That would be "No"!

He's done it! Max has learned to say "yes" as well as "no", and sometimes he says both at the same time just to make sure. He figured it out today, first by my shaking my own head while holding his big head in my hands and moving it slowly from side to side. I had tried getting him to focus on targets moving side to side, or even my own hands with snapping fingers, but the most effective was to move his head for him. Only had to do it twice and then he twigged.

He will still respond to the "raspberry" with a nod, but he will also now just follow what I'm doing and mirror it back at me. Gives me hope for eventually starting on things like Spanish Walk in our ground work.

I rode him for about 20 minutes in the school today, just at walk mainly, with no stirrups. I was trying to really stretch down through my thigh muscles by pointing my toes downwards, and also concentrating on not gripping up.

Funny that. I've always felt a bit clueless (historically) about how instructors, or even casual observers, can watch somebody riding and say "You're gripping up, relax your legs down!" I've never felt able to catch stuff like that, watching someone else ride.

Then last night I was watching "Sense & Sensibility" on the telly (the film version) and near the end, the character of Willoughby was galloping away in distress and I saw the rider's feet bouncing up in the stirrups and thought, "Ooh! He's gripping up! He wants to relax those legs down." Get me!

Have to watch it again, actually, because at one point I was fairly sure Colonel Brandon was riding with no stirrups at all and I was well impressed with his position - it was just a fleeting glimpse though. I've got a lot of time for Colonel Brandon! And Alan Rickman, for that matter.

Max and I had another (very) slow but (mostly) steady hack today, marred only by one slight hesitation at turning up the first bridleway, and towards the end, a little Riverdance performed over the appearance of a very menacing post. Ghoulish it was, apparently. Positively malevolent in its intentions towards horses particularly, and humans, possibly. So I'm led to believe.

Here I thought the discarded Carlsberg beer cans littered in one field would cause us problems as they blew about. Nope. Kicked one of them a couple of times without the slightest hesitation or concern. But the post? The very post that we have walked and trotted past on countless occasions, in hand and ridden, with the Ent and without? The very post that, to my mind, looks much as it always has, with no sudden change in size, angle or temperament? For some reason this post was not to be borne today! An affront to the senses, a threat to the body, an assault to the spirit, an anguish to the mind, and a blot on the very landscape.

Who knew?

Worse, who you gonna call? Post busters?