I know you're there!

A change of plan today for me. I've been looking for ways to create more hours in the day, and today, I found one.

I'm back to my old routine, as it was at Max's first yard. It was too far away from home for me to nip back to the house to clean up and eat before going on to the office, so I used to leave each morning with everything needed to make myself presentable and pristine, a change of clothes, a packed lunch, and voila! I'd change and scrub down at the yard, hop into my car and eat my lunch at my desk when I got there.

I've started doing that again, even though distance is no longer a problem. So far, it's been giving me an extra hour of overtime to get through the backlog of work at the office, but today it meant that after the yard work, I had time to hack out with Max fairly sedately, and get back to the yard in plenty of time to do an apres hack groom, carrot stretches, and another quick run round the yard to make sure everybody still had plenty to eat, and clean up any messes that had been made since my last skip out.

I arrived at the office fifteen minutes early, too!

Our hack was fine. The ground is a bit hard again, so we mostly had a plod round, with a bit of trotting when the going was good.

Our only incident was when we got to the top of a hill and Max planted in his red alert stance. He went rigid, and I could feel he was ready to retreat. I could see nothing.

"Get on Max, there's nothing there."

"Sssh! There is something. Some Thing. Promise."

Coaxed him forward a little and he stopped again.

"Max, I can't see anything."

"It's hiding in yonder bushes."

I looked where Max had his attention fixed, and still could make nothing out. Not a pheasant, fox, dog or deer. Nothing.

"For Heaven's sake Max, there's nothing there!"

"Hello?" a voice from the other side of the bush.

"Told you! Didn't I tell you? Some Thing!"

A walker stepped out from behind the bushes.

"Sorry, I didn't meant to scare your horse."

"Ah!" I said, with a friendly smile, as Max turned in circles. "I kept telling him there was no one there. He could see you, but I couldn't!"

As Max circled, the man told me that at almost this exact spot a few years ago, he'd done the same thing, and found an old gent on a lovely horse who said something very similar.

"Ah, my wise ol' mare knew you were there, but I didn't. I'm legally blind, you see. She takes care of me."

We chatted about horse sense, people sense, and the beauty of the day.

"Shall I stay here, and let you go past, or would it be better if I walked on first" the man asked.

In the end, he stayed there, Max walked past, noted that there was no backpack, therefore no hidden food, and we were on our way with a cheery goodbye.

So no, I didn't get to go home for lunch, I didn't check my email, I didn't play with the cats, but I did arrive at the office unflustered and still feeling the good vibe from a stolen hour seeing the world from the back of my wondrous Max.

And it was good.