Whilst I was at the Europeans Galahad had a holiday as well.  Of course, his consisted mostly of standing in his field eating grass but I am sure he enjoyed himself very much.

Being away reminds me just how far Galahad has come in the last year.  Not so very long ago a week’s break would have had him shying away from me in the field and we would have taken several steps backward.  This time however he walked up to me just as usual despite my torch – he isn’t a fan of torches!  When it came to riding him the next day he was quite full of energy but behaved very well.  He really has improved.

We had a lovely hack in the fading light and the sky was absolutely beautiful.  It doesn’t really come out in the photograph  – they never do.

Sadly in that week the light has changed so much that I no longer have enough of it to ride both ponies after work.  I try to alternate them which means Galahad will only be ridden half as much for now.  Less once it gets too dark to ride at all.

Thursday, however, was my day off.  My sister was able to ride too so we hacked out together.  We had a good gallop in the fields up the hill and the good news is that the hay bales are not really scary anymore.  We canter around the original ones (looking a bit sorry for themselves now) quite happily and although we might roll our eyes a bit at the new ones which have appeared in the next two fields they didn’t stop us cantering there either.  All of which is very good news despite the fact that my sister’s pony makes a beeline for the bales now he has worked out they are made of hay.

We had glorious sunshine for the whole of our ride even though we had a short drizzly shower too.  The ponies got hot enough to need a wash down and I was back to riding in a t-shirt.  We had a gorgeous time and I think the ponies enjoyed it too.  Galahad certainly enjoyed his galloping, I’m not so sure about his partial bath afterwards!