Love is in the air!

It's terribly exciting: love is in the air! Gemma's Facebook page this week has borne the announcement of her changed status: no longer "in a relationship", but now "engaged". There'll be a few broken hearts when word of this gets out, not least because she is engaged to Simon Waterhouse, as there will surely be as many female hearts shattered by the news of Sexy Simon's engagement as male hearts smashed by the news of Gemma's. (By the way, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know them, in this picture Simon is the one who looks uncannily like Bear Grylls, while Gemma is the one who does't look much like Bear Grylls at all). And we'll be able to toast the happy couple tomorrow evening when they host a joint party, which actually wasn't planned to celebrate this piece of news at all, but to mark the fact that each has recently had a 'significant birthday'. These milestones might have been the prompting which they had been requiring, with the realisation that time and tide wait for no man: mind you, they haven't yet named the day, so perhaps a bit more prompting will be necessary.


Tomorrow's party might be tricky enough. I'm not merely talking about the risk that I might enjoy myself - which, of course, is a major danger - but also about the fact that the Saturday closest to Guy Fawkes night is Bonfire Night, so there will be fireworks above Newmarket all evening; and greyhounds hate fireworks. So I'm not sure whether it will be appropriate to leave the unhappy and frightened greyhounds alone: I might have to wait until the fireworks have all exploded before heading partywards.
The cats and horses don't seem at all bothered by the pyrotechnics, thankfully, with the cats quite happy to look after themselves, as these two pictures of the sisters Giant and Alamshar, taken this week, illustrate. Now that the weather is getting bad, it's hard to get these two cats out of the house, so there's plenty of this type of inaction going on. Natagora is bold enough, but even she isn't to be found outside much when it's cold and wet. Of course the Breeders' Cup is another complicating factor in planning the evening, but Gemma's assurances that there will be a big screen there showing the racing has partially assuaged my misgivings. A more pertinent concern, though, has been raised by David, who has been hired to provide the disco: David has tipped me the wink that someone whose idea of the perfect disco is one which plays such old favourites as 'The Time Warp', 'Dancing Queen', 'Sugar Baby Love', 'Love Really Hurts Without You', 'Gloria' and 'Disco 2000' might be in for a big disappointment. Surely the sprightly 40-year-old Simon won't allow this party to be dragged into the 20th century, will he?


Dragging this chapter back to something approaching sense, I'm pleased to report that the two yearlings who came from the October Sale were both ridden today (and not by me, I'm even more pleased to report). They both seem very sensible (as these two photographs, of the Tobougg filly on her own in the yard and then of her and the Bertolini walking along the Watercourse together, show) so all went very smoothly.
There's not a huge amount going on here at present, so it's nice to have these youngsters starting to make some progress because it gives everyone something to look forward to. More immediately we have a couple of entries next week: Ireland Dancer at Southwell on Thursday and Stardust Memories at Lingfield on Friday. Both are currently intended runners, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will run. I hope that they will, though. The plan is that Stardust Memories has that run and then goes off for a spell, while the aim for Ireland Dancer (aka Magners) is that this is the (belated - he's been here over a year) start of a campaign for him.