Horsing Around

All thanks to the Students Union, ‘mini me’ and I had one of the best days out ever last weekend...
We were lucky enough to get some free tickets to the world cup pentathlon in Greenwich Park ! We arrived at two o’clock, not knowing what to expect, although we had ridden horses on odd occasions before we had not ever watched any competitive horse riding.

Prior to our arrival, the competitors had already completed two events at another location (fencing and swimming) and were all set to begin the riding phase of the competition. We had an excellent view, and the action was very dramatic. At one point ‘mini me’ confessed that she enjoyed it more than cricket, which was almost sacrilege, but I was prepared to forgive her as it was so exciting ! There was one clear round from the Chinese pentathlete, though she was a hard act to follow as almost every other rider had a few incidents and accidents. The worst was definitely the Canadian, whose horse refused a jump... The poor lady did a mid-air somersault over the horse’s head and landed head first on the bars – ouch ! Luckily she and the horse were fine though, and she bravely got up to carry on her round...

The two of us were so inspired by her performance that, during the running and shooting phase of the pentathlon, we were the only ones shouting ‘Go ! Go ! Canada !’ at the tops of our voices, and were rewarded with a few odd looks from the rather more restrained spectators around us ! ‘Mini me’ was particularly thrilled to see herself on the big stadium screen at one point...

J’s record of the week :

‘Summertime’

by

DJ Jazzy Jeff and
the Fresh Prince.

‘Summertime ! Wow, What an evocative song...’ I said to myself as I downloaded it this week, remembering the first time I had heard it aged 17. It reminds me of teenage beach parties, fake gold necklaces with $ signs and my first pair of Nike Air trainers ! As we listened to it for the fourth or fifth time, ‘mini me’ remarked ‘Why do we keep having to listen to THIS song Mum ?’ I replied with this analogy... Imagine you are 17, and you have never heard slightly-old-skool-yet-new music like ‘Feel it’ by the Black Eyed Peas before ! That’s how it was !!! Actually, she still didn’t ‘get it,’ but never the less, she let me listen to it one more time before flicking back to Eliza Doolittle ! Jerushah X