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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter Thirteen: ‘Happy Christmas, Clunky’

Chapter Fourteen: Grumpy Lizards and Misty-eyed Gorillas

Chapter Fifteen: Stella the Heifer

Chapter Sixteen: Man’s Best Friend

Chapter Seventeen: Horse Sense

Chapter Eighteen: Luca the Great Dane

Chapter Nineteen: The End in Sight

Acknowledgements

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Happy Christmas, Clunky’

Home for Christmas, and I couldn’t wait. A whole two weeks off, without having to think about textbooks, diagnoses and beady-eyed clinicians. Time to relax with the family, which meant food, games, walks and riding my horses. And best of all, Jacques was coming over from South Africa to spend the holiday with us.

He was due in a couple of days, but before that the film crew had decided they wanted to come and film me and Ross decorating our Christmas tree. Only one small problem there – we didn’t have a tree yet. Ross and I rushed out to get one, but it was the Saturday before Christmas and all the trees had gone except for the ones nobody wanted, with crooked trunks, spindly branches and a bare stalk sticking up at the top. We picked the least sad of the bunch, were still charged an extortionate amount, and loaded it into the back of the car. Once we got it home we spent a hilarious hour trying to get it to stand upright. It had a distinct tilt, so Ross spun it round and propped things under the side of the tree-holder while I stood across the room, hands on hips, saying, ‘No, up a bit, down a bit, to the right, round that way,’ until he threw a cushion at me and said, ‘That’s it, I give up.’ Tosca was excited by all the commotion and the smell of something different in the house, but moving the furniture to fit in the tree didn’t do her any favours. Trying to get to grips with the new layout of the room she ended up knocking the tree so that it tilted again, at which point we realised we were fighting a losing battle trying to keep it upright.

When Amy and Ash arrived they stared at the tree aghast, but there wasn’t much choice at that point. Ross and I set to, chattering happily and covering its spindly little branches with shiny baubles as they tried to film us from clever angles to make it look less unfortunate. In the Hardy household we had a wonderful box of Christmas decorations, which, the minute it emerged each year, reduced me and Ross to eight-year-olds again. It was full of red wooden characters and trains, tinsel, beautiful shiny baubles in all sorts of shapes, and a long coil of red fairy lights, half of which now didn’t work. We had to try to wind the lights round the tree so that all the broken ones were at the back, a feat that took time and advanced contortion skills.

Once we’d done our best with the tree and had propped a drunken-looking fairy at a precarious angle on the top, Amy and Ash, hoping for something a little more impressive, decided to come with me to see the horses. I was delighted, as it was a chance to show off Tammy and Elli and put them through their paces for the cameras. But predictably, Tammy, who can be a darling or a devil, chose to be the latter. With the camera trained on her she played up in every way she knew, jumping around with her ears back and stubbornly refusing to do anything I asked. Half of the footage involved her prancing on the spot with me saying ‘Calm down, calm down’ in my most patient voice, despite wanting to bawl at her. The rest of the footage was of us jumping a line of big jumps, mostly at breakneck speed.

Thankfully Elli was far better behaved, but by the time I rode her the light was fading, so although she strutted her stuff, let me ride her bareback and generally showed Tammy how it should be done, the crew said it was probably too dark for the footage to be used. Guess which footage made it into the programme!

After that, Amy and Ash took off, waving goodbye and saying they’d see me in the New Year. I’d got used to having them tailing me and at times it was quite comforting to have a little gang alongside me but, in the nicest possible way, it was good to see the back of them for a couple of weeks.

The following day was Sunday and time for our church nativity play. We’re members of our local church; Ross and I both play in the band, Dad is a church Elder, and Mum is deputy washer of the communion glasses. The family nativity is always a highlight; children and adults all get involved and the traditional story is given a modern twist. This year they were adding in a journalist who would report the story, popping up every now and then with ‘Now let’s flash forward and see how Mary and Joseph are feeling.’

Dad inevitably plays a shepherd because of the very convincing West Country accent he likes to put on. Embarrassingly, imitating accents is a Hardy male trait, Ross and Dad won’t stop once they start, especially when they’re together, and between them they can pretty much replicate any accent across the world. Dad’s speciality is Cornish and Ross loves to mimic Russian, probably because he plays Call of Duty on his Xbox so often, although all he can actually say is ‘Cover me, I’m reloading.’

For the nativity Dad had to provide his own costume and he’d left it to the last minute. Searching around for inspiration he picked up the living room sheepskin rug and tied it round himself with some baling twine we had lying around, from the hay bales at the yard. After topping the outfit off with a tea-towel on his head he looked completely ridiculous, strutting around talking like Ted from The Fast Show. Ross and I were both cringing, but in the end the nativity was brilliant and Dad had everyone in stitches.

That evening we went out to supper with some family friends at a pub out in the country and there was a tempestuous storm. The rain was so torrential that by the time we set off for home the roads were flooded. Luckily we’d taken our Land Rover Defender or we certainly wouldn’t have made it back.

The storm was so severe that large parts of Kent were flooded and dozens of properties damaged after the River Medway burst its banks. We were very lucky that we weren’t in a flooded area, but later we learned that four of our livery yard’s stables had collapsed, though luckily none of the horses were hurt. The buildings had literally been lifted off their footings, over the heads of their occupants, and blown across the yard owner’s garden. Thankfully Tammy and Elli’s stables were still standing, although theirs were partially flooded. Tammy was left standing in two inches of water and was pretty unsettled because the horses that lost their stables had escaped and were galloping wildly around.

Jacques was due to arrive at Heathrow early the next morning. I set off in plenty of time, but the traffic was so heavy that I ended up getting there forty-five minutes after his plane had landed. I managed to sprint across the airport to the arrival gate and got there, madly out of breath, just before he appeared. Minutes later I leaped into his arms, thrilled to see him, and he picked me up and spun me around.

‘What took you so long? I’ve been here for ages,’ I joked.

‘Mmm, sure you have. When are you ever early?’ he said, putting me back down on the floor.

‘OK, you rumbled me, I’ve just got here. But pretty good timing all the same, right?’

But Jacques was too distracted for jokes. He had made it to England – but his suitcase hadn’t. We spent another hour in the airport while he spoke to various staff and they searched for his case, but it appeared to have vanished and in the end we had to leave without it.

Jacques was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His coat, along with everything else, was in his luggage. He did have a jumper with him but he insisted that he wasn’t worried about the cold – unlike most people who grow up in hot countries, he doesn’t seem to feel it. If anything it’s the heat he minds.

We went out later that day to get him a change of clothes and a toothbrush. He was still in his T-shirt and I kept telling him to please for goodness sake put on the jumper because it was late December and freezing. But he just didn’t seem to feel it.

‘I’m really not cold at all,’ he insisted, while shoppers in coats and scarves turned to look at him.

‘Well, please put a jumper on for me then. You’re embarrassing!’

His tolerance of the cold was well and truly tested that afternoon when I took him down to the stables with me to muck out the horses and check on the flooding. He got stuck in without a word of complaint, which earned him a fair few Brownie points.

That evening the staff at Heathrow called to say they had found his case, which probably came in on a later flight, and would send it down to us with a driver that evening. He was relieved to have his clothes but I teased him: ‘Never mind your clothes; I’m just glad my Christmas present is here.’

We were all at breakfast the next morning when the phone went. It was a friend of Mum’s who worked for a local animal rescue charity. They had a dog, a Staffie, which was in a local pound and was due to be put down that evening. Pounds can only keep dogs for a relatively short time, and if they’re not claimed or homed they have to be put to sleep as they just don’t have space to keep them. The friend asked Mum whether she would go and pick him up and keep him overnight. A foster home was being arranged, but they wouldn’t be able to take him until the next day – Christmas Eve.