“Scorchio”. . . . . .

Another week of ups and downs.  Wonderful, unseasonably, hot weather for a UK May.  Some days it has been as much as 25-27 centigrade;  where I think the usual average is 15-16.  I have been away for three days on,  what has become an annual pilgrimage with “horsey” friends.  We undertake approximately a 70/80 mile loop around the Black Mountains, which straddle the English Welsh border.  If anything it was a little too warm for the horses who still have some winter coat and we cut out the long canters on the way home.   It was particularly hot on the return journey last Wednesday with the warm sun reflected off the south-west facing slope of Wern Fawr as we traversed across the mountain on the final steep descent.

We use a wonderful B&B for 2 nights and stable the horses a little way away and it usually works very well.  Unfortunately, this time someone had been through and left open a normally closed road side gate and the horses went AWOL out of a lush field of grass and after a very hot 20 mile hack!  As half the party arrived at the pub for supper we were met by “Malcolm” who shouted that someone had seen seven horses making there way along the road heading for Abergavenny.  Four of us, hardly dressed for the occasion,  raced up the road with Malcolm.  Luckily a passing motorist had managed to turn two or three of the horses whilst the others had slowed, and as they headed towards us I manged to catch my mare and slip the strap of my shoulder handbag round her neck to lead her back to her field.  Another friend did the same with her horse and a couple more of the escapees trotted on to follow their “friends”.  We got them back to the field and double tied the gate!   The building line of cars were all very patient thank goodness!  The rest of the party turned up at the pub five minutes later blissfully unaware of the what had been going on.  Also by the time they arrived bar talk had increased the escapees to numbering a dozen!

But then all our excitement the following morning was tempered by the awful happening in Manchester, which was by then all over the breakfast news.  Oh dear. . . .  I can hardly imagine what those families involved are going through. . . . .  Enough said tonight . . . .