cas . Well, as you know, I'll kill and prep things myself to eat, but have you ever tried a slug? At least a pigeon has some meat on it .
cos 24 hour ride? I mean RESPECT! Seriously tho you're obv not riding for, like 24 hours, non? How does that work?
cunty it takes a lot of skill to figure out bum from head (until it's born - at that stage you're in trouble if you can't figure it out). MW I first saw in hopsital when in labour decided I was breach only I wasn't. Load of old bollocks. Are you doing your OFP?
OK so here's my weekend story.
Imagine the scene. Large, flat open field in front of the lovely house (cos you may have seen this). Trent river running down one side. Horseboxes in 3 neat lines across the field. We pitched our tent in the line running about 10 feet away from the river so there is line of horseboxes and 4X4s running the same 10 feet from the river bank. River is about 30 feet wide, with a 10 feet drop from the riverbank.
Next to tent is landie. Tent is about 4 feet away from back of landie with guy ropes filling in much of that gap.
Dog is tied up to tow bar at back of landie. LC is sitting on a little yellow camping chair right next to the riverbank looking at the river. If you looked between the landie and the tent you'd see him sitting there.
YOB is tying up a water bladder behind the landie, and LC asks me if he can go down to the river, and I say no (river bank is very steep). He says he's found a way down, I say no. He says pleeeeeze and I really can't be bothered (V tired and busy) but then decide that I've not seen enough of him that day so agree to walk 30 feet down the riverbank with him. We look at his "way down" and I hear over the tannoy that there's a loose horse - keep gates closed - etc. I'm thinking, a horse has slipped its headcollar and is trotting round the park, par for the course.
Seconds later (total now of 30-40 seconds from LC getting up from his chair) I hear the unmistakable sound of properly, absolutely freaked bolting horse. I turned around and saw a horse and carriage, driverless and the carriage on its side, horse absolutely totally lost it and full-on blind panic bolting, carriage clearly terrfying the poor thing, heading directly towards the tent.
I grabbed and picked up LC and just talked to him really calmly telling him to do EXACTLY what I say, it's all fine but just do EXACTLY what I say while I watch it and get ready to run in the best direction (ie out of the way!). I then watched while the horse clicked that there was a tent in her straight line course, decided whether to stop, decided not to, swerved around the tent and found the only route through was between the tent and the landie. I watched in slow motion while she galloped between the tent (imagining her then taking the brand new tent with her) and the landie, taking out the back of the landie, going right over my dog (carriage and horse) and directly towards LC's little chair.
At the last second she swerved away from the chair and riverbank - probably the bright chair turning her saved her life as if she'd gone over the bank she would almost certainly have been killed, and galloped up behind the other horseboxes, missing the rather expensive BMW 4X4 next to us. She eventually fell when cornering and 4 men jumped on her head and cut away the carriage, and she was taken away for treatment and ultimately was found to be ok, considering. She won't drive again, though.
YOB had managed to jump clear, thank Gods. LC was of course with me and fine, if very upset as he'd thought the tent was damaged, bless him, and incredibly, amazingly, the dog was very, very upset (not a surprise!) but not a scratch, bruise or hair out of place. How the hell that happened I have no idea but he's clearly crossed with a cat somewhere back in the breeding mix.
In the end, the landie is badly damaged at the back but that can all be repaired. The tent had two guy ropes damaged. The horse had cuts and bruises and the carriage was destroyed as well as another carriage (on its own, not on a horse) it hit en route. The carriage driver hurt his leg when he fell from the carriage. Turns out that the horse bolted for no obvious reason in the cones section (equivalent of the showjumping phase in eventing - they drive through cones with balls on top, against the clock and a ball down is equivalent to a jump down).
So that was one. I've not seen that happen, ie a horse bolting with carriage, for about 20 years. It's really, really rare. I was talking to mum about it and saying that I was really nervous about letting LC go off on his own in the horsebox park after what happened, even though I knew that was totally over-protective. Bear in mind this is a closed club event where everyone knows everyone else and it's perfectly acceptable for the kids to wander alone, and find their friends, as opposed to an open event where everyone's a stranger and obviously it wouldn't be.
The next day I was over at M&D's horsebox with LC, when what went past but a loose horse. Bolting. Harness flying, but no carriage. Apparently, it was a pre-novice driver whose horse had bolted (see a theme? ) and she'd pointed it at a wall to stop it, which had stopped it enough to allow them to cut away the carriage but then it broke free and bolted straight for the horsebox park and directly towards the landie - and the dog (Oh no, not again). Yob was there and grabbed the poor, terrified creature. Not the horse, the dog.
Horse went past this time which was good because this one was pointed at the FRONT of the landie and having one end of it trashed is sufficient for one weekend. Galloped past the other horseboxes and was finally stopped. Horse also ok but driver a bit bruised (bad leg kick, will fix) and carriage in a bad way.
I think it's absolutely incredible that this happened twice. It's so rare to have a carriage horse bolt and even rarer for it to lose its driver and really take off. But to have one gallop directly towards your entire family, and within inches of where your son was sitting just seconds before, over the top of the dog - I think myself and us all so immensely, incredibly lucky.
I was really calm while it happened (years of how to act around scared horses just kicked in) but about 20 minutes later I had a total breakdown and was pretty inconsolable for a while. I just couldn't get out of my head what nearly happened, and also that I hadn't shouted a warning to my husband - even though I knew there wasn't time - but I just felt awful.
Over the course of the day I thought it through more and realised how I really did need to "count my blessings" (take the pee if you want to - I would - but really, it needs doing sometimes) and just felt quite overjoyed at the fact that everyone was fine, even my beautiful puppy who was traumatised but not physically hurt.
So there you go.
And the guy ropes were the ones at the short end of the tent