The arrival of Noddy, Big Ears and Monty - looking somewhat perplexed.
From the original manuscript of 'When Sophie Met Darcy Day' published by Harper Collins:
We moved the charity at the end of January 2002. I had travelled up and down to Wiltshire on a number of occasions to keep an eye on how things were progressing.
We had to arrange new vets and farriers and deliveries of haylage ,straw and concentrates, this was quite difficult because we didn’t know anyone. I had worked out that we could boil the barley and the linseed in an electric boiler until such time we could re-instate our Aga. (We had determined to take our Aga, come what may. Our new Landlord had spent days and days cleaning and painting the cottage and it was now bright and fresh, it also smelt clean and the prospect of moving into it no longer seemed so unattractive. We had arranged for new carpet to be laid, my mother and Freddie had altered curtains for us and had even made blinds for the kitchen and loo and an arctic van had delivered enough cleaning products for us to use on the bathroom so even that looked reasonable. Inside the bathroom was quite a big linen cupboard with a cold water tank resting on rotten slats, we had these replaced because the last thing we wanted to sort out was water flooding through the house. It seemed just such a lot to do and organise from quite a distance away. The furniture men came to pack up the house in Devon and I followed them to sort out the unloading in the cottage, leaving Michael to camp in the now empty house. He was long faced as I left, but took comfort that I had at least left him a kettle, tea bags and milk. I took Brian, Beryl and Bessie for company, leaving Lucy and Sadie to look after Michael. All the furniture arrived and we unloaded it all into the cottage along with countless boxes. We had already cleared out the sheds next to the cottage which meant that we could safely store any overflow furniture, this was a blessing because by the time we had finished there was hardly any room to move, let alone try and make sense of anything. Beryl, Brian, and Bessie tore about the place exploring everywhere and were particularly delighted when they discovered the newly bedded up stables. Graham and Lucy had been joined by Dawn and had done a fantastic job in rebuilding the stables to make them safe and secure, and I thought that the horses would settle in really well. I realised the reason for the dog’s glee when I saw that the beds were moving and shifting with hundreds of rats. When we had cleaned out the barns they had lost their warm beds and had moved into the new stables. I managed to find a pest control company who promised to come in as soon as possible but in the meantime the dogs would have a high old time. I did as much as I could that night, and unpacked until late. I knew that we would be pretty tired when everyone had finally moved so I unpacked the linen in the cupboard in the bathroom and made up our beds. Just when I thought that I had done as much as I could, I got in the car to drive home, but for some reason I couldn’t turn the interior light off. I was incredibly tired and I couldn’t see how to sort this out. I spoke to Michael on the telephone but he too was baffled, and I didn’t know a soul that I could ask. I had to get back to load the horses first thing in the morning and couldn’t drive three hours with the light on in the car, in the end I managed to unearth the Landlord’s telephone number and much to my amazement he shot around to have a look (by this time it was nearly midnight). Sadly he couldn’t work out what to do either but in an incredible act of generosity told me to take his Jeep and he would try and get our car sorted out for us. His Jeep had seen better days and if I went over 55mph it made a horrid grinding sound, in addition it was nearly empty so I spent some miles worrying that I would break down before I could find a petrol station that was open. It was a rotten drive and I got back at about 3am.
The horses were due to be picked up at 7. The lorry arrived and we loaded Sam with Tish, BT, Poppy, Frank, Monty and Anna. They all went into the lorry easily, I sat with the driver and off we went. I had arranged for Michael to stay behind and look after the remaining animals whilst I settled the horses in Wiltshire before travelling back to collect everybody else. The first journey was quite uneventful but Colin, the lorry driver had to take a break by law and this he chose to take by eating his lunch in an Asda store café in Swindon. It was one of the largest stores I have ever seen. It was agony having to watch him shovel down huge mouthfuls of congealed baked beans, and greasy sausages all the time washed down with gulps of tea when all I wanted to do was unload the horses and settle them in for the night. There was however something about it that did help, I managed to locate the in store pharmacy, the fellow behind the counter groaned as he saw my hands, they were chapped and bleeding from days of packing and cleaning and he was kind and helpful in his advice as to what cream I should use.
After what seemed an age we arrived at Rainscombe Hill Farm. It was a dark, and windy day with driving rain and the horses spooked at shadows when they got off the lorry. Horses can be quite conservative creatures and don’t always react well to change and BT, living up to his name (Broughton’s Turmoil) was particularly unnerved about his new surroundings. We had created open plan stables and the horses could easily see each other and even groom each over the dividing walls, they took comfort from this and before long started to eat their hay. I checked that everything else was ready for the goats, sheep, poultry and the rest of the horses and went into the cottage to make a cup of tea for us all prior to returning back to Devon.
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