinburgh, amongst other stories. hehe

UCASBacon

Got up late today, and was greeted by the smell of bacon and a still hot grill - there were no two ways about it, bacon it was for me. Today has also been the day of personal statementising. I can still remember the pain I went through trying to get mine right, and now it's my sister's turn. We had a good bash though, and I think Hannah and Mum got there. I've also baked, and mowed the lawn. Such a productive day, that I even blogged!

I'm reminded of a beautiful advert layout I saw in one of Alex's magazines a few months ago. The left page was an article about slimming, and the right page was that danish bacon advert - the one with the REALLY BIG picture of a bacon rasher. Hehe. It wasn't the same as the pic here, but you get the idea - it was very similar. Fried egg instead of sandwich.

Muse Live

Saw Muse live at the Leeds Festival last Sunday, and was suitable impressed. All through the day there had been some weird spirally plastic things, like giant tumble-drier outlet pipes behind the curtain at the back of the stage. "Bet they're for Muse," Alex said - and sure enough, they were, along with ten amazing colour screen things - 5 of which levitated (on strings - even Muse can't defy gravity). Their new album sounds incredible live - they closed on "Take a Bow", which, despite seeming simply written, is always going to be a crowd* pleaser. Especially when they end with a huge spark of flames!

Also saw the Futureheads, who were a bit rubbish really. When you can stop looking forward to the crowd-splitting "uh-oh-oh", song, cos you've already heard 6 exactly the same, they have no interest for me. Dirty pretty things were alright, Feeder were, well, Feeder - you know what they're like. I have a t-shirt, but I must admit that I find them a little boring - and the lead singer's close resemblance to Adam-the-Mathmo does nothing for me.

*thanks to Dad for spotting the spelling mistake. Sure it was a cloud pleaser too.

m a n i c s

Currently Listening to: Am going through one of my annual Manic Street Preachers fortnights. Can't get enough of them at the moment, as can be seen from my last.fm profile! Also listening to alot of Led Zeppelin.

g o r m e n g h a s t

Currently Reading: Titus Groan by Mervin Peake (1st Book in the Gormenghast Trilogy). I randomly picked up the entire trilogy in Victoria Coach station on the way to Alex's, and it cost me £15 so I hope it's good. I read the first 90 pages on the coach, and must admit that although nothing happened, it was great fun to read. Mervin Peake's writing style is vividly descriptive, and simply in describing the daily lives of a number of characters within Gormenghast he kept me hooked. Hopefully this bodes well!

Childhood Dream #1 -- Fulfilled

This particular activity was so incredible, that it deserves it's own post. While on the pig farm, I fulfilled a childhood dream... I DROVE THE JCB. Yes, I was a digger driver for a day. I had to reverse it out of the farmyard, through a gate, over a hill and then lower some milk-churns full of water over an electric fence (I may have accidentally electrocuted the farmer, but it was my first time!) and then drive back. More fun than I could ever have imagined. Luckily it had an automatic clutch, which was handy as I wouldn't have fancied clunking the gears on a 2 tonne soil-shifter.

5 Reasons why pigs are smart.

Pigs. Pigs pigs pigs. They are smart little things. Many reasons:

1. The little buggers can learn how to open gate-bolts. And once they learn, they never forget. Oh, and they can lift gates off their hinges. Yes.




2. Once the boar smells his ladies, no amount of coaxing will get him to go in the opposite direction. And he has big teeth - and unlike a cow and it's immense strength, he knows how to use them*
3. Piglets are powerful, and they know how to flail.
4. They can somehow root around in their own filth all day without getting noticably ill, or throwing up.
5. They will only defecate in particular areas, and will keep their bedding areas clean, if given space to do so. This does actually make them, in my opinion, the cleanest of all the domestic animals I've worked with (excepting cats).

Overall, it was a really good week. The farmer had pigs (breeding, rearing and finishing - was great to see the whole process, though sadly I missed any farrowings - the two sows that were due while I was there had aborted a month or so before - clearly they knew I was coming!), cattle and sheep, and as a result I got to do a huge variety of things, including de-maggotting two fly struck sheep, jabbing a lively little piglet with some antibiotics, going to 2 farmers' markets, and 3 different abatoirs. He also had his own butchery so I got to try my hand at a spot of mincing - plus the bacon at breakfast was insurpassable!.

*I never actually got skewered by a boar, don't worry - he wasn't very good at standing up - looked like he was trying to walk on stilettos.

Just got back from the gym. It's the first time I've been since my initiation on Tuesday, and I quite enjoyed it. I went along with Sean and Don (who are both surprisingly strong!), and did my whole workout twice as the guy said. I'm glowing now I'm home, and hopefully as I did the stretches again I won't be too tough.

All of Hannah's friends are round at the moment having a BBQ, so I'm staying out of their way :)

Scrabble

Have played alot of Scrabble over the last few days. Played Sean three times today, he was beaten, and despite the harsh verbal stabbings we both received we enjoyed it. Apart from the last game, which stretched into 26 rounds of pain. Such awful letters. Truly awful. Though we did discover the word "suq", which is quite useful.

Aches and Pains

I ache. I booked into a gym yesterday cos I decided that I need to be able to lift calves. The guy in the gym thought this was a strange goal, but clearly he'd never been given a brief like it, and took it to heart. He gave me a few weights and explained how they would help me to throw sheep, and others to lift stuff. Think he quite enjoyed it.

But now I ache - not as much as I expected to, thanks to some smart stretches I was taught, but I do ache. Particularly my backside. Bloody ergs. Luckily today is a day of waiting for the gas man, so I don't have to do anything. Will probably go again on Thursday with Sean and his Bro. Coolio.

photo courtesy of this website.

Two More Species to Add to my Repertoire

In just over a month's time I will have completed 4 weeks of EMS. I'm working for 2 weeks with little northern piggies as of next Monday, and my September will be begun in the stables of some lovely horses from down my road. That will leave me needing only 2 weeks to finish off my 12, having already done 4 weeks of lambing and 2 weeks of dairy work.
picture taken from this website

Cotwolds

Not long been back from the Cotswolds where we went on holiday for a few days. We drove up via Oxford and had a quick wander round the town before we got to the hotel. Admittedly, it is a very nice town, but, in my highly biased opinion, it's not quite Cambridge. It's much more open, which in some ways is nice, but in other ways loses the close-knit feeling of Cambridge. It was also nowhere near as clean, and the buildings are built of an extremely crumbly stone (they look like Wensleydale cheese). That was very critical, and there's no reason why Oxford should be compared to Cambridge, but.. well. It was nice, but not NICE.

The hotel was amazing - amazing rooms, each with their own front door on to a little courtyard, and the food was incredible. Small portions, but they tasted amazing. Plus breakfast with Terry Wogan, an experience in itself.

The next day we drove to Bourton on the Water, a cute little village, but the journey to it turned out to be the most eventful thing to happen. We drove about 50miles to make to 25 mile journey.. I enclose a map of our journey - including phantom section. The bit of road we never went down.(NB: on the map it says "to bourton on the water" - the actuall village is further along the A40... if you care! Just didn't want the Bourton village council onto me for deformation of location :))

It was a very quaint village with a model village (including a model of the model village in the model village), loads of tea shops and gift shops, the cute little Windrush river. We spent ages just wandering around looking at stuff.

Unfortunately my Dad managed to break a tooth (he'd been to the dentist before we went away but he'd failed to spot it), and so we had to leave early the following day to get him to the dentist. He came home a little less wise than he did before!
map taken from www.streetmap.co.uk, edited by me

Scorchio!

Sorry! It's been a while - I blame the heat. It's been well over 30 degrees during the day (and 30 degrees in my room at night) every day since Monday. PAINY!

Today
Not done much today. Planned circuitboard diagrams (see below). Am off out to Ikea later on today to try again to get my chair.

Yesterday
Met up with the famous Jamie Frost yesterday in Kingston. We went to see Superman, and it was a pretty good film. I won't give it a mark (as Jamie will be doing that... see his site), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The first half was pretty much devoted to Superman flying round doing cool stuff (which, to be fair, is what everyone will be going to see this film for), while the main plot development was in the second half, centred around Lex Luther's evil money-making scheme: "But millions of people will die!", "BILLIONS!". Excellent Stuff

The Last Week
In general I've been pretty lazy all round. I ordered some components for a little electrical project I've set myself... I shall have to wait and see if it'll all come off. It might turn out to be a shambles! The fact that the chip I wanted to use is now obselete is a bit of a pain, but I think I've found a pin-for-pin replacement.

b l a c k h o l e s a n d r e v e l a t i o n s

Currently Listening t0 - Muse - Black Holes and Revelations. It's actually pretty good - after hearing their single Supermassive Black Hole, which is a bit like jamiroquai I was worried, but it fits in pretty well with the album, even though the other tracks are much more muse like. Seems pretty angry though #you'll burn, yeah you'll burn for you sins, yeah you'll burn# ahem.

Cycling in the heatwave

I’ve taken to going for a cycle in the mornings. Only two days so far, and today’s was an afternoon cycle (despite it being 31.5 degrees), but it’s good fun. Yesterday morning I cycled past one of the ponds that was full of a load of red-deer cooling off. A great photo opportunity – if only I’d taken a camera. I did today, and tried vainly to photograph some jays I saw, but they were too quick for me. There were a few deer again, but none in the pond sadly!

Snooker 2

Rahul beat me 5-3 this time. Nearly got the 8^th frame, but he pipped me to the post with an amazing pink. Oh well, 8-8 is is. Think it’s gonna turn out to be a best of 25 three session marathon. Hehe.