And I am able to resume normal service this afternoon, now starting to feel better after having been laid low by a bout of shingles. I'd been feeling a bit under the weather, but was coping adequately - but then I hit the wall on Wednesday afternoon, suddenly starting to feel terrible. I was thinking that I must be getting soft in my old age to be feeling so sorry for myself merely for having a mild chest infection, but then when I went to get dressed yesterday morning I found the tell-tale rash covering my rib-cage, front and back, and I immediately felt less guilty about my self-pity. So I've only ridden two lots on each of the past two days, have basically just slept outside stable hours; and now, Friday afternoon, I feel on the road to recovery.
So what's been happening? Monday's trip to Windsor wasn't one of our more distinguished outings, I'm afraid. First Pressing finished among the tail-enders. She clearly needs to do an awful lot better than that if she is to make the grade, but she is still far from the finished article and she has nothing wrong with her, so fingers crossed she can shape up in the near future. It was a funny day. We left home in lovely weather, and, although there had been a couple of heavy showers, it was lovely weather while First Pressing was getting ready for her race. But by the time the jockeys got up, as 
this picture suggests, the storm was brewing; and by the time they dismounted it had broken. Hence no post-race pictures. The shots I took in the morning show much more summer-like conditions; and I hope that they show that Ethics Girl should be set to run a bold race at Newmarket tomorrow. She's such a darling because she's a lovely ride (hence my riding her most of the time, because I'm at the stage of life where I don't feel too guilty about picking my rides reasonably carefully) and she'd never dream of performing such tricks with a rider on her back - but when she's feeling well, she really lets you know it when she gets turned out, as the second and third (with the equally perky Kadouchski) photographs in this chapter show. Its fourth photograph shows some acrobatics which were less funny, although we can laugh about them in retrospect. You'll have heard the phrase of horses 'getting cast'. This only happens to stupid horses, but it can easily happen in a small stable when 
a horse gets down for a roll and rolls right over - only, of course, to find that in an enclosed space the consequence of rolling right over means that he's wedged up against the wall, his legs pressed tight against the wall, and, as he can't move his legs, he can't extricate himself. The less stupid of the horses who get cast wait for assistance, while the really stupid ones thrash about in panic, usually hurting themselves in the process. Anyway, if a horse has to be fairly stupid to get cast in a stable, how stupid must he be to get cast in a field? That, of course, is what Frankie did on Sunday morning, just before I was due to leave for Windsor, which didn't help. Eschewing the open spaces, he had a roll right next to the fence, rolled over - and found himself cast against the fence post and railings.
Fortunately this is less serious as there is at least room for leg movement between the railings, and he was able to wriggle free without, miraculously, causing himself any flesh wounds - and then he set off across the field as if the hounds of hell were at his heels. For the first few seconds (including the second in which I took this fourth photograph) it was rather amusing - but amusement quickly turned to serious worry: not only was it not normal for a horse to be kicking out this repeatedly and this forcefully, but he looked really unhappy, and when he gave himself a break his back end slewed around as if he had sustained a very serious spinal injury. I caught him and brought him back to his stable - an action easier said than done - where he resumed kicking out with frightening ferocity, and lolling around alarmingly. Imagine my relief when, as the seconds ticked by, it dawned on me what had happened: his back legs had been stung by the nettles which grow just the other side of the fence! I suppose nettle stings can be quite painful - and, more to the point, if you have no idea what is causing this pain, you'd be at least as frightened as you were pained. All was obviously well that ended well, but it was a useful reminder that a horse's ability to get himself into trouble unassisted is pretty much limitless. The perfect post-script to this brahma came the following morning came when I was stung by a wasp, while I was sitting on Ethics Girl on the side of the Heath picking some plums from a tree, not realising that a wasp was in the process of helping himself to a plum which I was grasping. I did make a bit of a fuss, but Ethics, being the angel that she is, coped with the incident well - and I certainly did not make the fuss which Frankie would have done!
So what else has been happening? We've had a Jigsaw Fair in the town, in our local church, St. Mary's. That's been quite an event, in my mind anyway, even if my shingles meant that I haven't spent quite as much time at it as I'd have liked (ie I haven't spent any time there, which is a shame). Other than that, the most notable incident was the curious case of the dog who ate a bone in the afternoon. And what, as Dr Watson might have asked, was so curious about that? Well, the fact that the dog didn't eat the bone, of course. I thought that I'd be doing the dogs a massive favour on Tuesday afternoon when I bought a bag of bones - and I particularly thought that I would be doing dear little Gus a particularly massive favour, as he is the greediest dog ever born. Well, Stan was ever so excited and got stuck into his bone straightaway. Bean was ever so excited and got stuck into her bone straightaway. And Gus? It wasn't that he turned his nose up at it, more that he acted as if he didn't even realise that this item was food. Worrying, isn't it? It's like these inner city kids we're told about who supposedly think
that things like milk, meat and vegetables come from plastic containers on the supermarket shelf and would have no idea that a field of cows or crops is the source of what ends up on our plates and in our mouths, and who would be horrified if the awful truth ever reached them. Worrying, isn't it? Can Gus really be that stupid? He wouldn't have the necessary self-control to keep the act going if he had just decided to play a little spoof on me, so I suppose he must be that stupid. In his defence, he is
fed more or less exclusively on dried biscuit-like dog meal - but then, is that really much of an excuse? The really worrying post-script to the episode came a couple of days later. I've been off my food while I've been ill, but whenever I'm unwell I automatically reach for the Lucozade, which I wouldn't usually touch with a barge-pole. Anyway, I've drunk litres of that, and I've also eaten a couple of Pot Noodles, because, when I'm not up for proper food but know that I ought to try to eat something, I do find that Pot Noodles answer to the description which Clive James so memorably applied to airline food: as easy to eat as to 
send back untouched. Anyway, there were a couple of unopened (and therefore, obviously, unmoistened) Pot Noodles left on the side in the kitchen overnight - and one of these was grabbed, smashed and eaten by a dog, with Gus naturally being Du Prime Suspect. Anyway, what do we make of that? Gus, a dog who'll show no interest in a just-stopped-living-and-breathing-piece-of-beast, but will join the lawless mob for a Pot Noodle, which probably contains maximum 1% stuff which dogs (or humans, cynics might say - but I should emphasise that I'm not in their number and do actually like them) should be eating? In his defence, he did finally consent to investigate a bone - but, really!!So onto the weekend. As mentioned above, Ethics Girl runs at Newmarket tomorrow. So we'll hope for the best there, and ditto at Newbury, where Silken Thoughts will be bidding to establish a small reputation as a course specialist following her course and distance victory of 12 days ago.
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