26 Feb 2005

Winter has been strange this year, so I've just been lurking on the list and not driving. The North of England, and parts of Scotland, had tremendous storms in January with 140mph+ winds. We lost a lot of trees (plenty of firewood) but the horses were OK in their stone stables. No electricity for 36 hours, but we only have to re- roof half the hay shed and the outside loo, despite the hurricane force winds and the big tree branches flying about. The same weekend brought very severe floods to some areas; parts of Carlisle city centre were over 10 feet deep in water and livestock were washed away from fields near the River Eden. Again, we were lucky, as we live on a hill; if we were ever flooded, half of Cumbria would be underwater.

Then it turned milder, till last week when we had snow... or rather, areas around us had snow, and we just got an inch! I have shamelessly used the weather as an excuse for not driving, and got ploughed-on with writing the book... but it's gone to the publishers now so I have no excuse not to get myself back in trim for driving, as well as my horses.

The ponies have got used to a new regime of weekdays in the paddock (or the potato patch, by its looks) and the shelter, and weekends indoors where I can do things with them comfortably. Over the winter they have had several visitors from distant parts of Britain and from America. Ruby thinks this is no more than her due and T, at rising 18 years, is quite blas'e by now. I was jokingly offered a whole Aberdeen Angus carcass in exchange for Ruby. My husband accepted... but she's still here :-) He has just made her a special trough on stilts so she can have her her own personal water supply outside the stable window... because she marmelises plastic buckets (her feed skip is recycled rubber, and needs to be). Mr T has never had this kind of attention from my husband; I suspect it's because of Ruby's greater skill at batting her eyelashes. She is quite devastating when she decides to be charming.

We drove today because the snow of last week had gone and we are planning to attend a carriage drive on Easter Monday so she needs to have done a little work. She is staying pretty fit charging round the paddock and kicking her heels in temper when T refuses to share his carrots at breakfast. However, I did think she needed to be reminded about "real" work, so off we went to get harnessed up. I am delighted to say that she now fits the 20" neck collar that only went halfway down her neck in August last year. She worked all autumn in a 21" but since the weather/winter/literary layoff, it is now too long and the 20" is just perfect. (That tells you how much weight she has lost, and she is by no means thin even now. I have put her feed back up to maintenance level plus a tiddly bit for the work I am planning to do. On the other hand, I was so bundled up in coat and rug and dayglo/reflective yellow visibility waistcoat that I looked like Mr Pickwick.)

I have wondered for some time how Ruby would behave in company as I know she was very - ahum - _lively_ when shown as a youngster. Last time I drove out, we passed a field full of Warmblood show jumping/event horses who always think a pony pulling a carriage is just the funniest thing they have seen all day. Ruby had not met them before and either stopped dead or produced an amazing suspended trot with her tail curled up Pekinese fashion, snorting like a whale all the time. She looked much more like a Hackney than a Fell pony. She didn't do anything really silly, but she did get a bit distracted. So it was very good for her today that when we went out, we met a neighbour who was going out for a ride with a friend who gives her lessons, both of them mounted on Icelandic horses, and going our way. Ruby was deeply interested, but made no real bones about going on ahead as we were asked to do (because the Icelandics had not really encountered horses-with-wheels before). She thought about them following her for some time and whinnied a good deal, but didn't argue with me, which was excellent. We passed the local Shetlands without comments, and the Warmbloods weren't out, because their owner was cutting yet more fallen branches into firewood in their field, using a circular saw mounted on the back of his tractor. He stopped cutting when he finally spotted Ruby, but I don't think she was too bothered. Coming back, because of his earmuffs and her unshod feet he hardly heard us, and Ruby never batted an eyelid; given half a chance I think she would have offered to give him a hand. Her family are like that: "bold as brass, wide awake and totally on the ball" (and the other one I had was a bucket basher too <grin>). My main insistence was that she drove on the left of the road and went straight - she tends to drift to the right, which would be pretty dangerous on a busy road in the UK. But when traffic is about she clearly knows she really ought to be on the left and she moves over, preferably onto the grass verge if there is one! We did some nice steady trotting, and some faster, and some good walking. Coming back we overtook the Icelandics whose riders were just dismounting to walk the last few hundred yards home (and to get the circulation back in their feet!) and Ruby, though interested again, walked calmly and quietly past them and kept going as they followed and we humans all had a chat.

I don't know if this is actual progress on Ruby's part or just a continuing voyage of discovery on mine, but I do know that it felt good to be back in action and that she enjoyed herself as much as I did.

Oh and she thought the trough at the window was good fun and spent some time playing at making waves in it. My husband just looked ironic and said, "Can't you tell it's female!"

Sue in the English Lakes
Intelligence is no defence against one's own stupidity

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