It probably isn't quite fair to post this as a "progress" as my Fell (Mr T) is 17 and thinks he knows it all, but we have not had much work during the winter - maybe 4 outings since October 2003 - so a nice fine sunny Saturday and Sunday here in England have seen us rubbing off the dust in more ways than one!
Ok the harness was clean - but Mr T was concreted over with mud, and his mane, tail and feather tastefully decorated with dead weeds from happy rolling in the paddock..... and the little robin who roosts in the shed where the cart lives has been pooping all over it in spite of its waterproof covers. So we were not at our spick and span best when we ventured out on Saturday.
Things worked out OK though. We went a mile down the road and a mile back and sorted out the annual Spring argument about who defines the pace (ie, do we stand and update our mental database of local objects, or do we go forward?). So we got that out of the way early and with no spectators (it looks so bad when dust rises from your pony's coat as you give that artificial aid... :-) )
Sunday has been another bag of worms! nothing to do with the pony who, having got over the annual Spring argument, behaved splendidly. I drove out around 10-30 am and immediately found that our normally very quiet local road was like Piccadilly Circus, with traffic coming not in the usual ones and twos every half hour, but in fives and sixes every few minutes. When I found I'd counted 5 police cars in a mile of walking, it began to dawn on my dim brain that something must just be going on that was out of the ordinary. By then we were about 1.5 miles from home so I thought a walk home with the odd short trot might be a good idea. We met more cars, and pickups, and police cars, and even a motorbike (Mr T is afraid of motorbikes but he just stood with his neck up and stiff, and drew back his lower lip, and waited while the bike went by. I am very familiar with the sight of his lower incisors as motorbikes approach; also the springy adrenalised trot that follows their passing).
I met some of my neighbours out for a walk and commented on the huge increase in traffic. They told me that there had been a terrible accident on the railway line. A tracklaying wagon had been allowed to get loose during maintenance work in the early morning and had run four miles until it smashed into another work gang at Tebay. This stretch of line (Shap) is one of the steepest grades in the country and the wagon must have been going one hell of lick. Four men (at least one from the local village) were killed, another is in hospital and three more were injured but allowed home. The wagon went another mile before it actually stopped. The police had closed the main road to allow all the emergency services to the scene - which is on the edge of the village.
All the diverted traffic coming past our house and along the roads on which the pony and I were driving made for a good training experience, but it was one I would rather have done without than have had those men killed and injured.
As one of my neighbours said, "Aye, live each day as if it was your last, because YOU NEVER KNOW."
Sue in the English Lakes
Intelligence is no defence against one's own stupidity