Strange times. I got up early on thursday and checked my Blackberry. There was a note from Mick alerting me to the news of the volcanic cloud – I read the story on the BBC web site. Further up was an email from BA confirming that our flight was cancelled.
I woke Jane and told her the bad news. I passed her the BBC story on my Blackberry – she read it shaking her head periodically. “Oh my God” she said, “I didn’t expect that to happen”.
We went downstairs – her mother appeared. Jane explained that our flights had been cancelled after a volcanic eruption. She laughed and sat down – “You are joking aren’t you”. Jane shook her head. “No, you’re joking”. I passed her my Blackberry.
Del the butler arrived – I told him the news. He roared with laughter – “you a funny man” – and disappeared into the kitchen. He reappeared about half an hour later looking white (metaphorically speaking) – “you were tellng the truth!”. “I know” – I smiled.
Our villa was booked up so we had to be moved to a smaller set of rooms. The next flight out is to Orlando on Tuesday – hopefully we can get a flight from there to the UK, but there has to be more than a chance that the UK will still be shut. Fingers crossed.
A mixed day yesterday. Foghorn was withdrawn after playing up in the stalls. He reared up and put his legs over the side of the stall – under new rules that constitutes an automatic withdrawal. Blast Furnace ran well enough, eventually finishing 5th – she’d have preferred it a little softer. Western Eyes ran well for a while before fading – she’ll come on for that. Maxwell Hawke had no run and finished last – keep the faith with him.
The undisputed star of the day was Blue Jack, who went to Newbury probably needing the run, missed the break and still won pulling up by 2 1/2 lengths. We can dare to dream with him now.
He was the first ever runner in the Black/Owen turquoise colours. The second such runner – Malpas Missile – goes in the 5:10 at Donny tonight. The Manor House 2yos have been slow off the mark and we’re still waiting for evidence that they are what we think they are, but MM is nice and she’ll go well. Maybe not one to back as I’d want to see more evidence of the wellbeing of the 2yos before putting any money down, but I was wrong yesterday.