May
Jay’s first dressage competition was at the Mill Farm
stables on 1 May. The build-up for this,
over several days, included extra kit and cleaning for both horse and rider,
and Jay entered the classes for Juniors in Preliminary 4 and Preliminary 10
(horse lovers may know what these mean).
She was down at the stables at seven in the morning to prepare
Jay’s hard work bore fruit. In the morning class she came second out of
ten and in the afternoon third out of six.
So two large rosettes on her first outing. Helen also visited for the weekend, so she
saw Jay’s efforts.
Jay’s dressage competition
and Helen’s visit
Roger’s bowling season gathered pace with a club fun
days on 2 and 30 May and inter-club knock-out matches on 4 against neighbours
Bredon, on 15 against Crystal Bowling Club in
On 22
May, Jay entered the Winchcombe Horse Show with
See here for
Jay at the Winchcombe Horse Show
The end of an era (as they say) was reached on 19 May,
when Jay had her last violin lesson with the violin teacher who had taught her
and Helen successively over 22 years since 1983, and was also Jay’s
godmother. She was going into hospital
the following week for a major operation, and planned to cut her teaching
commitments significantly when she resumed work.
On the same day, Jay broke up from school for study
leave and half-term, effectively ending her compulsory secondary education, as
she needed to return only to sit her eleven GCSE papers