As we enter October our public season ends and we return mostly to our private selves, to maintenance and to training. After Steve and Jo riding the horses and La Route du Poisson none of us wants to lose the momentum and sense of camaraderie we have experienced.
Things will change over the next weeks, the weather will become colder and our opportunities to take the horses out will lessen as the weather goes into autumn and winter, I will return to my studies at university. We use this time to do ground work and training and it has been a brilliant week this week with Jo beginning her training driving the horses. On Wednesday in the forest and today in the yard doing cones for the first time.
When I first met Steve two years ago now we started to talk about my aspirations and dreams for working with the horses. We both aspired to bringing them more into the public eye, increasing their use and making heavy horses more available to people who would otherwise never experience them. As with all dreams it is very difficult to see the path ahead of you, you can maybe see the next step or two and you have an end in view but the route the road takes to get you there is entirely unknowable.
In the last two years we have achieved a lot, we have made good strides into making the horses earn their own keep and several people have become involved in looking after them and getting to know them. Jo was a friend of Steve's who he introduced to the horses about 18 months ago. She has found her place in the team and is now invaluable. It is an exciting time for me to see her begin to learn to drive the horses and for me to groom. It was one of the possibilities I could see a year ago. Back then it didnt seem possible to acheive what she has done but just a year on she is taking the plunge having gained her HGV license and driven the lorry around France alone for the Fish Run.
So now we begin to train to eventually, potentially, take on the other members of the driving club and I am thrilled to see her step up to every challenge and take it on the chin.
Onwards then, driving onwards, I love this challenge, this journey and the company is, to quote Jo, "Brill".
