Things are beginning to look wintry here. A lot of the trees have lost their leaves and the countryside is starting to look a bit brown.
The hedges are taking on a new kind of beauty – there is a lot of lichen visible now the leaves have gone.
Every so often though, we still come across a tree which is a blaze of colour.
Galahad and I had a lovely lazy hack today, rambling through the countryside and enjoying the autumnal scenery. It is a good time of year.
This week I have not ridden much at all. Partly that is because I am currently in sole charge of all the animals.
When there is a limited amount of daylight I have to prioritise. The ponies can run around the field and exercise themselves to some extent. The dog doesn’t have that opportunity!
Although I miss the riding I still get to spend time with the ponies. They are always pleased to see me in the mornings and especially the evenings when I feed them!
Plus the dog and I always stop to say hello.
Every winter I have to accept that my riding gets curtailed – it won’t be long now before it is too dark to ride in the mornings as well as the evenings. It’s just a case of adjusting myself to a new routine of only riding a couple of times a week. There are lots of compensations though – things like log fires on cold evenings!
It has been rather cold here for the past few days. The wind is biting and the rain is freezing. Literally – there were bits of sleet in it today. Luckily it stayed dry for our hack today but we got pretty wet yesterday.
Our neighbour has moved out and the new people were moving in yesterday – we met one very fast small van and a slower, larger one. That one got slightly wedged between two cottages and we had the fun of watching it try to extricate itself. The ponies were fascinated!
They were very well behaved though. We have a field right on the side of a fairly busy road and lorries frequently drive past it very fast. It has been invaluable in making sure the ponies are not traffic shy.
We had such a beautiful, frosty morning today.
Mornings like this make me realise just how lucky I am.
Until I don’t leave enough time to scrape the car and so am late to work!
We have been pretty lucky with the fireworks this year. Most of our big local displays were last night and although we could hear them there was nothing to see here.
We left the ponies out so they could run if they wanted but they didn’t seem overly bothered.
Once most of the fireworks had finished the heavens opened. It was windy as well so the rain made a dreadful noise on the windows. This morning however was beautiful and Cookster and I had a lovely ride.
It was still rather blustery though!
Now the clocks have gone back my riding has had to move from after work to before work. Which is just as well – it was starting to get a bit tight for light after work anyway!
I have never thought of myself as a morning person (I do not like getting out of bed!) but once I am up I really do love the early mornings. I love being up before the sun and I so much enjoy the chill that we have at the moment. It is great being able to ride above the mists too.
One of the best things though is the light from the sunrises. It is just beautiful, especially when it is shining on the autumnal trees which are looking particularly lovely at the moment.
It is a beautiful time of year. I love the autumn!
I am just back from spending a few days on a choir trip to Normandy where I had a fantastic time.
This was the horse drawn shuttle bus for Mont-Saint-Michel. I didn’t get to have a ride but it was good to see that it was there.
Obviously, I couldn’t take the ponies so my sister was looking after them for me. At one point though, somebody left a gate open and Cookster got into the garden.
Naturally, Galahad is far too well behaved to do something like that – he was there to show where they were meant to be!
The fields have been getting to the point where they needed topping again and this weekend we had a window where the grass was actually dry enough to do so. My Dad started off but got a little stuck in some soft ground so I had to help push him out. It turned out I was not strong enough and I ended up driving while he pushed.
After that I just carried on because it’s actually quite fun when you don’t get to do it very often!
I’m not the best grass cutter in the world but I did a good enough job and enjoyed it too so I call that a success. Obviously the real horse power is best though!
Yesterday my sister and I went for a ride through the fields together. Galahad was again very well behaved but with a little more energy – he was perhaps a bit too slow last time!
This time we had a proper gallop but it was planned and definitely not just Galahad taking off. He did spook once but we think my sister touched him accidentally with her whip. It’s excusable to spook at that!
We had a lovely ride. The weather was perfect and the ponies were well behaved. What could be better?
Galahad and I recently did another online dressage test. Recording it was fun – the first day I tried it absolutely poured down with rain and there was no way I could record in that!
The next time we tried my Dad – who was filming – was half hidden in shadow so Galahad felt the need to spook every time he went near him. That was no good either.
Eventually I managed to get a decent test two days before the closing date. Galahad was a bit more forward than last time – although there is still room for improvement – and was only slightly spooky.
He is still a bit stiff on the right rein but he actually feels much better than he used to and I am very pleased with his progress.
Our score sheet arrived last week and although we did not get a rosette this time our score showed some improvement which I would class as a success.
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Poppy – 28 YO Cotswolds based rider with a ceramic hip, dressage aspirations and a skewbald cob called Pea
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Gadding About With Galahad 