Sculpture To Wear

Paul Barker jumped a team of horses at Aintree last week. He was successful as usual with his own horses and also he was quite pleased with Lux Fabulous. It was his first show for a few weeks and he always comes out “fresh”. The first day in the 1.20 mtrs “Fabion” managed to put 2 strides in the double and still managed to go clear! Next day was an improvement, still at 1.20 he was second! Well done Paul! Last saturday the snow began to fall so Paul decided to miss the B+C to travel home. A wise decision as once again the M62 was a real hazard. Paul had a nightmare journey home with cars skidding all over the place in front of him in the snow! With 7 horses on board it was frightening! But as well as being a great rider Paul is a very good driver and got everyone home safely. Sunday was chill out day. For the second week in a row Hannah, Paul and I have gone out for Sunday lunch. Very civilised! This time joined by Pat, who works on my stand, Anna, my secretary and Alex, her husband, we had a super traditional Sunday lunch at the Blue Lion at East Witton, near Leyburn

Another attempt today, Friday, to get to Liverpool Airport! Two weeks ago I set off from North Yorkshire at 3.30pm to get to Liverpool for a 10.10 pm flight to Shannon. One would have thought 6 hours was leaving enough travelling time to do what is normally a three and a half hour journey! Wrong! The M62 was completely gridlocked due to other routes over the Penines being closed because of snow. I decided to call it a day at 9.15pm as there was no way I was going be there in time before the gate closed at 9.45! So I gingerly left the M62 at Saddleworth to return home. I’ve never known traffic as bad as this with lorries parked up on the side of the motorway when their hours were “up”. As I headed east again the traffic on the west side of the motorway was still backed up to Leeds! It just shows how overcrowed our roads are! Let’s hope the cob that I’m going to look at is good enough!