Building works

I had to move the end of the arena a foot yesterday. Boy that was hard work! But the sleepers were falling off the end down the bank. I had put them as far out as possible in order to get the maximum room. As it happens, the extra gravel then made the arena 41 metres long, so I didn't need to have done it. In order to get them stable I had to dig out a foot of gravel and move them back and repeg them with bigger pegs than we had originally used. It's worked well and I only have three blisters :-)

Interestingly, in the dug back bit you can see how it is settling into layers, with a 2 inch thick layer of sand sinking towards the bottom. When it gets there the whole surface will be a lot less deep and ride realy well. It probably needs an autumn's rain, but I can wait. Meanwhile, it rides better day by day and there is less need to keep raking and levelling it.

I forgot to tell you the funniest thing about the farm ride yesterday. I put boots on Tia's back feet. I used gaiters with tongues in which stop the button on the Boas from bruising. About ten minutes out, both the tongues were hanging out and the gaiters were half out too. I had to get off to put them right. Bless her, she just stood still and let me (I had unhooked one side of the reins to hold on to but I didn't need to have, she just stood and waited.)

I put the boots and the gaiter back on, but the tongues were clearly useless and I took them off. Then I didn't know what to do with them. The only place I had to carry them was one in each breast pocket on the drill shirt that I was wearing. So I did the whole of the rest of the ride looking as if I was using a pad of neoprene in each pocket to make it look as if I had bigger boobs :-) To make it worse - they were wet from going through the water :-) :-) :-)

C.