Thoresby Hall, where the first big event of the year in Britain should be taking place this week .....
How are you all faring? Like many around the world we are in lockdown instead of out eventing so it’s time to crack out a blog
Ironically, the last blog I posted in February was the re-run of an article entitled True Grit and Why Failure is Good saying that, at some point during 2020, you will probably need to watch this Ted-talk video that has at its crux “Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint”. Little did I know how soon I would need to watch it ……
By now Paul and I have usually left Australia, where we migrate for the UK winter from October to November and cover eventing ‘DownUnder’ (as well as enjoying some R&R in sunny Melbourne over Christmas) and we should be starting the British Eventing season with the first big International event at the Spring Eventing Carnival at Thoresby Park this weekend.
This time of year is always a bit dicey with weather and ground conditions and Thoresby Park International’s well-known predecessor, Belton International, has had pretty much everything thrown at it over the years - who remembers the snow in 2016? - but no-one could ever have predicted that the world would be in lock-down, the Olympic Games postponed and runs on toilet paper (I could have possibly phrased that better) making headlines
Even the irrepressible Stuart Buntine, director of BEDE Events that organises Thoresby Park among many other events in the UK, a man never short of an idea or cheery smile, is ‘beyond speechless’, as are most of the event organisers
But life does go on and we will all eventually come out of these dire medical and financial crises; probably a little battered and bruised but hopefully as survivors of both.
Last year, a friend in the eventing world commented that An Eventful Life was a ‘positive’ voice in equestrian online journalism, which pleased me no end, and that will certainly be our defining mantra over the coming few months
I’ll be running this blog as my own personal attempt at sanity to keep you updated with dog walking and the such, but rest assured there will be far more interesting articles and features coming up.
We may all be missing out on eventing competitions and gatherings, large and small, but we have masses of cross country video footage to keep you entertained both on this website and on our social media, we will be recording interviews with riders around the world and bringing them to you, along with features, training articles and videos to get you ready for when the season does start
I’d like to personally thank our subscribers, who keep this show on the road, for sticking with us during this difficult time (and there will be a real focus on great subscriber-only content in the next few months) and also the riders who are buying cross country videos from our very large archive. Thank you all for your support
And talking of support, a particularly big thank you to Pedro, our golden retriever who is without a doubt the big winner in all of this.
Each year I try to fool him that I am leaving for weeks on end by taking my suitcase down to the car the night before leaving, acting completely ‘normal’ and telling him I’m just popping down to the shop when I am in fact leaving for the airport (don't be concerned, he is impeccably looked after at home by a live-in house sitter he knows well)
Of course, he knows the truth; I see it in his eyes.
However, our house sitter tells me he seems to forget me quite quickly when she produces a large juicy marrow bone bought especially for the occasion, which is a little irking.
But Pedro is now in seventh heaven as, not only are we not flying away but we are not even going interstate, out for dinner, visiting friends or even grandma. As far as Pedro is concerned, we have finally seen the errors of our ways and are spending every single day and evening with him at home
Every cloud has a silver lining ….. or a golden one ……
