New Start 33

A quiet day at work but sticking well to the diet. Very hungry when I got home but had a bar and chocolate pack in coffee together which seems to have shut that up. It was lovely actually, sitting down by the pond with D eating lemon biscuits and drinking chocolatey coffee - mmmm felt almost normal!!

At the back of our garden is our neighbours' tennis court and behind that is their riding arena (we are very much the poor relations in this neighbourhood!!). It is nice at the moment though sitting out in the evening watching the neighbours' 4 year old daughter have her first few riding lessons. Our neighbour Sarah is a very keen and talented horsewoman who has represented UK in 3 day eventing so it's no surprise that she's starting her son and daughter off early but we have been surprised how seriously little Ellie takes her lessons. The teacher is an older bloke who also coaches Sarah and is really tough with her and seems pretty tough on Ellie too although very encouraging as well. She grins from ear to ear as she pounds round the arena in rising trot and takes little jumps in her stride - it's really cute to watch.

I think we're both getting broody....

Then there's the France thing. We subscribe to a magazine called Living France (actually my parents' Christmas gift to D for the year) and each month, when it arrives, we spend ages inching our way through it - reading all the articles and examining every single house ad. We've definitely got the bug. One arrived today so, while I cooked D supper (just spag bol) we read it together and mentally added a few hundred thousand to our budget so we could afford the Chateau in the Loire valley or the turreted mansion in the Auvergne. Actually we just about can afford the turreted place in Auvergne so we'd better get our skates on before it goes....!

We went for a walk round the river afterwards so Shelagh could have a swim and, on the way back, found a big, almost emprty field which had just been mowed. The swallows were flying low catching bugs and Shelagh went crazy chasing them. It's great to watch - there's no way she's coming back to us until she's exhausted; she just races round and round the field chasing the birds and yippings at them - all you can hear is this little high pitched yip yip yip as she races past. Really beautiful and free. The last photo of me has Shelagh in the backround racing around - the little dot!!

Anyway, she's totally knackered out now and sleeping like a dead dog...that's her done for the day.

Me too - I'm off to the pub!!