1990 - 1991 Out to Work

I left school at 16 with my um.. ok GCSE's and went straight to work. I wasn't interested in A levels and I wouldn't have made it through anyway. All I wanted was to work with horses. So three days after I finished my exams I started work at the riding centre on the Quantock Hills where I had been riding. I joined a YTS scheme and come September started at college. I lived at the riding centre apart from the two weeks I was at college. I loved the job, I rode every day escorting people across the Quantocks and exercising the hunters. I lived on frozen pizzas and the fantastic cheesecake that they served in the local pub! I loved the nights at the pub, until you had to walk home in the dark up the pretty long lane. The only way you knew you were going the right way was when you bounced of the hedges!

It was here that I met the next love of my life, and probably the most influential, an Ozzy. He wasn't what you'd call classically attractive but I fell for the accent and the fact that he was eight years older than me. He had a caravan out on the yard and I spent most nights out there with him. The woman I worked for, a ridiculous, aged, alcoholic who prefered to buy gin rather than decent feed or wormer for the horses, hated our blossoming relationship and made things difficult for us. She used to lock me out so I couldn't get back in the house to get reading for work, so I would end up being late. By that Winter she had had enough and she sacked me for 'being lazy'. The Ozzy promptly ditched too and we were then both looking for work.

I ended up working in an office and again doing a YTS. Ozzy got a job as an electrician which is what he did back in Australia. We continued to see eachother although it was harder now as we lived quite far away. Ozzy lived with a friend almost next door to the riding centre and I was back living at home. We did spend a lot of time together though, we went away for weekends and I spent a lot of time at his friend's house.

Eventually Ozzy began to get extremely homesick. It was affecting his mood and he was increasingly down. He was meant to have gone home quite some time ago but had stayed because of me. In the end I bit the bullet and told him I didn't want to see him aymore, because I knew that it was the only way I could get him to go home. It wasn't what I wanted but I knew he was miserable. I don't know if he ever appreciated what I was doing but we stayed in touch.

I was also desperately miserable because I didn't actually want him to go. I started seeing a guy that we knew from the riding centre. Totally on the rebound, but he took my mind off Ozzy. He was a really funny guy but in the end he turned out to be too funny. The kind of person you want as a mate, always a laugh, but no good as a boyfriend. You could never have a serious conversation with him, he always turned everything into a joke. We didn't last long.

It was about this time that my father retired from the school. We moved house the September before I turned 18.