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Bad Language

Bad language in books
As an crime writer, I think a certain amount of swearing is unavoidable, given the sorts of people I'm writing about - what do you think?

I quite agree ... on both matters!
 :-)

Painful memories

I have just read Outside Chance, which I thoroughly enjoyed - many thanks.  I now have the pleasure of working through your back list.  One of the characters in Outside Chance referred to a horse with a tendency to stand on the foot of anyone unlucky enough to get too close.  Many years ago, I was a recruit constable in a mounted police force and had to groom Wyoming for the Sunday morning parade - he was not my regular mount, and had a "reputation".  As I started he planted his left foreleg firmly on to my left boot and refused to move.  Thirty minutes later, he was gleaming on one side but filthy on the other.  As the sergeant approached, the wily horse removed his hoof, I was not believed, and I was put on a charge.  I am sure Wyoming was grinning when I eventually led him back to his stall, having missed my breakfast.  I was never a great horseman.  Along with some of my mates, I was occasionally thrown, but this was "dismounting without permission", which always led to punishment.  Happy days, but only in retrospect!

Re: Painful memories...

Hi Alan, welcome to the forum. 
Wyoming sounds like a wily old horse called Gus, who was in residence at the stables I worked at for a while. The stable owner would send new working pupils in to groom and tack up Gus (especially if they were a bit Know-it-all) because Gus could always sort out the pretenders. He was the inspiration for the comment you mentioned. He was SO quick, and all the while staring straight ahead with a blank expression on his old grey face. Another of his tricks was to pretend to be dead. One morning, when we were in a hurry to get ready for a show, the girl who was "doing" Gus came running out of his stable, white-faced, saying that she thought something was wrong with Gus. She couldn't get him up. Sure enough, he was lying flat, making those awful groaning noises that horses sometimes make when they lie down, and looked as though the end was near.
Even with three of us, we couldn't budge him, and the stable owner was called for.
She and Gus went way back, and as soon as she appeared and said "Come on, Gus, get up!" he rolled over, climbed to his feet, shook and started to eat his hay. Innocent as ever. You just knew that if he could have whistled happily, he would :-)
Needless to say, he had laid his head and plaited neck in a pile of poo and needed a bath before he could go anywhere. What a character!

Hi, sorry that story has just reminded me of a horse a used to look after for a friend. His name was Olly and he was a huge, lazy, 15hh Irish Sports horse with one of those faces that, I swear, was always planning something. 
Anyway, I had been riding Olly for about a month and my friend Kirsty asked me whether I would be able to start jumping him for her, I agreed and we spent ages setting up a nice course down in the jumping field, and after quite a while I wandered back up to the yard to grab Olly, only to find on the way back down that he was dead lame, to the point of almost not putting his near fore on the ground. Disappointed, we gave him a groom and Kirsty decided to put him out in the meadow for half an hour whilst she mucked out. Olly hobbled sadly down to the field only to, after we had removed the headcollar and let him out, proceed down the field bucking and squealling wildly, as sound as a mountain goat without even the slightest limp!!!!!! He was unbelievable!! Cheekiest beastie I ever met!!

Oops!

Don't know what happened there, Michnb. Hope it wasn't the website misbehaving. Do try posting again - it sounded really interesting...

Should I try again??

Hi, sorry, my internet has been playing up for a while, must have been that, should I try again??
….. :S 
Anyway, Olly had been a really good jumper when he put his mind to it, really talented, when he could be bothered. 
    So Kirsty and I spent ages setting up a huge, challenging course in the jumping field, spending ages measuring and pacing, only to head back to the stables and find Olly to be dead lame on his near fore so bad he was barely putting any weight on it!! Disappointed, and unable to find any heat or reason behind his sudden and mysterious lameness, we decided the best course of action would be to let him out for a few hours to graze and see whether he walked it off or whether there was any fluid build-up later on. He hobbled pathetically across the yard and down to the gate, only to take off like a bat out of hell as soon as we swung the gate open, kicking his heel, without even the SLIGHTEST sign of lameness!!! We couldn’t believe it!! Then, to add insult to injury, not only had he faked his lameness, he then refused to be caught that evening and spent the next two day stuffing his face on lovely, lush, new grass!! What a beast!!  

WTG Olly!

He sounds so like Gus (see my Painful Memories post).
I remember one day, Gus was being used for a late afternoon jumping lesson on the cross country course in the field behind the yard.
Now Gus was a great horse for this, as he would never jump a thing until his rider rode with conviction. Any indecision or wibbling and he'd put the brakes on.
On this occasion, he was apparently going well, along with one other horse and rider, but the lesson was over-running a little and at 6.30pm on the dot, who should appear in the yard, riderless and with reins trailing but Gus.
"6.30," he said, firmly, "is teatime!"
Apparently, in the middle of a very successful lesson, he had suddenly dropped his shoulder, deposited his rider on the ground and taken off at top speed for the yard.
Life was never dull with Gus around!

That sounds very familiar.......

Gus is beginning to sound uncannily like my little 12.2hh welsh mountain pony, Drummer. My uncle sent him over to us 3 years ago from Ireland for us to sell on, but he's such a character, he's now become part of the pack and we'll never be able to sell him! He's also very good at what we call the "beached whale game". Very much the same as Gus, he finds great pleasure in lying flat out in his field with his eyes closed, his mouth wide open and his tongue lolling out brilliantly. I've had many people come sprinting over, certain the little grey pony is dead! And to look at him, you'd probably think their right, apart from the fact that if he were to hear you throw some cubes in a feed bowl in the feed store he would be up and standing by the fence so quick you'd wonder whether you'd imagined it!! Another one of his favourite games is, when he is used for a lesson and he can hear someone in the feed store, to canter beautifully around the arena, until he gets to the top corner, closest to the gate, at which point he slams on the breaks, drops his shoulder and sends his unfortunate, unsuspecting rider straight into the dust, trotting off to stand expectantly by the gate to the yard; not very subtly telling us all "I want food!". He’s just as bad in the stable as well, pulling rugs off any of the racks within reach of his stable dog, stealing brushes and standing in all day with his front legs over the door, like a dog!! Him and the donkey, Ria, get along brilliantly, tending to be the two at the front of the pack when a field full of loose horses head hell-for-leather down the drive after “someone” has managed to slip the lock back on the gate!! God only knows what would happen if we did sell him on – he’d probably arrive back the next day uninvited after letting himself out of the field!! Again, as you say, life’s never dull with Drummer around, although it can get rather frustrating after chasing him down the drive for the third time that day!!!! 

Ever thought of writing a book?

It sounds as though you could write one about Drummer, michnb. What a character!

A little lost on the ending 

I just finished Cut Throat. Excellent book! And I must admit I was up until 3am reading it so I may have missed something. I didn't quite understand the last line. Are we suppose to know who the Yorkshire farmer is? Did they already try to buy the horse and failed. Was it Harry Douglas. Or did Franklin buy him? I just feel like I must have missed something.
Great website by the way. I didn't expect to find anything quite so interactive to answer my question!
Can't wait to read the next book. This was the first of your books I have read, not the last for sure.

Hi reneighs

Great to hear from you. It sounds a lovely set up you have in Canada. In answer to your query... Yes, the "Yorkshire farmer" was Franklin. The Colonel tells Ross near the end of Chapter 20 that Fergusson has received and accepted an offer from a wealthy farmer in Yorkshire who owns a string of horses. Although it was a while ago now that I wrote it (so the motives have become a little woolly, even to me!) I think Franklin didn't let on at first because he felt that Fergusson might not sell the horse to him if he knew who he was - knowing that Ross would then keep the ride. He had fallen out with Ross big time by then, as I recall. Hope that makes sense :-)  

Happy Birthday Lyndon

Hope you have a lovely birthday, with plenty of doggy snogs.

Trish(DP)xxxxxxxxx

Thanks Trish!

I did have a lovely doggie day. Took my crowd over to a friend who has two gorgeous young retriever girls and we went for a wonderful long walk in the New Forest. It was sunny but not too hot and they all had a ball - although Twiglet was a little overawed by the company :o) Teazle and the youngest retriever, Lucy, had great fun hunting squirrels in the woods and Inca gave chase to a rabbit. She said she would have brought it back for out tea but it was too scrawny to bother with (that was her story and she was sticking to it). Finished up at a lovely Forest pub that welcomed dogs, where we all sat in the garden and had cappucinos and a scrummy butterscotch pud (well it was my birthday!) Bliss. NB It was the hoomans who had the coffee etc, not the dogs, although Twiglet did have a little coffee in my saucer as a special treat. Dogs, sunshine, coffee and cake - what more could anyone want?