Ahoy! Australia!

My two months in New Zealand are over.
The dear old Tikiebank (which, from reports to hand, seems to have become a little less ‘dear’ without me!) seems more than two months in the past, but otherwise .. how fast the weeks have zipped by!
And now, it’s on to Australia!
Yesterday my dear friend Sarah came round, and washed and ironed and packed my little suitcase .. the same one she packed for me with such utterly perfect results for the first four-month leg of my ‘world tour’ .. and in 24 hours I shall be in the air heading for Sydney. As, apparently, will be a variegated bunch of APEC-torial politicians. I hope they aren’t going to foul up the travel systems with their vanities.

So its goodbye to Gerolstein for the nonce. To Wanda and Elena (who finished her spell of work this week, and is heading for rest and restaurant on the soon forthcoming spring grass), to Minnie the kitten .. OK, Minnie, ‘cat’ then ..





In fact, Wanda and Elena are my only home horses right now. Seppl and Fritzl have been leased for racing and have gone to Murray Edmonds, to be trained for their new ‘owners’. And yesterday morning that big blue and yellow Interisland Horse Transport vehicle, the advent of which always spells ‘all change!’, arrived at 9 am to take Gwen and Duchess off to Prebbleton for their date with the Great French Inseminator. Since the two ladies hadn’t been out of the back paddock in a good while, they were ready for a good brush up and pedicure .. do you realise how many knots a horse can get in its mane, how fast its hoofs grow? Anyway, mother and daughter were looking as good their shaggy winter coats will allow as they went off with, I suspect, varying attitudes.


“Allo! Je suis La Grande-Duchesse. Tu peux m’appeler ‘Duchess’. Tu veux avoir un bébé avec moi, hein?”




“Not another blasted baby! Huh. Female humans get hunks like this one here, what do I get. A straw. A flaming straw…”



When they and I come back, we shall be having a visit from Jack Dowie. Jack is now an official part of the Gerolstein establishment, for he and I will be sharing the ownership of those two ‘French’ babes that will – we hope – be born to Gwen and Duchess in the spring of 2008.

But all that is a long way ahead. For now, it’s Ahoy! Australia!