The weather has turned so beautifully autumnal - berry bright trees shimmer in golden light beaming across from the Welsh Black Mountains which smoulder in red and gold opposite our house.
It is 25 degrees, almost too hot for riding, so instead I wait for the heat to dissipate, pull on a pair of lightweight wellies. The mud is still setting from the torrential rain of the last three weeks. I go and do some horsey chores, guiltily leaving my computer plugged in but with the blackberry deep in my pocket.
I have five horses and ponies - all here for various reasons.
Gwenno is my daughter's 17 year old grey welsh mountain section A mare. A naughty little pony who suffers from laminitus every time a blade of new grass appears and is permanently on a starvation diet. She spends her days skipping over an electric fence into lush pastures and I spend my days trying to catch her and bring her back... a task made all the more difficult by the fact that she suddenly appears terrified of the white wire and refuses to budge every time I try. She is the middle aged woman desperate for a high.
Tilly, my dream horse, is my 27 year old thoroughbred ex- eventer. I have had her for five years. I bought from a horsy friend who omitted to tell me her real age, knocking a few years off (horsy people are notoriously" muddled "with the truth, I have to say).
She is now unsound and were it not for the black-market Bute I buy for her and administer daily she would be unrideable. Her only real fault is a terrible bite when I saddle her up and a propensity to look like a rescue animal in the winter unless she gets five meals a day. She refuses to live in a stable - twice having broken out and galloped down our lane to a main road where she almost caused two major fatalities with speeding lorries. I am currently fighting Powys council about the speed of the road - the most penny pinching and un eco-friendly council I have yet to come across -but hey, that is another episode! Tilly is the old lady who refuses to behave appropriately.
Meg is my 4 year old 15 hands bay welsh cob mare who I stupidly bought from Builth cob sales last year. Suffice to say she is going back to the same sale next month. I will lose money on her as the horse market is in serious decline. Stupid me. She is the anxious, neurotic teenage girl . She needs more love and attention than I can ever give her and needs to realise bad manners do not ingratiate yourself to others. Neither does bucking off the Au Pair and breaking her arm.
Scrumpy is a 17.2 hands ( i.e very big) ex-hunter - in actual fact an ex- Master of Fox Hounds horse who was rescued by my friend Gina and has somehow ended up being here for almost four months... "until he can get into a horse sanctuary.." Problem is the ex-MFH is the owner of our one and only local pub and his twins go to the same school as my daughter... I now have to keep the horse hidden whenever they come over to play. He is the house bully boy.
The last pony is my William... a gently Irish/Welsh X who I never really wanted but swapped unseen for a horse I bought that was too dangerous for me to ride. He stood in a field for three years before I finally had the time or inclination to ride him and now he is my regular ride.. having schooled him from scratch he has won rosettes in the local shows and I have regular dressage lessons with a Dutch International trainer. He is black, beautiful and has a white stripe down his face. He comes when called, never plays up and is a perfect gentleman indoors and out. His only fault is his massively hairy body which I have to trim regularly, which always takes ages. He is the friendly builder next door...handsome but not too handsome, clever but not intellectual, sexy but not big-headed, a foodie but not too fussy. My ideal man, in fact.