Past and present

Yesterday Dee was looking splendid and seems sound at last.  We both rode her a little in the arena and she was fine and seemed to enjoy herself.  I practised a few clover leaf patterns and transitions and she was responsive and relaxed.  This is a great relief.  The hoof that cracked is looking as good as it can until the new hoof grows through, and the hoof putty is staying in quite well now that they are in a drier pasture and the weather is also drier.

I'm a little embarrassed about her mane – or lack of it.  I always feel that cobs should be left to let their manes grow as long as they grow, but Dee's had become so uneven I decided to trim it all to the same length.  She'd had a bite or something half way down the top of her neck and had rubbed at it, so that she'd lost a chunk of mane there.  It is growing back well but it looked a mess with a long bit, then a short bit and then another long bit.  Now it looks odd rather than a mess... but it will grow again.

The second picture is somewhat historic.  My mother produced a camera that she had not touched for years but still had a film in it, so we got it developed for her.  This was one of two pictures on the film of Dee, me and my mother from 1995.  We still had Dee at Pontcanna Riding Stables at this time, but were getting rather fed up of the limitations of riding there, so we decided to take her out for the day.  This seemed reasonable at the time, but looking back it was a rather crazy idea and could have been disastrous.

We started very early on a Sunday morning so that the main road from the stables would be quiet.  The first problem was that she wouldn't cross this road.  We'd get half way across and then she wouldn't budge.  The only alternative was an underpass.  Having eventually convinced her that the white van in the supermarket car park was not a scary horse-eating monster, she surprisingly walked through the underpass as if she did it every day.  In the picture we are visiting my mother in Gabalfa Avenue where I had ridden Dee down the wide grassy bank in the centre of the road.  There were a few other scary moments during the expedition, but we got her back to her stable safely later that day.

It was an adventurous outing and perhaps we were foolish to attempt it, but it did convince us to move Dee from Pontcanna and this has been the best thing possible for Dee and for us.  If she was still liveried at Pontcanna she would have continued to be isolated in a stable for most of the time and on her own in a field for a few hours a day, whereas she now runs free with a herd of mares and geldings in 93 acres of beautiful pasture.  She would still have been spending most of her ridden time going round in circles in an arena, being agressive to the other horses and bored out of her mind, whereas now she finds occasional arena work interesting and most of her ridden work is out on the trail.  It was worth a risky ride to arrive at this point.

We are hoping to ride the Wenallt trail with Dee and Red tomorrow if I feel okay.  I have been very off balance and wobbly again today, so I hope it will be better tomorrow.

Save our park!

I do not usually use my blog to campaign, but I would like to make an exception today for the sake of Bute Park in Cardiff.

We are most fortunate to have an extensive and beautiful park running through the heart of Cardiff. It has areas of formal ornamental gardens, is home for rare and unusual trees and plants, supports a varied wildlife, has sports fields and wild areas. The park is well-used and loved by Cardiff residents and many events take place in Cooper's Field near Cardiff castle, such as fireworks extravaganzas and horticultural shows.

There are a number of interesting sculptures in the park, such as the amusing one featured in this photograph. 'ö-Dzin has taken many wonderful photographs of Bute park—on his journey through it on his bicycle comuting to work—and you can see some of these at his fickr pages. Our lovely park graces the banks of the river Taff, with a number of bridges of differing styles traversing it.

Pontcanna Riding Stables nestles within the park and it is possible to ride round part of it on horseback. When I rode regularly at this establishment, before and after buying Dee from them, I used to cycle to the Stables along the Taff trail which is accessible near to my home. It was a real pleasure to visit Bute Park so regularly and witness its varying guises as the seasons and the weather changed.

The park was given to Cardiff by the Marquis of Bute in 1947 for the enjoyment of its citizens. However naughty Cardiff council are now planning to put a road through the park and build on part of it. This would be disastrous for the future of the park and set an unfortunate precedent. Many ancient trees will be destroyed for this development, and large areas of grassland.

If you too love inner city parkland and feel that it is an essentiual facility for the health of city dwellers, please sign the petition to urge Cardiff Council to abandon their plans to destroy part of our park. It does not matter if you live outside the UK, or have never visited Cardiff, please sign the petition online if you value the undisturbed continuation of this historic and beautiful park. Thank you.