Hello old sports! Once again, my apologies for the lack of writing. I do believe this may be my new life with Spode as a teacher: I only get access to the computer to write during break time.
A lot has happened since I last wrote. First of all, Oliver has taken a shine to me (jeez, took him long enough!)
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| He tends to bring me treats, so I am also fond of him... |
He even tried riding me, though he has only done this a few times.
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| You realize that Spode is going to keep nagging us to get along forever now, right? |
I also left behind my chilled out home in St. Albans. I'm rather sad to have left it as I did have lots of space to myself and loads of time outside, but I was also rather bored and grumpy at only having one friend in the field.
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| How boring, old sports. |
Spode has now moved me to Welwyn Garden so that I can have more time with her by being closer to home. I was not thrilled to see the horse trailer show up, let me tell you! I was initially convinced that Spode had decided to move away from England and back to Canada. I am not ready to go back on a 4 day trip and another flight! No sir! Once Spode said it would only be a 25 minute drive though, I quickly walked on. (well, and when she showed me the apple I suppose I should add...)
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| I'm blaming you if this ends up being longer than half an hour, Spode. |
We arrived at the new place and I quickly had a crowd of people around me. I'm not sure why, but every horse at this yard seems to be 15hh or shorter. In some cases, a lot shorter!
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| Everyone can practically walk underneath me here! But the ladies love a tall man, it seems. |
I seem to be a bit of a novelty because of my size. Most of them seem used to me now though, and I'm also used to being surrounded by little ponies. No one is mean to me in the field like before thanks to my stature. Perfect!
The downside to this place is that I have to come inside at night, which I'm not overly fond of. However, thanks to cultural and climate differences, coming inside isn't so bad because I'm not in a closed in barn. Instead I'm in a box that opens up to the outside. I like that a lot more than the American style barn I've grown up with! We would never have water in the winter though, if they followed the same system in Canada. We'd have ice in minutes. No worries about that here!
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| I quite enjoy my new home. And all of my stuff is in a personal tack room behind these water buckets. Perfect for Spode but awfully mean for me as I can smell my grain all night! |
I've quickly become used to being an indoor horse again, and Spode assures me that I'll soon be back to an outdoor horse as we all go back out 24/7 in the summer months. Spode is looking forward to that, though she also enjoys stopping by before going to school to turn me out and even came to visit me at her lunch break once. It's much nicer being close to home and seeing Spode a minimum of twice a day. More time for spoiling, old sports!
The weather here has been delightful and Spode is riding me lots as we have a little ring here as well. A little uneven in places so Spode has been trying to get me to pick up my feet more (fat chance!) but we're doing well getting us both back into shape and into dressage mode. We're back to working on outside shoulder control and canter transitions. Happy all around! And I love being in a big herd again rather than just with one horse. I've even buddied up with a couple of the ponies here.
All in all, life is good! Can't complain when I have green grass to eat while I know my friends back home are still fetlock deep in snow. Hopefully it won't be long before i can go out exploring the wonderful countryside here.
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| Though for now I'm quite content in my bed, eating straw because I'm too lazy to pick the hay out of my net! |
Looking forward to a week of lots of riding and fussing now that Spode is on holiday again.
Until later, old sports.
Jay.
