Houston, we have a problem......

So last week, the mother-in-law took the girls away on holiday and we had FOUR WHOLE DAYS without them. Heady with our new found freedom, we decided to head off for a couple of days camping on the Ile d'Oléron. First time we'd been away without the kids for a very long time. A couple of days to relax and unwind and do whatever the hell we wanted. What could be better?

But guess what? On the first day I get a phone call - one of the horses decided to escape from the field......

So I called Tanya who was on duty whilst I was away, thinking that dear old Gandalf had done his trick of getting to the other side of a fence leaving it intact, which he's done a couple of times if the electricity isn't working too well, with all the dry hot weather we've had, the earth spike probably needed watering....but no, I did him a disservice, it was Tari who was out, having left lots of tape trailing.

Who, me?

So she was duly recaptured and the horses were shut in the half of the field fenced with proper wooden posts rather than plastic ones, and given hay to lessen the temptation of that greener grass on the other side.

When I got back I went to check on them and all was well. However , the next morning, Mademoiselle had done her trick again and was out sampling the new grass alongside the fence. Sky and Gandalf were very good and stayed on the right side of the fence, watching her. I put her back in the field and went off round the fence to check it all again. At the bottom of the field it isn't fenced due to the abundance of brambles in front of a  wide stream with steep banks. Deterrent enough, I thought. But as I walked along to make sure no enterprising wildlife had forced its way through, dear Tari decides to follow me and investigate a slight gap herself, forces her way through the brambles with seemingly no ill effects and goes down the steep bank of the stream. Which, due to all the hot dry weather we've been having, is no longer a stream but a series of green, mosquito breeding puddles interspersed with black sticky mud.

Which it turns out is no deterrent at all to the curiosity of a baby horse......

So I followed her down into the sticky mud, lost a shoe on the way, got bitten by the multitude of mozzies, swore a lot and by the time I'd caught up with her, she'd decided that it wasn't so interesting down there, turned round and cantered back up into the field!

So after some more colourful language I retraced my steps, fetched some white tape and set about closing off the gap in the brambles and incidentally acquiring a series of holes in my clothing and adding lots of scratches to my collection of mozzie bites.

Ah, the joys of horse ownership...............