BobL
9th September 2014, 11:40 AM
SWMBO has a horse agisted at a riding school across the other side of Perth, about 35 km or 40 minutes away on low traffic day and 1+ hour away during rush hour. All I know about horses is they bite and kick, so I have nothing to do with it, but apparently it needed dental work beyond the scope of a visiting horse dentist so SWMBO was arranged to take it to a dentist at a Vet hospital - guess where - of course, on the opposite side of Perth to the riding school.
So yesterday we got up at 5:30 am and by 6 am we were swapping vehicles with a neighbour (neither of our cars are able to tow the eight of a horse + float) and then crossing the city to the riding school. Normally the neighbour does this with SWMBO but they were all unavailable so muggings here was called on to be the helper. All I was told I had to do was snooze in the passengers seat - yeah right!
At the riding school I loaded the horse float. The horse was next, feed etc and then into the rush hour traffic for the 45 km drive across the city. At the vet hospital, it was very windy (yesterday was very stormy in Perth) off load horse, during which the horse got spooked by a wind gust and tore the rope out of SWMBO's hands giving her a nasty rope burn. Fortunately horse didn't bolt so he went into the hospital stables OK. Off load float - luckily we could leave the float there. Now SWMBO can't drive because of her hands so muggins is now behind the wheel and we're back into the rush hour traffic now heading the other way back home. Dropped the car back at the neighbours and arrived home at 10 am.
Awaiting a call from the dentist which came at 2:30 pm when we repeated the process.
Swap vehicles, drive to hospital, load float and while doing so the jockey wheel locking mechanism collapsed and the hitch fell onto my left food. Lucky I had my steel caps on!!! Out with the jack to lift the float so I could get the jockey wheel down and back the car under the ball.
Load horse and now the 45 km cross city trek into the bumper to bumper rush hour heading out of the city and into another storm front!
Got home at 6:30pm. I worked out I had spent more than 6 hours in rush hour traffic.
Now here's the nice ending to the story.
The dentist did not do what SWMBO had asked and instead of leaving the horse's teeth in a state where a visiting dentist can deal with it, now the horse will need to go back to the hospital in 6 months time. It was clearly a case of doing business to make more business and I was ready to make a scene with a bag of horse poo but SWMBO wanted to stay in with the vet hospital but will lodge a formal complaint. Fortunately the cost was nowhere near what I thought it would be but by the time we add in hire of the float and fuel it would have been close to $400 which I was told was a bargain!
So yesterday we got up at 5:30 am and by 6 am we were swapping vehicles with a neighbour (neither of our cars are able to tow the eight of a horse + float) and then crossing the city to the riding school. Normally the neighbour does this with SWMBO but they were all unavailable so muggings here was called on to be the helper. All I was told I had to do was snooze in the passengers seat - yeah right!
At the riding school I loaded the horse float. The horse was next, feed etc and then into the rush hour traffic for the 45 km drive across the city. At the vet hospital, it was very windy (yesterday was very stormy in Perth) off load horse, during which the horse got spooked by a wind gust and tore the rope out of SWMBO's hands giving her a nasty rope burn. Fortunately horse didn't bolt so he went into the hospital stables OK. Off load float - luckily we could leave the float there. Now SWMBO can't drive because of her hands so muggins is now behind the wheel and we're back into the rush hour traffic now heading the other way back home. Dropped the car back at the neighbours and arrived home at 10 am.
Awaiting a call from the dentist which came at 2:30 pm when we repeated the process.
Swap vehicles, drive to hospital, load float and while doing so the jockey wheel locking mechanism collapsed and the hitch fell onto my left food. Lucky I had my steel caps on!!! Out with the jack to lift the float so I could get the jockey wheel down and back the car under the ball.
Load horse and now the 45 km cross city trek into the bumper to bumper rush hour heading out of the city and into another storm front!
Got home at 6:30pm. I worked out I had spent more than 6 hours in rush hour traffic.
Now here's the nice ending to the story.
The dentist did not do what SWMBO had asked and instead of leaving the horse's teeth in a state where a visiting dentist can deal with it, now the horse will need to go back to the hospital in 6 months time. It was clearly a case of doing business to make more business and I was ready to make a scene with a bag of horse poo but SWMBO wanted to stay in with the vet hospital but will lodge a formal complaint. Fortunately the cost was nowhere near what I thought it would be but by the time we add in hire of the float and fuel it would have been close to $400 which I was told was a bargain!