March 26th

Went off for a ride this morning, I felt really awful, my ribs hurt at the front and I was really uncomfortable. I was accompanied by the Kumars who turned out to be a very rich arrogant couple from Mumbai. He had a watch the size of Big Ben and an enormous digital camera. Everything screamed nouveau riche, especially the manners – or lack of them.

As you can tell – I wasn't that keen and I was pleased that they were only there for the day.

 

 Lunch at the ranch is normally taken down on the terrace, looking out over the waterfall .The tables are beautifully decorated with brightly coloured runners and flowers There were nearly always jugs of special home made juices such as hibiscus and watermelon.

 

 
Up to now I haven't mentioned the other animals at the ranch. Uschi the owner has boxer dogs and I was lucky enough to be there when there was a litter of puppies. What little hunnies they all were. Lots of sharp teeth and bit fat chunky paws with licky tongues and wet noses. I went to see them most days in the barn where it was getting more and more difficult to keep them from scattering all over the ranch. There were also numerous cats and kittens as well as, of course, the horses.


Uschi does not have any mares, all the horses are male and some of them are related. My favourite Palomo is the father of the boss, Sultan but this does not give him any privileges within the group. He's probably a long way down the pecking order. Quite often in the corral area you could see little skirmishes as one tried to lord it over another. Still, they all find their place in the end.

They are all magnificent horses with lots of character and spirit. At the same they could be ridden by an absolute beginner or a child. Uschi has selected local horses and is often offered new ones by the locals. They seem to be horses that never tire, perhaps this is the breed, I don't know.


After lunch I went into Jilatopec by car with the staff. They are a very happy lot and are good fun.We dropped them off one by one and Brenda stayed on with me to guide me around the market. It was massive – divided into 2 parts. One was food and the other household. The food market was a real riot of colour and smells. Every kind of pepper you could think of and lots of dried fish. All the fruit and vegetables were freshly picked, just like in Turkey, again all organic.. The chickens were golden skinned and freshly dispatched that morning. There were also lots of hand-made floral displays on sale for Easter. I bought myself a hat so that I don’t cook my brains. It looks OK but I always feel a bit of a prat in a hat!Then we went off for an ice cream – there were loads of flavours and I opted for a Ferrero Rocher. Yum! We ate them in the local park which was beautifully shaded and then got in the car to find the ceramic shop.

I bought myself an Iguana from the pottery shop for the conservatory, trouble is, he came with two friends that I didn’t really want but the whole lot only cost 120 pesos which is about £6-7.00, so at least if I try to get them all home and I have a couple of casualties, I’m still OK.

.When I got back there were more guests, a German couple from Minneapolis who are very nice, so we had dinner together and off I go for an early night.

Strangely by this time my ribs didn’t hurt at all, maybe it was the Ibruprofen and Excedrin? Or could it have been the wine??