Oct. 18. Quality time. I have had an enormous amount of junk mail in my inbox, taking me precious time to delete. As of a month ago, I have not been able to fully keep up with answering emails. With my husband Guy here in the UK from the beginning of October, and still here as I write this, my time has been taken up with him. It is NOT to say I have not been reading my emails, I have, just not as frequently. Please understand.
The US office is technically closed at present and mail orders will resume after October 25. If any of you have suggestions on how to rid my inbox of so many junk emails, please pass them along. After the 25th, I will continue writing my thoughts on the Crabbet situation here in the UK based upon my living here these past two years.

Sept. 29 POST-CONVENTION PARTEM or Feeling Overwhelmed
I have been trying to come to terms with the amount of work ahead of me in processing photos, writing about the convention all the while dealing with the other work that has piled up here, like my near 2 weeks worth of laundry (well the washer machine was broke, and just got another replacement a few days ago) but then there is my mental attitude of seeing the emails stacked up in my inbox and the masses of paperwork to process from the Convention and the subsequent stud tours. I'm not making an excuse, I just can't face it all. I have put on an easy listening jazz CD, made a cup of tea, and am working thru it all little by little. This is the hard part, it has been glorious sunshine here this weekend calling me to go for a horse ride but I haven't. Okay, that would make most of you fairly depressed, so I hope you can sympathize! Please say yes. I will have a write up for you in a few hours, for better or worse. If you have written me an email lately, please wait as I am answering those as I can. Remember, I am a one person operation here so I can't pass on any of my work to an employee, although my husband will refute that statement as he is the only one who certainly feels like one! Part 1 of my Convention review.

Sept. 1. Al Mesdam a high percentage Crabbet stallion won the British National Champion Ridden Stallion at Malvern. Just found out today. A busy month, and only getting busier. However, I have been able to visit two cities here that I had hoped to see. One was the seaside town of Brighton, the other, Oxford. Both are well worth a visit. Brighton is known for its pier with many amusement rides and The Lanes, an area of winding narrow lanes with lots of shops and eateries. Oxford is very interesting, the stone buildings remind me much of the city of Bath, another of my favorite places. I only had a couple hours in Oxford, not enough to go inside much of the university, however, I saw enough to say I will go back and encourage others to visit. My other fun day was visiting Sonja and Eric Siggs who stand the Ludomino son, Al Amir. He is now 19 years old but has won much under saddle and also in hand. They kindly invited me back to ride him, which I was able to do this past week. He is a beautiful horse and a wonderful ride. Hope to go back soon.
My Mother has also arrived here this past week so I have been rearranging my schedule to suit her needs. The weather has been very warm and sunny for over a week now so we all feel like at last we are having a summer here. It's because it has rained so much this year.
The other thing is that a special friend from my California days has located me after many, many years. I am so happy about that, and isn't email wonderful!

AUG 5. As stated a Crabbet/OE Mare, Dancing Queen (Dancing King x Ludmilla by Ludo) at age 27 with her family group won the Mare Produce class and she the Princess Muna Saddle of Honor. She looked so good for her age and she has the most lovely large kind eyes. The following day for the Veteran mare class, she won 3rd place, her daughter Queens Topaz took 2nd place. The announcer mentioned that these two mares were of Crabbet lineage. They are both owned by Al Waha Arabians.

JULY 19. Preparing for Ireland. Guy and I will be touring Ireland for 5 days and also visiting Klinta Arabians. I will be doing all the driving and we have to leave at 3am to get to the airport by 5:30am to catch our 6:50 am flight! 6 hours before we leave and I still have to pack! Just to let you know I am SO happy to have my husband here! He has brought me a few special gifts, along with back issues, and other business items. That's service!

JULY 18. Went to Cornwall to attend the Regional Group show on the 14th and visit Hazel Crowle and Pam Evans, Crabbet Arab breeders. I had a good visit, and will write more but Guy is arriving today and I have to get the things done then dash to the airport. I took many horse photos, sold a few magazines but mainly met some very interesting Cornish Arab horse enthusiasts!

JULY 6. Hectic weekend, and week. The magazine is nearly put to bed, just needs me to collect my thoughts for the editorial page. I've started to sleep more soundly but just less hours as I burn the midnight oil getting all the last details for this issue to the printer and also get proofs back from advertisers, whether it be fax, or email. My server is acting up and will often not allow my emails to be sent, why I don't know, it allows me to receive them! I haven't had a chance to celebrate 4th of July even! Managed to have a nice meal out though and the English waitress was very sympathetic. She made a tiny hand drawn US flag and stuck it in my potato!

JUNE 20 Still on the rebound. I am sorry that I just can't do emails or web work as before. I have now moved to a new location, been unpacking and dealing with the stress of "where are things" as well as being so far behind with my work due to the constant computer problems. Some of the problems are directly traced to files that have been sent to me. Please think before you send me a file - do I really need to be sent the file? Is the file free of corruption and in a format which I can easily read? Otherwise, please don't send. One jpg sent to me caused 2 severe crashes. I've also been dealing with allergies or hay fever making me feel pretty miserable on top of the other stress. I am quite pleased with myself that I haven't gone out and either got sucidedly drunk or ran myself off a cliff! Just joking, but I am not having a good few weeks lately.

JUNE 1. As I said, on May 26 about 10pm my computer Crashed! I think because I have been having some freeze up lately, it just finally gave up 'bigtime!' I found out that to take it into a repair shop, driving hour away to either Reading or London, would put me in a line of other computers needing repair, which meant 5 days before the technicians could even look at it.

Well being the resourceful person I am, I called a few people I knew here who had Macintosh computers and was given a phone number to call of a Mac 'guru.' He gave me some clues what to do, and so did my Father in Los Angeles (oh the phone bill!). I tried these, while waiting for the emergence CD rom disk to come from both my Father (via Fed ex sent Tuesday but didn't arrive till 1:30 pm FRIDAY) and this 'guru.' The local disk arrived Weds so I was working on retrieving files, and saving it off to zip disks. Yes, I had been backing up all along but it would happen that I would lose a few days work at least. Lucily, my friend Ray Newton in London who had 'flat sat' for me when I went to the US in March, had left his older PC here. I unpacked it and set it up. I was then able to retrieve emails but could not do any of my web or magazine work for this week as I use a Mac with Mac programs. As I write this, I am still trying to make entire CD rom copies of my drive, then I wish to erase it (clean it off to blank), and restore all my programs back. This requires concentration, time and LUCK!!

Please be patient on your ad proofs. Also, it happens this weekend until Tuesday (June 1-4 )is a huge Jubilee celebration for the Queen and I am to travel thru the traffic to a horse show on Sunday. Post office, and banks will be closed. That takes my mind to 'trade stand' and what I need to set it up, etc. Therefore, my web and magazine production has been severly pushed back. Plus I would like to watch some of the 50th year Jubilee on the 'tele' as it a one time event!

PENDING MOVE JUNE 15. I will also be MOVING to a new location by June 15, which had I not had this trouble, I had hoped to have the entire magazine done and shipped to the printer. It will still get printed in time for the Convention and with fingers crossed I still want to have it for the British Nationals. YOUR COOPERATION is needed. When I get your proof to you, please fax or email back to me ASAP.

Keep posted because in one month I will be moved from this location. Therefore, I will make an announcement of the change and should have all the ad proofs for the next issue sent and back before then.

NEXT MAGAZINE. I am still receiving ads for the Next Issue of the Crabbet Influence. If you want to be included in this ANNUAL edition, one that people collect and purchase for years and years later (our popular back issue pages on this website contributes to the Sold Out status of many issues I've produced) then you had better get your ad copy to me! People are buying our Back issues so now more have just sold out!

Being in the US I was there not only to visit family, see my husband, but also to do a lot of work. Which I DID! Some of this work included upgrading my computer system, as well as several of my most used software packages. Hope I can learn how to use them now that I have the latest versions, they never look the same when upgraded. Sometimes I wonder if these software designers just add a few new items, but really spend most of the time rearranging the current items in different places with new icons just to let us think they have added features! It can be quite irritating to feel the program I have used for so long, seems like a brand new gadget to me. Although I have been waking up in the middle of the night all this week, I have kept going all during the days (and a bit too much of the nights!) I had added a few pounds for eating out at my favorite sots in the US (thank goodness for familiar food, not encased in a crust) but back to riding my bike this week and have lost a couple already.

The next day I took photos of the mallard duck pair that have made a home at my parent's poolside. Seems they prefer the built in pool to the lake down the road. That evening my high school friends and I met at a local steak restaurant. We had planned this a month ago when I emailed to say I would be in town. My closest friends and I have all aged somewhat, but the laughter and memories remain the same. What a good time we had, although I was not really eating still being on another time zone.

Saturday I flew home to Washington state to the open arms of my husband Guy Seitz. No one can compare to all he has done for me so that I can be in England to further the Crabbet cause. My stepson Patrick also flew in at the same time to spend his Spring break week with us. Patrick is now nearly 17 as tall as me and still getting better than 4.0 gpa. During the week I went to all my doctors, dentists, etc to get checked out. This took 2 days of appointments. I rode my horse, although she didn't seem to recognize me at first. Oh, our dog Kona was so totally excited seeing both Patrick and me come through the gate. On the Tuesday I stopped in at my former workplace, The Columbian newspaper (www.columbian.com) to visit my friends there. The place has been changed, desks removed, and placed in different configurations but all the people were just as I had left, and I got a great feeling seeing them and having a chat on life for us all in the last year. I rode my horse a few times this past week, also lots of fun. Guy and I decided to change my ticket, pay the penalty so that I can stay longer. There is so much of my business needing attention more than Guy could handle. I've been selling ad space for the Next Crabbet Influence as well as updating documents. Saturday evening our next door neighbors invited us over for dinner and today we spent a quiet Easter at home.

Today I visited Crabbet Park Stud, what it is today, with Caroline Sussex and Leslie Thacker. Our intention was to study the grounds for the tour of September 20. Much of the grounds I recognized from my last visit there in 1985 however much has changed. A lot of new houses have gone up in the area. Crabbet Park is worth visiting and we are fairly sure that the area will only be changed further as time goes on, so I highly recommend anyone coming to the Convention please take the Crabbet tour portion. This property is rapidly being developed and covered up mainly by Gatwick parking lots!

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