And there I was…

… in the A&E department in hospital. Carefully holding my left wrist with my right hand, hoping the pain killers the GP had given me would kick in soon. I gave the ‘letter of recommendation’ the GP had also given me to the nurse behind the ‘Welcome To A&E, Make Yourself Comfortable, This May Take A While’ desk.
Actually, the sign above the desk just said ‘Reception’.

‘Please don’t drink or eat anything’, the nurse encouragingly said, ‘in case you’ll need an operation.’

That morning I’d fallen off my young horse. She didn’t mean to throw me off, she simply made a silly jump sideways, pretending to be startled by something and I simply forgot rule 1 of horse riding: keep one leg on each side of the horse, soles of your feet pointing towards the floor. Before I knew it, I had made a lovely butt-shaped indentation in the sand and the soles of my feet pointed towards the sky. All of me was fine, except my left wrist. That hurt a bit, but I remounted and rode for another 10 minutes or so. I then brought the horses to the field, gave coffee to a visiting friend, decided not to muck out the stables because of the sore wrist and took a book from the pile of books waiting to be read. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, so I tried to relax a bit. The wrist started to look alarmingly blue with strange swellings. I wrapped it in an elastic bandage and waited until hubs came home that evening.

He decided that I needed to ‘go see the doctor’. The doctor decided I needed to go to hospital, so hubs dropped me off there and went home to take care of the Brinkbeest-zoo and muck out the stables. ‘I’ll call you when I’m done here’, I said and there I was, in the A&E department in hospital.

It was the night of the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. For those of you who are not familiar with this annual event, each country that’s a member of the EBU-UER (don’t ask, I never heard of the EBU-UER, until I just tried to find out which countries can enter in the Eurovision Song Contest) chooses a singer or a band and a song to send to the contest, every country gets to vote and the one with the most votes wins (gosh, really?). Now, in recent years the country with the weirdest act has won, so almost all the other countries thought ‘we have to send weird acts too’, which made the whole event even weirder than it already was. And not weird in a good way. Just weird in a weird way.
The A&E waiting room has a television and someone had decided that we should watch the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest. As if we weren’t suffering enough.

This was the Dutch entry in 2012. She didn’t go through to the final. I wonder why not (not).

And then there was the Irish act:

The Russian grannies came second in the final:

Actually, I believe Sweden won with a really decent song. So perhaps next year other countries will send decent singers to the contest too. Whatever. I don’t really care. If it had been an evening at home, I’d have never watched this. But I had to.

The other entertainment while waiting for my X-rays to be taken was provided by a loud woman who had brought a louder friend and four even louder kids to the A&E. The loud woman was in a wheelchair and the louder friend parked her in the waiting room and flipflopped (nice weather remember?) away to take care of the administrative side of things, while the kids flipflopped to the coffee and tea-corner and tried to get third-degree burns by making themselves tea (tea and coffee are free for the people waiting in A&E, but they serve hot water for tea and coffee in those large thermos flasks, under which you have to hold a plastic cup with one hand while pressing the top with the other hand, which even if I was allowed to drink something I couldn’t do because of the probably broken wrist. Still… a dry mouth wasn’t the worst of my problems.)

The loud woman sat in her wheelchair in the middle of the waiting room and grabbed her mobile. She started to call the first person on her list: ‘HI, IT’S ME, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHERE I AM. I’M IN HOSPITAL. H O S P I T A L!! YES. I KNOW!
I’LL TELL YOU. I WAS CYCLING HOME AND CAME PAST THAT POND, YOU KNOW THE ONE, NEAR MY HOUSE, AND THERE WAS A SWAN AND IT FLEW UP JUST AS I PASSED AND TO AVOID IT I HAD TO MAKE A STRANGE MANOUVRE AND I FELL. AND NOW I HAVE A REALLY SORE KNEE. IT’S IN A BANDAGE. I’M IN A WHEELCHAIR. YEAH. … (name of friend) BROUGHT ME TO THE A&E AND NOW THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE X-RAYS. YEAH.. OKAY… BYE

She put down her phone. A collective sigh of relief went through the waiting room.

Then she took up her phone again and phoned the second person on her list: ‘HI, IT’S ME, YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHERE I AM….

And we all had to hear the whole story again.

By the time she called the third person to tell where she was, I and some of the other people waiting mumbled ‘swan, flew up, fell down, hurt knee, blablabla’ and we collectively sighed again. The mad woman telephoned at least 8 people and repeated the whole story VERY LOUDLY!!!!
I swear, if I had had the use of both of my hands, she’d no longer be alive. But then again, I wouldn’t have been in hospital either.

While mad woman was informing everyone where she was and why, her friend flipflopped into the waiting room again. ‘HERE!!!’, she shouted towards the kids, who had managed to survive the tea-making-adventure with only minor burns, ‘GO FIND SOMETHING TO PLAY WITH. THERE ARE TOYS IN THAT CORNER. WE’LL BE HERE FOR A WHILE!!!’

‘HEY, GUYS, IT’S THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST!’, loud woman shouted towards her friend and the kids. ‘PUT ME IN FRONT OF THE TELLY AND GET SOME CHAIRS. WE’LL WATCH IT TOGETHER. IT’S FUN!! OUR INDIAN HAS A CATCHY SONG! I KNOW ALL THE WORDS!!! I CAN’T HELP SINGING ALONG WHEN IT’S ON THE RADIO!!!’ And towards some other people in the waiting room: ‘DON’T YOU LOVE THE SONG CONTEST? I LOVE IT! I’M GOING TO SING ALONG!’ The people smiled and nodded. Rule 1 when dealing with idiots, try not to upset them. ‘CAN SOMEONE PUT THE VOLUME UP?!’

‘Oh God’, I moaned.
’Is your arm very painful?’, the man sitting next to me asked concerned.
’Yep, that too’, I smiled.
’Oh’, he understood, ‘They are rather loud aren’t they.’
We leaned back in our chairs and tried to not be there.

Finally it was my turn to get the arm X-rayed and to see a doctor and then the arm was put in plaster and then I phoned hubs and then he came to get me out of there. Hooray!

Broken

my wrist that is. can’t be bothered with capitals since i’m typing with 2 fingers of my right hand now. the other hand is neatly wrapped up in plaster. only a plaster splint for now to allow space for swelling and then next week they’ll fit me with a nice coloured plaster (i’m thinking orange because of the olympics which i like watching and it will also make me very popular with people who love football/soccer, which i don’t care about at all, but that information will be purely given out on a need-to-know-basis). i will have to wear that for 6 weeks and if not all is well by then i can choose another (or the same) colour for another 6 weeks. apparently i broke a tiny bone with a long name that has a reputation for being a bad healer. fingers crossed it will behave in my wrist.

so. that is why i will have one white and one brown arm at the end of summer.

will have to do what petje does best, just relax and enjoy the sun.

Something blogworthy happened…

…and now I can only type with one hand and don’t have the patience to type the entire short story. So I’ll make it even shorter. I made a lovely butt shaped indentation in the sand again (2nd time involuntary descent from young and incredibly-quick-turn-around Evie) and also a lovely hand shaped one. Must have done, because my wrist hurts like hell. Can’t really remember how I landed. The rest of me is fine, I did climb up and rode her further for a while. Went well. But now ouch.

So… i’ll just keep posting photos here and on my photoblog (see link at bottom of this page).

Something blogworthy turned out to be something shit. Sorry if you’re offended by my language.

I’ll make it up to you with this photo of Biggles and Mozes. Best friends.

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses

 

The Lazy Bunch (Willem, Evie, Naloma)

 

I’ve stolen these words from Grey Horse Matters’ blog.

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses - Vol. 1

1. When in doubt, run far, far away.
2. You can never have too many treats.
3. Passing gas in public is nothing to be ashamed of.
4. New shoes are an absolute necessity every 6 weeks.
5. Ignore cues; they're just another prompt to do more work.
6. Everyone loves a good, wet, slobbery kiss.
7. Never run when you can trot.
8. Never trot when you can walk.
9. And never walk when you can stand still.
10. Heaven is eating at least 10 hours a day...and then sleeping the rest.

 

All I need to know in life I learned from my horses - Vol. 2

1. Eat plenty of roughage.
2. Great legs and a nice rear will get you anywhere in life. Big, brown eyes help too.
3. When you want your way, stomp hard on the nearest foot.
4. In times of crises, take a poop.
5. Act dumb when faced with a task you don't want to do.
6. Follow the herd, that way you can't be singled out to take the blame.
7. A swift kick in the butt will get anyone's attention.
8. Love those who love you back, especially if they have something good to eat.
9. Leather and chains can make anyone look studly.
10. Happiness is a warm, fuzzy blanket and someone to share it with.

Sunday Selections: The random edition

Sunday Selections, THE time and place to post those photos that have been aimlessly hanging around on your computer. Kim from Frogpondsrock hosts this meme. If you want to join in, just hop over to the rocking frog ponds and follow the almost non-existent rules.

Here’s my very random selection for this Sunday.

Christmas 2011 and perhaps you can see the cleverly crocheted snowflakes that were made by the bloggy brilliant Jinksy, who sent us a few. I never knew snowflakes could warm someone’s heart as much as these ones did mine.

 

Remember my very first Bun shoot? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here.) This is friend, carrying what she was carrying then, but in a different way, and her horse.

 

See… we do lunge Evie using the caveson sometimes.

 

I almost feel this photo should be X-rated, hehe.

 

Baby woodpecker

Sunday Selections: the nap time edition no. 3

This is the last nap time edition. They are still cute (of course they are), but by now it’s beginning to get a bit booooooring to watch animals sleep.

Sunday Selections is hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock and gives us the opportunity to finally post those photos that have been hanging around in folders on our computers for ages.

21 year old Bengeltje

 

Holle and Mozes

 

Evie, two days old and all legs

 

Sunday Selections: another love edition

Last week I chose LOVE as a theme, because our Sunday Selections host Kim from Frogpondsrock’s daughter just got married. I found so many LOVEly photos in my files that I had enough for another LOVE edition.

So, here they are:

 

A LOVEly meeting between dog and foal. (They still are attracted to each other. Holle (dog) often licks Evie’s nose. Awww.)

 

The love between Naloma and Evie.

 

Our lovely Holle.

 

Hubs and Evie having an intimate get together.

 

This is just weird.

 

I really don’t love, or even like, my photo being taken. In fact, I don’t even want to look at photos of myself. But this self-portrait I could almost love. Should have cleaned the window though, before I took this shot.

 

Naloma loves being hugged. And no, she doesn’t have 7 legs and two tails.

 

Synchronized love.

 

Yep, there is the ‘horse kisser’ again. He loves (kissing) his horses.

 

They love each other and I know that our Sunday Selections host, Kim from Frogpondsrock, loves them.

On the search for these LOVEly photos, I found a lot of photos that will fit another theme next week. Be prepared for lots of chuckles and awwws.

Sunday Selections: the love edition

Our Sunday Selections host Kim’s daughter got married yesterday. She has some lovely photos and a memorable wedding story on her blog Frogpondsrock.

So I thought it would be nice to choose my Sunday Selections for this day, based on LOVE.

 

Sarah (the cat, sadly no longer with us) loved Phoebe (now 14 years old).

Lovedoves.

Hubs loves his horse Willem.

They all love each other.

It’s getting a bit crowded with so much love going on.

Cute love.

I loved this little cat, Lapje, but sadly she’s one of the fourleggers who’s no longer with us.

Well, who wouldn’t love Nufnuf’s smiling face.

Or that of his non-related brother Tumtum, who isn’t as smiley, but definitely very loveable.

There is so much love going on in our house, that I have enough photos for several Sunday Selections. More of the same will be in next week’s Sunday Selections.

Sunday Selections

 

Sunday Selections is hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock to give us an opportunity to post those photos that are lurking somewhere in some folder on your computer, almost forgotten. If you have folders filled with photos waiting to be shown on your computer, you can always hop over to the rocking frog ponds and join in.

I’ve slightly broken ‘the rules’ this week, because I’ve posted on or two of these before, but since almost no one has seen them and they fitted so beautifully in my ‘moving shots’ theme this week…

MOVED

 

A close shave

written by Naloma (let us just pretend)

Look. My human says that I look like a Shetland pony, but behave like a thoroughbred. I don’t know about the thoroughbred, but I am way above a Shetland pony.

And then she said: “We’re going to do something about that incredibly furry coat of yours today.”

So she and the man human got out the clipping thing and started clipping my nice, shiny and warm coat. Oh, I don’t mind. I quite enjoy the tickling sensation. But I’m not sure they know what they’re doing. What do you think?

Does it look anything like the picture in the book yet?

There didn’t seem to be a method to their madness. Clipping a bit here and then a bit there. Handing the machine over to each other. And she kept giggling and taking photos with her iPod. I didn’t have much confidence that the end result would be something I could be seen with in public.

Oh man! I don’t want to look.

I don’t suppose it can be glued back again?

I feel so… naked.

But it could have been worse. It could. Couldn’t it? With a bit of imagination one could think I’m wearing sexy stockings. This is my sexy walk.
I can tell you are impressed.
They even managed to do the other side of me almost exactly the same. Okay, you’ll have to believe me on my word.