Carry on my wayward pone...

...no more napping, almost home,
Where you'll turn your head to me
And stretch for carrots, three.

(with apologies to "Kansas")

Finally a break in the weather here in England-land. It's been dry and hot, horse flies abundant, neds tormented by them, making hacking unpleasant because of the hard ground, relentless heat and nasty biting insects.

The school has not been much better, softer ground, less buzzing pests, but hot, hot, hot and dusty.

We've had a few goes at this and that: long lining, working in the paddock, and the occasional desperate "charge!" on the great outdoors. With the dry weather, the pony paddock where Max spends his leisure time is pretty slim pickings for grazing, so any forays out make him all about what he can get in his belly... until the head shaking and stomping to fend off irritating insects puts paid to that and we have a frantic trot home in a cloud of midges.

But yesterday, the temperature dropped, the clouds covered the sun and there was the smell of rain in the air.

We started off in the school, working on trot poles, ridden. Max enjoys the trot poles and gets a little over-excited about them. I had him at stand in the middle of the school whilst making an adjustment to my stirrups, and Max decided to take himself back over the poles instead.

After that, a little bit of work on canter transitions. We are at early days with this, but I have found I am beginning to be able to correct Max's diagonal cantering progress by putting more weight into my outside foot - straightens us up a treat. Well, it had been doing, but Max, already excited about the trot poles, got very excited about the canter and we got snorting, cavorting and all I could see from the saddle was crazy legs flailing like he was trying to start a new dance craze.

We went for a very short hack after that. I was on yard shift for the morning, so no time to stray too far from home adventuring. This went well, a little napping by the cows, but that was easily dealt with.

On the way home, we approached a gaggle of humans stood outside a gas lorry. Max pricked his ears with interest at this vision on his horizon, and I felt him tense, but he kept moving forward. This was "just curious" tension, rather than "I'm gonna blow!" tension.

The gas man opened a back hatch on his lorry in preparation and this caused Max some concern.

"The creature has opened its mouth yet does not move. Surely walking towards it cannot be wise?"

"It's fine, Max, just people and a harmless lorry."

We went on. Then the man opened a second hatch and began to uncoil a black hose used for gas delivery.

"DANGER! WRONG! UNNATURAL! What in the name of all that is hoofed can this be?!" Max stood rigid. "A snake! The Abomination has a mouth AND a snake!"

Before I had a chance to placate or decide whether it would be best to dismount and give Max my protection from the ground (in my opinion he had every right to be dismayed and wary at this point) one of the onlookers turned, smiled and spoke:

"Hello Max! What sort of contraption can this be, eh?"

Max relaxed slightly as he recognised the voice of our friend, the Gardener, who saved the day by turning to the gas man and asking him to stop what he was doing until Max had made his way safely past.

We did this at a sideways trot, nodding my head in thanks to the gas man and the Gardener whilst Max protected his bottom from attack, just in case.

A pony having had such a fright surely deserves to have his grass reins removed and a chance to have bit of nosh of lush grass by the school, doesn't he? And so it was.

And then the rain finally came.