Chamfron Caramia at 20 Months old.

Looking good!

Mimosa and Parador away.

We delivered Mimosa and Parador to Northampton today. The journey down was utterly uneventful with both foals walking straight on to the trailer and travelling perfectly. Amazed (and frankly beyond jealous) to be able to drive onto the field and not even leave a track!

Journey back was more eventful, firstly we found out that petrol stations on the A1 are a bit few and far between and had to make the embarrassing "we've run out of fuel" call to the RAC! Then the A66 was a bit gnarly with snow and fog, you know its bad when the road is duel carriageway and everyone is still happy to sit behind a trailer. Phew, nice to be home!

Exbury Ghost Daughter

Thanks to Lucy Victoria Phillips for the photos of her Exbury Ghost mare (out of a QH/App dam). Always lovely to see photos of his older stock.

Angel Dust - seven months old.

Job for today was to get some new photos of the mighty midget, I tried to sneak in and snap but it was no good, she was there... right there... on the end of the lens, hmmm no Mark to distract her, what now. OK, bring in the hugely scary space hopper and snap the foal as it looks shocked and startled... errr no, she dashed over to see what it was and carefully nosed it all round the pen until she was back, with the space hopper, there, right on the end of the lens... again...

So I kicked it... (The space hopper, not the foal!) and over the pen it sailed, followed without a moments hesitation by the mighty midget in medium trot. Ah now the space hopper was behind the bale so this required great hurtling around and pouncing on it when it wasn't watching (and yes had it gone bang I have no doubt that five other ponies and me would have shot through the roof and one small foal would of stood and looked at us).

A sense of humour bigger than herself!!

More of The Reds!

Quick walk in the woods today, probably about ten squirrels hurtling around the trees above our heads. I don't have the patience for wildlife photography but I do want to use these guys for some serious practice this year. Not today though, unsuitably dressed and the day was running away from us!

Bad day for Chamfron Westminster.

Vets visit this morning, the new girls have been swabbed and turned out and poor old Wills is now a gelding.

New Girls.

Two new additions to the broodmare band! Both imported from Uruguay, the bay mare is Llamita (ex David Stirling polo pony) and the chestnut is Fatima (Criollo). Both will be covered by Arrayan in 2012.

Lapland Part 3!

Our cabin was grand with a brilliant sauna in it and underfloor heating, the snowman was there to greet us and the ice sculptures were dotted around the grounds. The photos from the bridge are Mark casually strolling from Sweden to Finland across the "frozen" river, then Mark sashaying rather more intently back to Sweden after noticing his footprints were filling up with water!

The big question, did we see the Northern lights? Yes a weeny hint of, not yet scrubbed of the bucket list though!

We flew home from Kiruna, spotting a Moose on route! They were very efficiant getting our bags tagged and through security, the lady in charge was just reaching to open the gate to let us board the plane when a thought flashed through her head and she picked up the walkie talkie, well I'm sure I now know the Swedish for "you're shitting me" as she was informed there was no plane to board us on to! Wee delay later and we were heading back to sunny (ha ha) Manchester, on to Cheshire to pick up the latest additions to the broodmare band, then home.

Lapland Part 2!

Slower mode of transport the next day with reindeer, now I'm a big fan of reindeers. Our reindeer was the pale lad with the superb antlers, the head honcho's reindeer was a lairy sort, didn't go an inch and just turned round and looked at him. When we were finished our reindeer was promoted to the lead and the other one was probably earmarked to be made into a very fine rug. Don't you think the reindeer with the blaze and the bell looks rather like Pitufa?

Lapland Part 1!

On Thursday we flew out to Lapland (a fantastic Christmas present from Marks mum, dad and gran), landing at Enontekio on the last day before it closed for the winter, the hold door froze on the plane which added to the artic circle feeling though for them it was mild and wet for the time of year (spot a theme there then!!)

Quick transfer at we were in our log cabin at Davvi Lodge and out for a stroll around town. Compulsory photo of a foot in two countries (Sweden and Finland) and a visit to the most northerly church in Sweden. The next day we were of to drive huskies, no doubt they were the trekking ponies of the dog world but they were good fun and I'd like to drive a team again. Our huskies were keen and much speedier than the teams in front so unfortunately we were on the brakes a lot, must be disapointing for them. Later that night we took some snowmobiles on a hoon around the woods, seemed a lot faster when Mark was driving but fair dues Mark was a much better passenger on them than he was on the huskies!!

In between we did a lot of sledging, don't you think we look stylish?!