The horses' second stage, our first. The Working Horse Trust and their Ardennnes Hamish & Brunte going out, Claire with her Percherons Molly and B coming in. 'a walk in the park' said Claire, John said that they pushed them the first 3km and walked the last seven so their heartrates were fine without any cooldown. We did it for practice anyway.
Our first drama happened as we were waiting to be vetted. Molly took fright at something and floored Eddie Mahoney. He was ok but the vets nurse Millie Hurt her arm, apparently badly, certainly badly enough for Sarah the vet to to tell Kate to run. Fortunately after a couple of hours in French casualty and a couple of stages missed, they rejoined us. Millie had a couple of stitches in her arm but was otherwise ok. Onwards then.
The journey to Buire le Sec. Crossing the horse route and using satnav is a bit of an adventure in itself. Going cross country. We waved to John and Claire in the horse lorry as they went down the main road to Brimeaux. Its fun too. Being a non-driver I can sit back and enjoy the competiton between human and machine to see who thinks they can do the better job in getting us to where we are going.
The countriside is fabulous. The sun is shining and the air temperature is lovely. Under what other circumstances could you improve on a journey, except doing it with a horse and carriage? As Steve pointed out later, even behind a horse you only get to see a couple of the stages, so maybe we have the best job after all.
It gets to be a relief when the humans and machines agree and an even bigger relief when we arrive where we are intended in time to do what is required of us. This will be the only negative in an otherwise fabulous experience.
Frencq