glenatron | Trials and tribulations

From Thursday to Saturday Lou and I were at Badminton horse trials, which is a reliably good weekend away. After last year's mudbath this year we had bright sunshine (bright enough to burn me, especially on the tops of my hands) allied with a pleasant cooling wind. Pleasant if you were in bright sunshine, otherwise it was just a cold biting wind or if you were in our new tall tent it felt much like the hurricane of destruction as it caved the walls in and shook what little structure the tent has.

Badminton is a Three Day Event, which is where everyone competes in dressage ( riding to a set pattern showing outstanding fine control and teamwork between horse and rider ) followed by cross country ( ride around a five mile course with around thirty obstacles including banks, water drops and big solid log fences that go up to about four feet high and six feet long ) followed by show jumping. The horses and riders have to be outstandingly fit, especially for the second day, but under a lot of control for the dressage- a very fit horse tends to want to run everywhere flat out regardless of what it is asked to do- and exceptionally good at jumping over large scary fences into lakes. Makes for one of the few sports that I enjoy watching. Also one of the only sports where men and women compete equally at every level.

In spite of the standard of all the riders and the impressiveness of their achievements on the cross-country course the highlight for me was a demonstration on Friday by the top British dressage rider Carl Hester and top British dressage horse Escapado. Their dressage to music was breathtaking even for someone with my deeply limited understanding of horsemanship. They had a grace, power and flow to their work that I simply cannot find any words to express. Everything I have learned about working with horses was justified because it left me able, in a small way, to appreciate it.

After dashing back from Badminton we managed to get the bad smell of three days camping and smarten up in time to dash to Cormac and Kate's wedding reception - only three hours late. Lou did the sensible thing and tripped over a step in the hotel's exceedingly dark and dangerous car park grazing her knees in the style of a primary school child. It was otherwise a brilliant night out- both Kate and Mark looked dashing and very happy and it was really good to see friends from far off places. Doubly good to see the admirable Shanks although we didn't have as much time to talk to him (or anyone else for that matter) as we would have liked. That, it seems, is the way with weddings.

Today began with taking Lou, who can't currently walk or drive because her knees are so trashed, to visit Joe and give him breakfast. Then it was off to the studio to tape us some bass. Absolutely brilliant- as of today we have the drum tracks and five bass lines down and the sound is absolutely perfect. We sound amazingly professional already and I can't wait to see how it starts to gel together as we add the other instruments. We have to work now with an eye to the future- regardless of what we achieve, this will be the first generally available Sequoia recording and it will be our mark, no matter how small, on musical history.

In related news, if anyone lives near here and has a large bass amplifier that I could borrow on Thursday, please do let me know...