Jodie Kidd Gala Evening

We consider ourselves to be very fortunate that Jodie Kidd nominated Greatwood as one of her four chosen charities to benefit from The Jodie Kidd Foundation. To this end, Janet and I whizzed down to Goodwood to attend the Jodie Kidd Foundation Gala Evening. For the last couple of years, Jodie has organised a celebrity golf day followed by dinner and auction. It was a splendid evening, and although the auctioneer had to work quite hard to achieve the bids, I think that it raised quite alot of money and everyone enjoyed themselves. It is very good of Jodie to put so much time and effort into raising money for 'her' charities, and it certainly makes an immeasurable difference to us. Thank you Jodie.
It has been a bit of a hectic time all round. We went to Nigel and Penny Bunter's Barbury Castle Horse Trials the day before, and took a table for lunch. This is always a splendid event, well organised and well attended with an incredible line up of top event horses taking part. It was great to catch up with so many locals who wish to support Nigel and Penny and enjoy the terrific spectacle.
Michael and I were approached recently by Harper Collins who wish to publish a book about Greatwood and how it all started. We have spent quite a while going through alot of archive material, (that in itself was a bit of a mammoth task, involving delving through loads of boxes which were housed in a pretty grotty shed). Anyway, miraculously we appear to have pretty much located everything we need. This is a bit of a miracle because we once employed someone to help us file everything, and to our consternation realised that her filing involved lots of black rubbish bags, all of which were aimed for the bin.
Other than this, everything has been fairly quiet, although we are rather hoping that our work with the horses and special needs children will be featured in the Sunday Times today. The horses themselves have been doddling along. We have several in work which we hope will be rehomed before too long, and as for the rest, they are enjoying a peaceful and restful time in the fields. I think that they are a bit relieved that it isn't quite so hot but we could do with a bit more sun now.