Grotty Groom rides again.

Clever Bird was well aware that t'internet is the biggest spy machine on the planet and it really doesn't bother her that much. Baggy doesn't put stuff on, that she isn't happy to share. But even Clever Bird hadn't totally appreciated the spying level! The other day she had a personal message conversation in a small group on Facebook, with a friend who wanted to get hold of a chicken coop. Okay. Clever Bird thought the key was in the word "personal" i.e. she thought that it was private. Silly Clever Bird. The next day, on her blog (not Facebook) she had three different adverts for chicken coops. Hmmmm. Of course now, she'll have even more, but Furry Mama has always fancied having a few chickens, so she will read the ads. And why not, since she also gets paid for reading them? She was added to a group conversation about crocheting too - she doesn't crochet, so left the group, but Clever Bird awaits the ads for crochet hooks with interest.

Baggy totally overslept today. She only woke up because she was having an absolutely awful dream that Joey was dying from a heart attack. She woke just as she had reached his head and the man who was about to shoot him. Ghastly! So of course Grotty wanted to go straight to the yard to check that he was okay. Furry Mama walked Minty Mutt first. Then Calum and Baggy took Grotty over to the yard. The Boys were happily munching straw - yes straw - totally ignoring their hay! They had a lovely groom. Then they all set out on a hack, in the midday heat. Grotty did dress Wessles as a zebra, to try to keep the files off, but he was still head-shaking for England because of the pollen presumably. Interestingly, he was much worse when we headed straight into the wind. But Baggy felt a little stronger today, so they went quite a lot further. By the end of the ride, Grotty was almost trotting in a good straight line and Wessles as always recently, was totally chilled out. Well until he spotted a pony in a shiny "cape", then he freaked out slightly, daft horse. But they were riding for over an hour and Baggy felt okay, which was a relief. More to the point, despite it being over 24 deg. Centigrade, neither horse was sweating very much at all, so they are a lot fitter than Baggy or Calum (all that work on the horse-walker), which is good, because Baggy's dream is obviously due to Freda Fretter wondering whether they have time to get fit enough for their three day's training at the end of July. They do, and they will. It was a lovely ride.

After they had cooled down in their stables for a while, whilst Calum and Baggy had a cup of tea, Grotty decided both of them deserved a nice refreshing cool shower. However the water was freezing! Wesley's stomach was tucking right up and he was flinching, trying to break away from his tether, so it was obviously unpleasant. So they both ended up having a hot shower as there is no way at the moment of putting a tiny bit of hot with the cold, so it could be warm. Silly! Ah well, they enjoyed it and it got a lot of sweat, dirt and hair out, so they needed it. Much mane, tail and feathers brushing later, both Boys were almost sparkly. Just ready to be turned out so that they can have a lovely roll in the dirt overnight.........