Having recently joined the Centre Equestre du Pays Beaumontois (CEPB) (http://cepb.free.fr/ ) with some other étrangères, we're all benefiting from the help and support provided by a great equestrian centre. We have always been welcome in the past at competitions and events, but now have become a real part of the CEPB family.

At the end of a busy day at the coalface (or laptop), what better way to unwind than with a swift half at the bar. Problem is, like most of life’s better things, there’s a catch. Somewhat unfairly, beer  = calories = an ever expanding waistline - and bearing in mind your better half’s disapproval of the idea in the first place, perhaps better to head straight home, ditch your grown up clothes, find some wellies and hounds and head for the fields.

Education. By and large, a good thing. If you’re of a certain vintage - and struggle to download a bestseller to your tablet - you’ll remember instead school bookshops and the page flicking pleasure of a freshly minted paperback (for readers under 20, imagine something like a bendy i pad which doesn’t need batteries - and for which you won’t get mugged). And even if the latest arrivals on the shelves didn’t grab you, some titles were required reading – amongst which was Catch 22. Long winded, self indulgent and pretty indigestible, it’s also become shorthand for the irresolvable.