Friday 27 April 2007

Dogs, Politics & Comedians

IMOGEN

I've been rather busy at work recently, and this is the reason I haven't posted anything here for a couple of weeks.

Just a quick update on the animal front. Ruth has not had her foal & doesn't really look ready yet. Imogen had her annual booster on Wednesday night and will be visiting the vet again in the middle of May for her arthritis check up. I feel I can't reduce her daily intake of "Metacam", as she really does become very lame if she is exercised to any great degree - poor button.

At work, we have really been quite political.

Two weekends ago we shot and edited the Socialist Labour Party's Party Election Broadcast. Arthur Scargill and his close friend the actor Ricky Tomlinson both came up to Scotland to do a piece to camera. Luckily for them, their short visit was on a beautiful day, so they saw Scotland looking her best, which makes everyone happy and light hearted. This year however, Arthur did not have any time to entertain us with his wonderful stories. We had a great day at the shoot, our host Louise McDade did a superb job in organising the day and supplying tasty sandwiches and sticky buns for lunch.

On the following Monday we filmed more politics at the STUC annual congress held in Glasgow this year. We were there to film the winners of "The One Workplace" Award for equality and the "Helen Dowie" Award for Life Long Learning. The recipients were delightful and well deserving people and I think they really enjoyed the experience.

The next job I was involved with was the edit of Des McLean's show at the Glasgow City Hall, working along side Ron Bain for the first time in many years. I'm just waiting for the show to be signed off, then it will be in the shops soon afterwards ... I guess. (Des is a Radio Clyde DJ, who impersonates Billy Connelly quite often on the radio. He also had some original funny stories to tell ... buy the DVD and find out for yourselves!)

Well the weekend is nearly here. Chris has gone off to play with his chums up north. I plan to ride Maud on Saturday and Bombay on Sunday. My other two chaps are still being brought in at night, basically so that I can keep an eye on Ruth. The garden is always screaming for attention, so I'll do as much work there as I can, as well as try and get more of the foundation for the kennels done. And of course, the dogs insist on being walked as much as possible. However, if it is warm this weekend, Fleur collapses in a heap as she can't cope with the heat, so I may not be nagged to death by her for a change!

Tuesday 10 April 2007

I got my dates wrong!



On Friday I looked out the Service Certificate that I received after Ruth was covered by the Dartmoor stallion Senruf Graduate and realised that had got my due dates wrong!!

I feel such an idiot. Ruth is due to foal at the end of this month - April 2007. So as you can see from the pictures taken this morning, her shape, udders and vulva have not changed too much from last week.

My excuse for getting the dates wrong is that I was so excited about the foal, that I didn't read the service certificate, because I knew the cover date. Fool. (Ruth aborted or absorbed the first embryo from her first cover, and that was the date I was working from.)

Hope you all had a Happy Easter weekend. I spent the time riding Bombay & Maud and digging up my garden, that is, moving flower beds etc as I'm laying foundations for a double kennel for my dogs. This is a mammoth project to do by yourself, but I'll get it done. Perhaps I could bore you with photos and text on that project?

Friday 6 April 2007

D-Day has past and no foal yet!

NO FOAL! NO PICTURES!

The gestation period of horses is 340 days or 11 months and 5 days. Yesterday Ruth's 340 days were up, but the foal does not look like it is coming yet. Perhaps some time next week or the following weekend? The closer towards being three weeks overdue I will certainly start to panic, but at the moment I'm cool. The only annoying thing being is that for the next three days I do not have to be at work, so I would be able to keep an eye on Ruth whilst she was foaling. Never mind.

Tuesday 3 April 2007

Only three days to go until the foal is born - perhaps


There are only a few days to go until the foal is due. I have been on an emotional roller coaster, one minute expecting Ruth to foal any day the next, thinking she'll foal next week. In fact I'm exhausted!
These images were taken last night, as you can perhaps see Ruth hasn't started "waxing up", so I'll be going to puppy school with Imogen tonight as normal.
From now on I'm going to be COOL!