We have snow! It's looking very Christmassy outside at the moment and is set to be -7 tonight.
A quick recap - On Wednesday Doug went to pick up his sister, Gill, brother in law and the two boys from Long Buckby station - they really wanted to see a hunt and the Pytchley were hunting nearby, so they went to the meet at The White Horse at Welton, it was right next to the local primary school and all the children were out stroking the hounds. They were given a glass of port and a few mince pies and took lots of photos. Rowan, the field master had been told they were coming and made a fuss over them. Ed Kendall (Nicky Hendersons lad) came in to school the horses so Doug made sure they was back in time for that. Ed rode Dove first in the school and popped her over the built up hurdle about 20 times. He then jumped on Frog and did the same. Both were very good. However, the test was going to be jumping the line of hurdles in the schooling field as that was where she blooded Amy's nose and then dumped Doug. Lucy rode Dream, I was on Harry and Ed was happily oblivious on Frog (we had 'sort of' warned him!) - we galloped around twice and then Ed was instructed to jump the one hurdle and circle around and jump it again as if he was in the sand school - "hang on tight!" were his main instructions and sure enough he needed to, first of all she tried to duck out to the right, and then jumped the wings which were about twice as high as the actual fence itself, he very nearly fell off, but went around again and she did the same again, finishing off with throwing her head in the air and splitting Ed's chin open. Oh dear. We thought he would decide to call it a day, but it just made him more determined to get her to jump the hurdles properly and with rather a lot of blood splashing around he eventually got her to jump the line of three hurdles absolutely perfectly, to the point where she loved it so much that he had a job to stop her. We all whooped and hollered as it was such an achievement. Ed then jumped Harry over the middle size fences and he was great, then Dream, who jumped well but was a bit lazy and just brushed through them. Doug decided she should jump the big regulation fences - these have just been stuffed and look really black and solid. I was rather worried as if she brushed through them the same way as she brushed through the smaller fences then she would most definitely do a cart wheel. I had seen enough blood for the day. But I needn't have worried - she jumped them beautifully and didn't touch a twig. Ed couldn't believe how effortlessly she did it and how quickly away from the fences she was. Very exciting, as last season we had just about given up on her because of her various problems. Everyone then came back for lunch, luckily I had made enough Shepherds pie to go around. We had to administer some first aid to Ed. Fortunately Gill had some band-aid with her, so she patched him up - it had almost stopped bleeding and we don't think it broke his jaw as he was able to eat some lunch. His wounds went well with my black eye which is still a real shiner.
This morning Will came in and rode the Frog, I rode Harry and Lucy. Because the ground was frozen we could only go up the all weather gallop. Frog was much better behaved today and all went well. I then settled in the kitchen by the aga to do my Christmas cards with the obligatory glass of sherry. Doug was called out by 'mad Laura' to jump start her friends car as she had left the ignition on, this he duly did and was forced into having a glass of blackberry vodka, he then went to pick up some charity Christmas cards from the Thames (out nearest neighbours) where they got a bottle of port out - while he was there a few others villagers popped in - in the meantime Bill Adams (the local farmer) came around to Blackgrounds looking for Doug as one of his ewes had fallen in the river, I phoned him on his mobile and he was quite glad of the excuse to leave the festivities as it was threatening to get a little out of hand. He met Bill who was in a bit of a panic as the ewe was out of range and struggling in the deepening water. To Bill's amazement Doug got a rope out of his truck, lassoed the ewe around the neck and within five minutes had her back on dry land and running to join the rest of the flock. Something that is run of the mill in outback Australia but not in the 'home counties'!