Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year, now I know this is a tad late but better late than never.

The reason for my belated good wishes is the hectic schedule with which we have been pursuing the pre Christmas festivities leading up to the final New Year fling and my exhausted condition after the event.

Our daughter went away to visit friends in New Zealand some two weeks before Christmas leaving myself and her mother in charge of her horses, which apparently involved nothing more than a daily visit to check their well-being with the occasional application of hay over the fence and possibly topping up the water trough, all very easy.

Things however did not turn out to be quite so easy when during the night of her first day away we were awoken with a phone call alerting us to the fact that the horses had left the field and were running amok on the road.

We hastily dressed and proceeded to the farm where upon arrival all the horses were in the field where we left them earlier that day, so to be on the safe side we moved them to the other field where they were unable to get out.

I’m still very much a towny where these affairs are concerned as two of my pet hates are walking about in a freezing field plodding about in horse shit, so as soon as we could we escaped back to the warmth of home.

I was rather hoping to return the horses to the other field the next day but due to the inquisitive nature of the horses and the fact that we were unable to find where they had left the field it was decided to leave them where they were for the duration.

This, therefore required considerably more input into their upkeep than was previously envisaged inasmuch that we had to go on a daily basis to fill the water and supply copious amounts of hay as the other field was very short of grass.

We were not many days into this regime when I was reminded of the fact that I am allergic to hay, something that was never the case when I lived in town, although to be fair the fact that when living in town I never had occasion to come into contact with hay may have had some bearing on the matter.

Some two weeks later and my lung capacity was reduced to about half which was just about enough to get me through the Christmas festivities which as there were twelve of us was a fairly hectic affair held in the best tradition of Christmas Francais.

Struggling manfully on we continued with the horses and the dreaded hay by which time I could hardly breath at all which was a shame as we were going to friends for New Year.

We arrived the day before settled in and went for a meal in the evening, so far, so good.

The next day I was getting to the point where I was loosing the will to live but was determined to keep going and to see the New Year in with our friends which I just about managed but left just after midnight.

New Years Day our friends were going out for lunch but I just wasn’t up to it and came home and went to bed, what a bloody relief.

It is now the third day of the year and thanks to antibiotics and the lack of contact with hay I can almost breath normally and am looking forward to a happy and healthy New Year, with NO BLOODY HAY!