Ah, weekend

No early morning station runs for two days; how nice. E had a riding lesson this morning, riding a little grey pony called Bilbo,for the first time. He turned out to be considerably less sluggish than many of them, so there were some exciting moments when she unexpectedly started cantering, ended up overtaking bigger ponies on the inside, etc; but on the whole she coped pretty well, though her position and hands are sometimes tending rather towards the Western rather than English techniques.
In the afternoon, I went to see Dad, taking S (who went to sleep) and J (who did her homework, after a while, thus killing two birds with one stone). As always, he was pleased and surprised to see us (he's always surprised, even when we come at the exact time we said we would). He forgot my name temporarily, but otherwise was very lucid. As always, one of the other residents, who can't say more than a few words at a time, came over to see S. I suppose he must have had a severe stroke or something, because his face is distorted and his speech is indistinct (he doesn't have all that many teeth, either); and at first glance you would think he really didn't have much mental function remaining, because he shambles around the corridors endlessly, with intermittent trips to the smoking room. But when he sees S, his whole face lights up, and he comes over to say hello to her, although briefly. Then he'll come back again a few minutes later, meanwhile having formulated some completely relevant dog-related remark - today it was to tell me that dog licences used to cost ten shillings - and then, as soon as I've replied, he smiles and wanders off again. It's so sad; he had his own dog once,and must have been a very nice man, and you can still see what he must have been like, but as if it's partially been rubbed out with an eraser. Life can be so, so cruel.
Anyway, he was pleased to see the dog, as always, and Dad was pleased to see us, and we did our best and then went home. Steak tonight, flash fried with slow cooked onions and crushed potatoes; and a nice evening planning what we are going to do tomorrow.