Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Just when some things get easier, e.g Abi deciding that actually she should wait until she’s 12 before having a pony (who knew she was so sensible?!?), other things become a pain. This week I have mainly been worried about the dogs... that is when I’m not stressing about Abi wanting to know exactly how many days it is until she’s 12,  whether I’ve worked out where she will keep this pony if it transpires, as well as what we should feed it and what colour blankets it should have... Anyway, back to the dogs. After our altercation with another dog I arranged for a dog trainer to come out and visit us, with the hope she might shed some light on what we can do. I didn’t expect a quick fix but I was hoping that it would be a case of “just do a, b and c and you’ll be on your way”. Instead we discussed both dogs at length (while Freya sat and watched us with a sad face) and then we went to do some ground training (which I’m supposed to repeat multiple times a day), designed to get he

Oh, what am I doing? Abi has long been bugging us (well, me - it's not worth bugging Glenn) on her deepest and most fervent desire to own her own horse. She has been so determined, and sat down in the week to write to all the people she could think off who own fields or stables nearby. This included a letter to the 'person who owns the stable at the top of the lane' where she introduced herself and told the recipient that her stables and fields would be perfect, and she (and her horse of course) in turn would be perfect tenants! Having cracked and entertained this idea, I did acknowledge today that it would make far more sense for her to have a horse at the local stables where we have been riding. At least that way there will be other people around, she would have access to a ménage and indoor barn, covered areas to groom and tack up, and some advice along the way where needed. Of course it would also mean that we could pay for the privilege of someone else doing some of

This week, the whole country came to a crashing (quite literally in many cases) halt as 'The Beast from the East' met 'Storm Emma' and we were all subjected to artic temperatures and massive dumps of snow. Having looked like Spring was on its way, the official first day of Spring was met with inches of snow across the country and we all got very excited. Schools shut everywhere, the news was wall to wall snow stories and people got stuck anywhere and everywhere. The kids were gutted that Thorngrove opened as normal on Thursday, but even they had to admit defeat with no gas to cook with and only half the teachers and pupils making it in so Friday was officially declared a snow day - hooray! Of course for me that just meant doing all my meetings as calls but I did have a giggle as I watched Glenn dragging the girls around the garden on a sledge tied to the back of one of their motorbikes, and both dogs going mad in the snow, loving the feel of it. The roads were actua