Farewell Fudge

It's been a strange year for comings and goings in my horse's lives. First Max went, then Polo was put to sleep (sob!) and then on Saturday little Fudge went to his new home. He was such a sweetheart and I will really miss him.

(Fudge when he first came, before his mane grew back).

Missis bought him for the boys. I advised her not to. I'd said if the boys were that keen to ride, take them to the riding school down the road. If they decide after six lessons that it's not really for them, you've lost very little. But no. She goes out and spends a lot of money on a six year old pony. This year she spent even more money on showing gear, for the pony and for the boys. They've never been to a show.
So fairly recently, she put an ad up in the local tack shops, hoping to get back the same (ridiculous) amount of money she paid for him. Last week a woman came with her ten year old daughter. The daughter had been riding for eighteen months. The mother had bought a field. They were going to take Fudge and put him in the field. They don't know how to tack up, put on a rug or feed a pony of this nature (laminitic). She has a two acre field, and was hoping to get hay off it.
Anyway, they said no, because Fudge wouldn't pick his feet up for them. A pony of good sense, if you ask me. Barnaby only picks his feet up for me and the farrier.
So on Saturday he went to a pony re-hab place where he will be schooled and sold on. It sounded rather nice actually, and at least he will be ridden and get more out of life and eventually go to a home where someone can have a lot of fun with him. Believe me, if he'd been 14.2hh instead of 13.2hh, I'd have had him.
So farewell, little man, I will miss you.
So that leaves the big four - Barnaby, Zak, Lindy and Hugo.
This means it will be difficult for three of us to ride out together at any one time, and leave one in the field on his own.
But it also means, when Missis is away, I will only have four horses to muck out, which will be absolute bliss.
Mr O and I had a wonderful ride yesterday, with only a teensy, weensy canter through the park. The woman with the German Shepherd looked a bit taken aback, but apart from that it was fine. We continued along the bridleway, where we were going to have a canter, when I suddenly realised there was a loose horse. It turned out, in fact, to be a tethered horse, with three more of his chums, but I'm not sure who was the more surprised, them or Barnaby. And I'd just like to say well done to Mr O for being able to get under the height barrier from the car park, even though it was so low it actually touched Zak's ears. I just laid down on Barnaby and kept going, in true TREC style.
And I'm a bit miffed because I wanted to go to a show, but the weather was so bad we decided not to. It's just that it had a class called 'Handy Hacker' which sounded right up Barnaby's street. Never mind...
Seven and Ten have brought their homework sheets home. Seven has The Tudors, a bit of a gift, as far as I'm concerned, and Ten has 'World War 2' as his project. I am in my element, as you can imagine. Ten has already made his own ration book...
And I am reading The Time Traveller's Wife. I was gripped from the very first page. Has anyone else read it?
Mrs O.