Turn Me Over!

Today was a day of two halves.

Work was frantic with a relentless headache for most of the sfternoon, but this evening was splendid.

Mum and I took the stud manager, his wife, and Lisa the Vet out for dinner, to say 'thank you' for all their help with our mare and foal. We went to the Alford Arms at Frithsden, near Berkhamsted. A delightful pub that has got the blend spot on. Still a proper pub with an excelent dining room, unpretentious, yet serving top notch food.

Lisa has been our vet for about 17 years, bubbly, attractive and great fun, a couple of very amusing stories were retold during the evening.

Mum recalled the first time Lisa turned up on her doorstep, newly qualified and working for our usual vet. Mum phoned him the next day to say 'Who was that young girl you sent? She can't be a vet, she's far too young, much too small to work with horses and she doesn't know a thing, she's useless.' It takes guts to survive one of Mum's verbal onslaughts, but she did and they have developed a firm friendship, so much so that Lisa then reminded us of the following story.

She turned up as arranged, nobody was at the stables, so she let herself into the house via the back door, put on the kettle, shouted upstairs, 'I'm here.' Started to make a cup of coffee and a sandwich - as usual. A bewildered woman walked into the kitchen from upstairs. Lisa had forgotten that my mum had moved house two weeks previously.

The blip? The underside of a box delivered by Parcel force today. Just how I felt at the time.