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Room For a Pony?

Last week we had an issue in our house. My OH broke my vacuum cleaner, I was very cross that he had broken it, even though it was an accident, as he broke it with my bugbear at the moment, his tools. OH is a builder, and will insist on bringing all his tools in at night from the car, and apparently they are TOO EXPENSIVE to go in the shed. TheShed is a very secure brick building, right next to our back door, and has a lockable double glazed window, and a very secure wooden door, which is also lockable. He broke the vacuum cleaner by dumping his tools on top of vacuum cleaner, in the bay window in our dining room, where I now keep the vacuum cleaner. And the reason it lives in the bay window in the dining room, rather than the huuuggggeeee walk in pantry that I have, is that I have emptied a lot of stuff out of pantry so OH can keep his tools in there. So you can understand why I was cross. OH was cross too, firstly because he got into trouble for breaking it and secondly because he says it is the ponies fault that he broke the vacuum cleaner.

Now, when he broke the vacuum cleaner pony was, as far as I know, eating her breakfast, not in our dining room, but in her stable. Or she could possibly have been in field arguing with the ponies in field next door. But I know she wasn't in dining room breaking the hoover. OH's reason for blaming pony? 'if there wasn't so much horse stuff in there, I might be able to get my tools in the pantry where it's supposed to go'.

Am I a Real Horse Owner If I Have Full Livery?

We have owned our pony Ros now for 4 years. She's a Section A pony for my daughter, and when we first had her she would live out happily for most of the year, just coming in from November to March at night, more to rest the land than anything else. She was pretty low maintenance, and although she was on DIY livery, she was in with Yard Owners ponies, so I didn't have to go and check on her twice a day as I knew if there was any problems the yard owner would ring me, and as the yard owner had ponies living in as well, I knew she could be relied on to be there twice a day.

The pony had an accident about 3 years ago, and as a result had to have an operation, and rehabilitation, which included in-hand walking 3 times a day, limited turnout under supervision and so on - you all know the routine. Anyhow, at the time I was working three full days a week, my daughter was only aged three so only at school a couple of hours a day, and still I managed to get the pony (which was a good 20 minutes walk, all up hill) 3 times a day. After about 12 months it became apparent to me that she needed more walking to get the leg sound than what I could currently accommodate. Daughter would only sit in pram for so long watching us walk round and round and round the school, or to the muck heap and back without getting bored, and I could only rely on family and friends to help out for so much of the time.

Christmas Is Finally Over

Well Christmas is finally over, and I have to say, although I love the time of year, I for one will be glad when everything is back to normal. The tree is coming down today, the cards were taken down and recycled (via my niece who turns them into more cards for next year), we have nearly eaten all the lovely, fattening Christmas sweets and chocolates and OH back to work tomorrow and Frankie back at school on Tuesday. Then I will have the house all to myself so I can tidy up properly and sort (throw) things out. There are still empty cardboard boxes at the side of the green bin, the box for glass and metal is overflowing with wine bottles and Quality Street tins. However now it is over for another year and things should get back to normal, as long as the weather improves that is!

Frankie has decided that due to the bad weather, at 5 years old, she is too little to have a pony. At the start of the school holidays she was very excited about riding every day, especially as I promised her a very long hack down to her nanny's house complete with a festively decorated pony. We had to make do with decorating pony on yard, and bringing a very reluctant Nanny to stables and going for a gentle walk round the still frozen school. That was Christmas Eve, and that was the last time she came to the stables with me. Luckily we have her in full livery, so I don't have to go up twice a day, but I do like to get up at least 4 times a week, if only to gossip with Yard Owner who is a very good friend of mine.
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