Day 65, 9th July

It was a usual get up again, the horses had obviously spent a good night with their new Hereford friends, their tummies were very full and they had all had a good go at the cows' mineral/vitamin lick for good measure.

We got ready, I plugged the laptop in to charge in the meantime and then went to say goodbye. There was a change overnight, though I had heard nothing of it. The evening before there had been just one bull in one of the stables; In the morning at just after six o'clock, there were suddenly seven new ones and the car was still parked in the yard with the trailer. And I thought I was an early riser!

It turned out, however, that the police had called in at one in the morning because said seven bulls had got out of their field and were in somebody's garden. While the owners rushed to collect them, the police had kindly taken control of the situation and put their “Do not cross this line” tape around the scene. I imagine the bulls can read as they stayed behind it. So why is it that some people are called “stupid cow” if they are actually clever enough to read and follow police instructions? Hmmmm, don't know.

We went a slightly different way than before to Sambrook where we planned to stay the night on a field belonging to the local pub. At first we came to a quite big ford that you would not want to go through in a car, but it was nice to let the ponies have a drink and cool their legs for a while. After that we went along our old route, which made Artax speed up a lot, only to leave it for a while again, get some shopping in the Coop in a town we came through and then to join the old route again for the last miles. The ponies of course recognised it all; and I must give them all more credit as it is becoming more and more evident that each one of them recognises the roads we have already been on and Maggie was the quickest to turn into the carpark of the pub in Sambrook.

They enjoyed their old field again that had just been growing since our last visit almost eight weeks before and they filled their tummies as full as they possibly could. Dazzy actually looks almost like a normal fat Shetland pony in the mornings (besides the few ribs shimmering through the fur on his big tummy. But by the evening he has normally returned to his normal self after not eating much during the day.