31 July 2010

Funny Drive!

I took Ruby out this afternoon, by which time she was very grumpy, having been indoors all yesterday, and having eaten all the midday hay allowance.

We drove up Pikestoll, the big hill to the south, and at the top I turned in at The Dyke, where my friend Felicity lives. Ruby likes this option because we usually stand nattering then come straight home. Hard luck Ruby - this time, there was nobody in! So we retraced our steps to the end of the farm lane, and set off down the hill on the other side, to Roundthwaite. Unusually, we met three cars and were overtaken by a neighbour on a motorbike - nearly a traffic jam for our little road! - but we had room to find a bit of grass verge each time and Ruby didn't object to them passing her, though the grass was a great temptation.

Down the far side, there's an even narrower stretch of road with a stream on one side and a bank on the other, and here we met a large Land Rover DIscovery (4WD) towing a boat, of all things, on a trailer. I tried putting Ruby up a bit of grass verge, but here it was a good 3 feet high at 45 degrees, so I shook my head and took her off it. The driver of the 4WD poked his head out and said, " Have you got any suggestions?" I told him that if he could go back straight, 5 yards, there was a tiny gateway hidden under the nettles and goosegrass, in which I could get Ruby and the carriage off the road. So that's what we did... he had about 6 inches to spare on my side and I didn't bother looking how much he had to spare on his! But he did shout his thanks as he went by :)

Down into Roundthwaite, no more traffic, Ruby doing her big walk and letting me know in no uncertain terms that she was grumpy and needed to work. We had some lovely big trots on the level stretches, and I took her through Roundthwaite and up to the viewpoint into the Lune valley, over the motorway and railway and river. Somebody had mown one of the banks, and apparently, under the bracken and grass etc, a bench-seat for walkers has been hiding all these years! Ruby didn't want to wait and catch her breath, so I turned her back homeward, and sampled the little tracks on the "moor end", which are used by the local farms to collect animals off the fellside. Ruby enjoyed that, trotting through little watersplashes and up and down over the undulating grassland. We trotted up the gravelly road to the top of Roundthwaite, turned at the ford, and came back. Ruby, having got her pipes cleared climbing the hill, and facing now towards home, was motoring. Now, as you've probably realised from the early part of this description, our road is NARROW. So I was gobsmacked when a cyclist suddenly appeared under my right elbow! He shot through past me, with no warning or greeting, and Ruby turned herself inside out as the "silent death" popped into her view. I said a few choice words as I collected her up, and then sat firmly in the middle of the road to prevent a second cyclist overtaking until I could move over and let him past safely. No word of thanks there either... well screw YOU, mate! I thought. Ruby picked up on my irritation, added it to her own grumpiness, and shot off after both cyclists at full pelt. Needless to say, when they hit the up gradient 200 yards further on and heard our hoofs approaching, they had to pull over to let Mrs Steam Engine pass by. I grinned and said, " Thank you!" Oooh coals of fire... She was so fired up by chasing the bikes that she trotted all the way up to the top of the hill. I stopped her there in the Dyke lane end, and let her catch her breath, knowing full well that when the cyclists reached the top they'd want to fly down the hill at 40mph - and no way did I want to be walking Ruby down the hill ahead of them if they were going to pass us again at that speed, without warning. When they did eventually pass, while we waited, they reached our house, nearly a mile away, before we were a quarter of the way down the hill.

Ruby did her best let's-get-the-job-done walk all the way down the hill, and gave me a great trot on the river level and up the bank to the yard. And then pulled faces at me all the time I was unharnessing and brushing her off. Didn't I KNOW, she was HUNGRY???

I fed her and Mr T, and they're now out in the little paddock, pulling faces at each other instead of at me. By, she's a cracking drive when she's cross!