Top Barn Challenge Week 5, A Drop Out and That Storm

So the Challenge rolls on. As do Jo and Lulu. Positively inspired, Jo has been hacking out in all weathers alone.  We had a slight to-do about a track in Week 4.  Our lovely neighbours stopped Jo riding up a track we have used forever (16 years methinks), which leads to the Farm Tracks we have permission to ride on. Turns out the Neighbour does own the bottom on the track, but very quickly the Farm gave us permission to ride around that on the edge of a field, so no harm done. 

Feeling worse and worse I confined myself to the Yard for Groundwork with Lily in Week 4, giving Charlie his holiday!  Week 5 dawned. I gave Lily a week off and started working Charlie again. Until Wednesday when I went to Papworth for a routine check-up on my Dodgy Lungs and Dicky Ticker. I won't go into details, except to say I hate the new site.  In a Heart and Lung Hospital I managed to walk 5 miles finding my way to various tests.  I was away 12 hours including travel.  They discovered that my never-ending cold is in fact a chest infection, and that my heart is struggling atm. Armed with some antibiotics, and some strict words from the Consultant about being in the Transplant Zone, and Resting etc, I had a very long journey home to think. I'm not ready for the Transplant stuff.  I plan to be around for a long time yet.  So I am taking the advice to slow down (temporarily), until the Infection has gone and my Heart Rate has come back to normal. So with a heavy (and poorly) heart, I decided to drop out of the Challenge, in the hope that I will still be around to compete next year.

So I have now become Jo's photographer, video editor and Unglamorous assistant!!  On that note I gave her and Lu a few pointers on Sideways Shit and some schooling tips on Friday. Lu was broken as a Happy Hacker, so lacks the bendy school stuff.  Enter the glamorous assistant!!!  Hahahaha. Does that sound evil???  While I cannot teach Jo (as she can already ride perfectly well), I LOVE teaching green horses a better way to go.  SOOO that is now my mission. I also threw in a few raised poles.  Lu couldn't make her mind up weather to jump them or not.  Her front end came up, while her back end trotted. Methinks this pair will be jumping cross-poles by the end of this challenge!!!!! 

And so today Storm Ciara Hit us....as very well predicted. Being on top of the only hill in Suffolk had its drawbacks.  The herd was fine in their naked glory. All warm and unbothered by the Winds,as they live out 24/7.  But Room-Service had a few problems delivering the hay. I laid across the trailer like a starfish but we still managed to lose a bales worth of hay, last seen heading across the fields at some speed. We managed to deliver what was left, after we had swallowed a fair amount, and went back for seconds. Its very Yummy!!  Today gets the record for the longest time ever taken to deliver Hay.  And I am still rubbing it out of my eyes!!!

Still Spring is Following!!!