Roland’s nags and nails: hooked on the Olympics
What a couple of weeks! I’ve been seriously hooked on the Olympics and just so massively proud of the way in which we’ve hosted these games.
My wife and I went to the ladies’ beach volleyball (probably not the best tournament to go to with your wife!) and it was fantastic to experience first hand how well run and well organised our Olympics have been. London looked amazing. Our beautiful historic buildings are a great backdrop and reminder of just how great Britain is. And of course who could forget Bond escorting the Queen and Mr Bean daydreaming whilst playing the theme to Chariots of Fire. Priceless!
And what about our athletes? 65 medals and third overall in the medal table. They all punched well above their weight and made Britain proud once again. Well done to them all. One particular athlete has a special interest for Kris Parsons (my training farrier) and me as we look after his podiatry needs. He was selected for the modern pentathlon and I’ll find out how he got on when we next shoe him.
With the help of Kris’s iPad and the BBC i-player we were able to keep up with the equestrian events. Set up in the back of the van while we were shoeing, we were able to follow our riders and if we had time in between appointments, quickly park up and switch the in-car TV on!
Pretty modern stuff, but then we’re a pretty modern farriery team. Kris runs all of his appointments on his iPad diary, which automatically invites customers to shoeing appointments via email. He also invoices and runs his book keeping with electronic invoices also being emailed. It’s a very slick system and has speeded up the admin side of running a farriery business considerably. It also means we can fit more horses in — a double-edged sword.
Until next week
Roland
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Roland owned a computer software business until he realised he didn't want to be stuck behind a desk for the rest of his working life. So in 2011 he started the four-year apprenticeship to become a farrier on the borders of Somerset, Devon and Dorset. He became fully qualified in 2014.