Blue Monday

by Hayley

Edging toward double figures today with the temperature reaching an almost tropical 7°C at mid-morning, but there's no sign of Anna shedding one of her five layers of clothing yet, as once again we are experiencing heavy rainfall. I've mentioned in previous blog posts that we are craving the sunshine and in a bid to bring on the warmth, yesterday, I bought myself a short-sleeved top. An audacious move! I suspect I may have cursed us all and delayed the suns appearance further with my early optimism. The opportunity to dare to bare a pair of limbs seems so far away at this time of year - perhaps that's one of the reasons why, according to the mainstream media, today is 'Blue Monday' - allegedly the most depressing day of the year. The factors that this theory is based on are: the weather, debt level (specifically, the difference between debt and our ability to pay), the amount of time since Christmas, time since failing new year's resolutions, low levels of motivation and the feeling of needing to take charge of the situation. Sounds like a load of tosh to me but don't let this get you down, we only have to wait until June for the happiest day of the year! 

Yesterday, we had two runners at Southwell, Rosina and Sugar Beach. The hat-trick wasn't meant to be as Rosina didn't act on the Southwell surface and didn't face the heavy kickback of sand as well as we'd hoped. It is a 'marmite' track, they either love it or hate it and you don't know until you try. She's none-the-worse for her Sunday excursion and will now enjoy a couple of days rest post-race as is customary. Joe Fanning rode both horses and gave us good feedback for future plans with Sugar Beach, who has been a bit of a conundrum so far but is not without ability.