It’s chaotic at home at the moment with the children now full on and with nowhere to hide at home. Robbie is making life more difficult as he’s found a way to get out of his pen and he keeps running off onto the common that adjoins the farm – I’ve had to go in after him six times in the last four days. He’s harmless, cruising around as if he owns the place, but he’s tasted life in the wild and he clearly wants more – it’s worrying.
On Monday we had a long day at Fisher’s Farm Park in Sussex. It was good old fashioned entertainment for all of them – I thought the food was a bit moderate but otherwise an excellent day. We left after the official close – as we were going out they opened all the pens to allow the animals back to the fields, and they just mingled in amongst us. It was a rather surreal experience walking to the car park alongside a pig, two llamas, sheep and goats.
On Tuesday night we camped out in one of our woods. Our farm has four woods and a lake, and while we were in the woods one of our builders was up all night fishing in the lake. It all felt very eco.
Robbie came along and was a bit of a nuisance, sniffing around for any spare scraps of food he could find. At one point one of the girls wandered off quietly to have a poo. As she came out from behind a tree, Robbie wandered in and promptly gobbled the poo up. As if that wasn’t unpleasant enough, he returned to the campfire looking to lick a few faces – his breath, not good at the best of times, was truly disgusting.
The kids all leapt up shouting and I came to realise how much american TV they have been watching; “Aah that is soooo gross” – “that is so todally not cool” etc.
I slept in a small tent with the girls – not the best nights sleep I’ve had and I woke up with various aches and a headache but good fun nonetheless.
I had a couple of runners tonight, including a winner. Where’s the Soap ran quite nicely, finishing fourth of six in a fairly competitive maiden having been outpaced early. She didn’t much like the track, but she’s coming together and I’m confident that she’ll be winning soon. Bea Menace broke her duck at the ninth attempt – it was a weak race but she won well.
Maxwell Hawke returns to action on Saturday, and could go well. I may not have any runners at Goodwood, but several of the 2yos are ready to roll now and should start to come out towards the end of next week. I’ve named my Sadlers Wells filly Blast Furnace and I’ve changed the name of my Trempelino filly from Bold Font to Thingathong. Don’t ask me why.