Time off

I don’t spend all my time hunting for ponies and dreamily rearranging the shelves of pony-grooming-paraphernalia, oh no. Spent the last two days finding new quizzes and posting topically and lightheartedly for hard-facts, my ikonboard. We have a new member which is always good news. I am always trying to reel in new members with cunning ploys and promises of free pepperamis (the free pepperami was real enough. I just didn’t know it was a redhot chilli firestick. There were complaints.)

J’s riding lesson yesterday involved jumping without reins. As a horsy novice of the worst kind, the kind to make the cognoscenti grit their teeth, their fingers twitching viciously on their riding crops, I nearly called out "but however will you stay on without the reins to hang onto, darling?" Of course anyone who knows anything will tell you that you stay on using your balance and your seat, but watching J canter up to a jump on the fastest pony in the school with her arms held out to the sides trapeze-artist-wise was a nerve-wracking experience. After pony-girl’s wimpy performance on Bolshy last week this was a reassuring sign of nerve, as I had been toying with suggesting she return to tap-dancing where the only thing that shies in fear is smaller tapdancers who get in the way of your madly clacking steel-capped toes.