Well it started ok......

Went for a hack yesterday, nice sunny morning, birds singing, flowers nodding in the breeze etc. Great, we thought. Went down a track we haven't used for about 6 months, first problem, the farmer had closed off the path with one of those awful barbed wire gate thingies, there's no way you can open them on horseback cos they are always stretched tight so you have to get off, open it then jump out of the way before it twangs back at you, lead the horse through, get him far enough away so you can haul it back into place without it twanging into him, you get the idea......

There were 3 of them across the path in all!!!

Then the field was somewhat overgrown:

Not great when you're trying to keep your extremely fat horse away from lots of grass!!

Still,we soldiered on and eventually got into the woods.


Lovely in there, it was, no flies, not warm enough yet, no hunters, perfect.

Then on the way back we had to go and check on my friend's horses as she's away for the weekend, this would have been fine except that her neighbour's dog was wearing one of those Elizabethan collars and as far as Maverick's concerned, they EAT horses........

Jane got off and lead him past and he was starting to calm down until the neighbour came out with a whip and started trying to round the dogs up with it!!! That finished Mav off, he was snorting and jumping around, we had to leave at that point!

Gotta love the French........