Ever hopeful

Last sunday I went with my parents on a three and a half hour drive. Three and a half hours without a cigarette and only the vaguest idea of the route to our destination. The destination was an equestrian centre where my parents showjumper was jumping in a big competition. First a few things about the horse. He bought her in 2007 at Christmas and told nobody. Not me, not my mother and not my little brother. He bought her and brought her home to the farm and never mentioned her to anyone. Around the same time as he was taking delivery of a moody, neurotic three year old, I was being told by everyone in the village that I may just get a horse for Christmas. Christmas day comes and we're all up at the farm when Dad changes into his work clothes and asks me for help on the farm. So off we go to check the live stock and then he takes me up to feed the horses. He explained that he'd bought a horse for jumping but not to mention it to anyone as it was Christmas day. I agreed and then said 'Mum does know about the horse, though, right?'
'Of course she does,' he nodded.
So Christmas day continues without mention of the horse, although she was never far from my mind.

The day after boxing day, Mum, her dog and I went for a walk in some sort attempt to walk the indulgence of Christmas off in the bitter cold by the sea. She was saying something about the dog's name so I said 'oh well, you've got a horse to name now, so what names are you thinking of?'
'Horse?'
'Yeah, she's gorgeous, but what are you going to call her?'
'Horse?'
At this point I stopped and looked at her. 'Yeah, the horse, a mare about 17hh, grey, very pretty, up on the farm. That horse. Dad showed me her on Christmas day.'
'What horse are you on about?'
'Hold on here, are you telling me that you know nothing about this horse?'
After about ten minutes of complete disbelief from both sides, I told her what I knew about the mare. This is just an example of a typical Dad thing to do. We smile and nod and then try to pretend that the whole thing was our idea not his when it works out. Which it does more often than you would think natural.

So this year as a five year old, she went off to jump in this competition, and off we followed. When I got into the car to begin the journey, I asked about Katie, thinking that as none of us had ever been to the place before she might be the perfect companion. Katie is Dad's satnav, so called because apparently she just sounds like a Katie. But Katie was at home, resting in her box after about 4 uses in her entire life. I was slightly dubious at this but reassured myself with the idea that the place would be signposted. The first two and a half hourse were fine. We were all filled with hope that the horse would win and maybe end her season on a high. Dad doesn't want to over work her so she comes home for winter. She's coming home sometime soon.
It was when we were supposed to be about half an hour from our destination that the trouble began. Dad had gotten directions from a friend who had been there before and to his credit he had even written the directions down. What he didn't do was take them with him, claiming that he thought Mum had put them in her bag. She claimed complete ignorance of any directions. So out I got at filling station after filling station, doing that lost nonnative looking for directions run inside, and then the lost nonnative dejected shuffle back to the car when nobody had a clue what I was talking about. Eventually we found our way there but my hope of relying on signposts was both premature and dashed. At one point we drove around in circles looking for a signpost that Mum was insisting we had just neglected to see. It wasn't that we had neglected to see it, it just didn't exist.
After parking, we shuffled inside and found somewhere to watch our mare make us proud. After some thirty horses, she entered the ring and jumped a beautiful clear round. Or at least I think she jumped a beautiful clear round, I know she had a clear but I only managed to watch the first four jumps. Mum managed to watch five and Dad somehow got through the whole thing but he did say it was one of the few times in his life he'd ever been nervous. She knocked a pole in the second round and therefore being eliminated from the competition. She jumped really well apparently, but I didn't see it. I couldn't look. My pulse rate was raised, my mouth was dry and I felt like I was going to faint. I moved away from the rail and looked in the opposite direction. About five seconds after I had moved away, I felt someone stand beside me. I looked over and saw my mother looking slightly sheepish but examining the wall in front of her as if she was looking at the Mona Lisa.
So after three and a half hours in the car, two hours standing watching the competition, and two minutes watching our horse, we returned to the car. Nobody mentioned anything but trying to navigate our way out of the maze of roads that had led us there. Three hours later, (we were now old pros at the whole navigation bit and had included a stop for food) we arrived home. By this stage we were disappointed but not disheartened and had managed with varying degrees of success, in my case complete success and in Dad's case moderate success, to build the mare up again in our minds. Yes, she had had a disappointing round but she jumped well, she looked good and she had made it throught three qualifying rounds to get there. She had jumped amazingly in other big shows this year and she just had an off day. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a sunday.

Sunday 20th September

I think I'm now over the shock of finding myself at a church ladies meeting. Just about. It was touch and go for a while yesterday when I got three phone calls from different people asking me if I would go back. I made non-committal noises and when asked what I thought about the meeting I just said 'yeah, it was fine.' I mean what was I supposed to say : I had a sudden image of why I'm not supposed to go near church events unless they're outside and I can see a direct escape route. I'm thinking that may not have gone down so well and I can occasionally use tact. Not often I'll admit but there are some situations where I not only use tact but I do it well. This was one of them.
The good part of the meeting is that they've mentioned starting a book club. I would actually go to that. I love books. I'll read anything once and if I like then I'll re-read it until I've more or less memorised the first chapter. However, there are a few downsides to this proposed book club. The first being that they've said it would be every three months. I read fast. By the time they get around to holding the book club, I'll have finished the book and have fogotten parts of the plot. The second pitfall is the choosing of the books. I can't see the church ladies reading 'The DaVinci Code' or 'The God Delusion'. I also can't see me reading a book of thousands of prayers and books on how to love god more completely. I've been trying to think on a suitable book to suggest but have come up with nothing. Maybe 'The Witch's Hammer' would keep them happy.

Last Night

Last night was strange. A couple of days ago I got a phone call from a family member. We had a normal conversation and then she asked me if I was going to the meeting. I asked what meeting while running over everything that had already been said to make sure that I hadn't missed a part of the conversation, this has been known to happen with me. I don't think I had because the next thing she said did not clear my confusion.
"Did you not get the box?" That week I had got two boxes. Boxes of books I'd ordered and since the subject of the books was either shape shifters, vampires or horses, I was pretty sure that neither of them were the box she was asking about. I asked what box.
"The box left for you in church. It has your name on it."
I told that not only had I not got a box but I knew absolutely nothing of said box.
"It's a wee blue one with your name on it. There's a chocolate thing inside it."
I'm female. I began listening at the mention of chocolate, and asking about where I could find the chocolate.
"It was left on the pew. There's one for your mother, too. It's an invitation for the women's association for the church."
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, but when I hung up I realised that she had somehow got me to agree to go to the meeting. I was still laughing about it when I rang my dad to find out what exactly had happened to my box of some sort of chocolate. He had it. He still has it, actually.
So, I forgot all about this meeting and my consent to go to it. Until yesterday, I was reading a book, one of the ones that had arrived in the boxes, and having a cigarette when the phone rang. I thought it was MIL so I ignored and continued to read and smoke in peace while the bf answered. Well, it was supposed to be for him anyway so why would I bother answering it. The next thing I know, he comes running and says it's for me. I left my book (really good) and my cigarette and went to the phone. It was not MIL. It was a woman from the church.
"So, you're going to this meeting tonight then?" She said.
My mind went into overdrive. It was simultaneously trying to remember what this meeting was while also trying to think of an excuse not to go.
"The women's meeting" She said.
"Well, yeah, um, I think so."
"That's good, there'll be some numbers tonight. Do you need a lift?"
"No, no, I'll get down with mum." With that sentence my entire plan was formulated. Mum had been working all day and would have next to no inclination to be heading off to a meeting. Not only that but a few days earlier she had been in a minor car accident. She was uninjured but there was no way she'd want to be traipsing off to a meeting. Especially one I thought and was convinced about it, that dealt with the art and science of jam making and knitting and crocheting. I said my goodbyes and immediately rang my mother. After establishing that both of us would only go if the other was going we'd hit a stalemate. Her plan had been to say that as I wasn't going she didn't want to drive an empty car the whole twenty minutes and nobody else would have room for her. I told it was up to her to decide and that she held the fate of both of us in her hands. We deliberated for about five minutes with mum eventually saying that we'd have to go but that it probably wouldn't take long.
So at twenty to eight, I was getting into mum's car. She didn't have an empty car or even a half empty one. She ended up driving four of us down to a meeting that I was still convinced and no amount to talking would have persuaded me otherwise, which would have us all up to our elbows in gooseberry jam by nine o'clock. At eight, we're sitting in the car, now parked, like a crowd of eejits because nobody else had arrived and we didn't want to be the first ones in the door. Fortunately, within three minutes, five other cars pulled up and we got out of the car with one of us saying something close to: "No, I didn't see where that thing went. It must be under the drivers seat." Just so as we didn't look like complete idiots.
By the time we reached the front door there was a line of about ten of us, all walking in like mourners to a funeral. We packed in to a medium sized living room of the minster's house but it could hold us for long and soon we had to move to the considerably larger kitchen, all twenty seven of us.
The meeting started with ice breakers and quizzes. So I'm sat there thinking, no jam jars, quizzes, chocolate, this might not be as bad as I thought. I was wrong. After all that, they began the prayers and the bible readings and the 'funny' little christian sayings. I'm sat there in a chair which is killing my bad hip, and thinking 'What on earth am I doing here?' I'm not religious and as a general rule try my best to avoid it at all costs and somehow I was persuaded to be there. Not only that but they signed me up to come back and help organise things.
Fortunately at no point where we ever up to our elbows in gooseberry jam. I think they're saving that for the second meeting.

Day One

So, here's the start of my blog. It's half six in the morning and due to my insomnia, instead of sleeping like most people, I'm on the Internet watching videos on youtube and starting a blog. This is in between checking my facebook, myspace, bebo and email addresses - three of them. I'm beginning to think that there's far too much Internet entertainment. I have three email addresses. It's madness. I know it's madness. But they each have a purpose. One is for the more serious emails and updates from my goodreads profile. One is for less serious emails and online gaming emails and the third is for family members and friends of the family. And then there's the social networking sites. Three of them and again, they're separated into groups, Friends from England, Friends from school and Friends that also know my brother. So in my mind this sort of, in a roundabout fashion, makes sense, what doesn't make sense is the amount of time that I spend playing games on facebook. It's like an addiction and more that half of the people I know share this addiction. But that's OK because there will always be someone to be my neighbour on farmville.
Although, I am talking breaks from the computer and TV (it's on for background noise, but it's Jeremy Kyle and I can't seem to stop myself from glancing up occasionally) to read. I nearly always have a book to read. Not reading is an alien concept to me and in my family makes me the exception not the rule. My dad can't focus long enough to read a whole book plus he's a slow reader and that's always put him off reading. But I've loaned him a book and with any luck he'll get at least half way through it. My brother has read Harry Potter 1 - 5 but owns Harry Potter 1 - 7 (1-6 actually belong to me but little brothers don't seem to let thing like actual ownership of the item get in the way of things they want) and Lord of the Rings but hasn't attempted it yet and will admit that he doesn't intend to. He thought his bookcase looked quite sparse and decided that while I was living in England, he'd take some of my books from my bookcase to fill his out. My mum is the worst though. She has four bookcases filled with books, again not all of them are actually hers but are in fact mine, but yet she won't read. In twenty-three years (my entire lifetime) I have never seen her lift a book and read it. She will read magazine articles occasionally but generally she flicks through the magazine with her eyes focused on the golf on the TV. My partner read before he met me but not half as much as he does now. My Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark-Hunter novel is yelling at me so I'm going to go and give it the attention it deserves.