Saturday 29th April

A busy day

A bright, warm sunny day, so I put my working shorts on., getting my legs out in public for the first time this year. Off to the stable yard where extra work was needed, because the horses are moving to their summer paddocks.

It’s a bit early in the season, but a contractor had been booked to harrow and roll the winter paddocks in preparation for spraying to control ragwort in the near future. in previous years we have removed the weeds one by one.

The winter paddocks have water troughs fed from the mains supply, but in the summer paddocks we use large tubs filled daily from a water bag in a wheelbarrow. I had to scrub the troughs after their winter storage and set them up. Three barrow loads of water.

Chrissy’s horse Tristan has a new job. He is in his mid twenties and long retired, but as an experiment he is going to be a companion to an eleven month old foal who has recently moved in across the road from our yard.

While that was being sorted out I returned home to wash the caravan. Every tool I tried to connect to the hose seemed to spray me with more water than was applied to the ‘van, but I managed eventually. It’s looking a lot better now.

The front lawn was tackled next, after which I had a coffee while I wrote up this blog and then half=watched the horseracing on TV while painting the bases of my tiny Romans.

At 4 o’clock we took Sparky for a walk alongside the River Enborne. It’s not much more than a steep-banked stream where we live, but it’s called a river. we walked from X to Y on the map below and back again.

The access was through the corner of Inwood Copse which is just beginning to erupt with bluebells. The scent is wonderful.

Sparky, of course, was more intent on his normal activity…

He even wanted me to kick the ball across the footbridge. Not a sensible option. The bridge is a substantial affair with a tricky stile at the far end.

On the far side the land opens out into old pasture. Several trees have fallen across the stream as the banks have been worn away by floods.

It’s clear just how high the water level was by the debris caught in the fallen tree. This is higher than the banks of the river.

A little further we were warned.

But nothing could be further from the truth, as the area has been replanted with new willow.

This area is quite boggy and is adorned with what I was informed are marsh marigolds. very pretty, and frequented by unidentified butterflies, pale yellow with an orange front edge to the wing.

Returning from the walk we retrieved Tristan from his babysitting duty. Far from his “unable to stand up” status a couple of days ago he had been trotting and cantering around the field with the foal. I think it was a case of “Come on Grandad, let’s play.” He was well sweated up, and very tired.

But a good brushing smartened him up a bit, and we turned him out in his own quiet paddock until tomorrow.

Returning home, after dinner I based up my tiny Roman legion before attending an AA Zoom meeting.

Here are a couple of shots of the legion. This is my first attempt at painting 3mm models with acrylic pens. No photo’ can really show the detail, but the idea is that they look good enough en masse. My next attempt will be a Celtic warband.