End of summer sunshine

Well I still haven't ridden either of our horses since the fun ride, but I am feeling a lot better. We've just had a week's holiday in Dinbych-y-Pysgod (Tenby) in South Wales, and I really think I must have needed the holiday.  My dizziness and lack of balance gradually subsided over the course of the holiday and now is simply a mild occasional inconvenience.

We had a lovely relaxing week in an especially nice apartment with a sea view and a little patio garden to sit out in and enjoy the sunshine – yes we did have sunshine, a whole week of it.  An unexpected treat of staying in this apartment was that the route of the Tenby horse carriage rides passed right by our little garden.  So I got to stroke the soft nose of a shire horse every day and offer him an apple, to compensate for not seeing Dee and Red for a week.

Red is fine as always and now a firm favourite with the herd leader, Falcon.  Dee started to object to being in the convalescent field as soon as she started to feel better and began trying to kick through the fence, so they decided she was better off back with the main herd.  She is no longer lame, but still quite stiff in her hind quarters.  I think it is time to start exercising her a little now to try and loosen her up.  The farrier has had a look at the hoof which had cracked so badly and has tidied it up.  He is satisfied that it is coming along well.  I'm cleaning it out whenever I visit and patching it up with hoof putty.  This does not stay in from one visit to the next, but at least it gives the hoof a bit of support for a while and keeps it clean.  It has been quite dry here for a while now, so there is not a lot of mud around to get it really wet and dirty.

Having had a couple of incidents with Dee messing me around while leading her in from the field, I have been using the training halter and a lunge line when I catch her.  Simply using these is sufficient to ensure Dee's cooperation and we walk up together calmly and happily without me having to do anything else.  She's a sensible mare and knows when to give up on mischief.

Postscript: if Cilla of Frontshoesonly still reads my blog, will you please send me an invitation to your blog because I can no longer access it.

On holiday

Thank you to my blogsphere friends for your concern about the floods. Fortunately the weather has changed again and is actually quite dry and sunny at the moment, so the floods have receded.

It may have been unnecessarily paranoid of me, but I decided not to mention on my blog that I would be away for a week. We've all spent a delightful week in Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro), staying in a cottage in the heart of Tenby (Dinbych y Pysgod).

It may be our last family holiday together as both our sons start university in two weeks time. Daniel, our elder son, will be studying ‘Creative and Professional Writing’ at Glamorgan, and Richard is doing his foundation year for a degree in ‘Electrical and Electronic Engineering’ at Cardiff. Although they have both chosen local universities, they will be living in Halls of Residence for their first year of study, so my life is going to be quite different very soon.

It is time to go and see how the horses are after their week of full livery. Hopefully we shall ride tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the holiday photos. Dinbych y Pysgod – Little Fort of the Fishes – is such a pretty name. It is a shame it has been anglicised to ‘Tenby’. We stayed in the little blue cottage. The picture of the stormy sea was taken from the headland above St Govan’s chapel – an extraordinary and ancient chapel set into the cliff-face.