First river ride of the year......

Nearly 20 degrees out there today so we took the kids and horses down to the river. Rode over to Tanya's with my small noisy burden in front of the saddle, she kept wanting to trot and worked out that Gandalf will trot just from a click of the tongue, had to tell her to stop it!!!

As we rode past the Percheron breeder's farm he was out with a couple of his mares so we stopped for a chat.

This is not as simple as it sounds, him being deaf as a post and needing to lip read!! And he's not kneeling down in that pic, he really is that short.......

Then it was on to Tanya's where the SNO decided she wanted to ride Fina instead, which the NNP took remarkably well really, especially as she and her sister immediately started arguing check out Ali's expression, the SNO is being a tart for the camera......

We found a cool path down to the water and of course the girls (and the dog) got wet......

Even Gandalf had a splash in the water.......

We had a nice picnic (Gandalf was very interested in that!)

Then it was back to the campsite for a spot of jumping then we turned the horses out so they had a roll, a hooley and Ches & G started playing!

For some reason, it's always the boys that play like this, he never does with Sky and Fina......

Trial run....

...of the Lake Ride today, we did the whole thing. Lovely sunny frosty morning.....

....still sunny by the time we got to the lake nearly 3 hours later, met a nice English couple out walking their dogs, they stopped to admire Gandalf so I got them to take a pic:

However, by the time I'd got round the lake to the beach and stopped for my flask of tea and sandwiches, the clouds had arrived

So after lunch, time for a quick drink and splash in the lake then it was time to go home.

It took 3 hours to get to the lake, 12kms all at the walk, then 2 hours to do the 8km return journey. Not a bad day out.....

Day ride

Went for a lovely day ride in the sun today, Éowyn's Godmother offered to have both the kids all day so I made the most of my freedom!!

We found a new route to go to the nearby village of Vélines. We had to go past a field of cattle at one point, they started running towards the horses and the big jessies got scared and tried to run away.....oh dear.

We went up a nice steep hill which the boys found hard going, they're so unfit. Then had a picnic lunch looking out over the fabulous view.

Don't often get days off like this.....