Monsoon Season

Monsoon season has commenced in Worcestershire. I swear its true. My main track is already like a quagmire and my horses are behaving like toddlers who are chuffed to bits that their human has bought them a new paddling pool.

Anyone who has met me on my travels will appreciate that I have put aside copious amounts of time and investment into the testing of various hoofboots. Believe me, hoof boot testing is a long, hard slog whereupon I am forced to ride for miles in arduous conditions. Easycare has not been my favourite manufacturer, but following rave reviews of the Gloves I decided that they needed to be put through their paces because 'if they are good enough for my clients they are good enough for me'....well, you get the picture. I could have chosen a horse that was easy to fit with Easycare - I have one of those too. He's a good guy, but that would have been too easy, and it might just have meant that I would be testing out my new automatic inflatable back protector. As I do not yet have an inflatable back protector I decided to give him a miss (he has a pathological fear of tractors and feed buckets but that's a long story). No, I'll take the grey mare.

Lovely. Wish she was. Grey I mean. Half an hour of scraping mud off really didn't make much difference so I tacked her up anyway and hoped noone would see me.

At this point the sky was an ominous shade of grey. I suspected that it might rain and so grabbed my long riding mac. I feel like the Lone Ranger in my rain mac and my horse is Tonto. Tonto looks at me sympathetically as rain drops commence to fall. I lead Tonto through the gate and lightening hits. Both of us wait for the thunder. OMG its lound. I wonder if Tonto will clear off into the distance and the Lone Ranger will be running behind, mac flapping. The rain is suddenly like a monsoon and I can hardly see because my eyes are full of rain. Tonto is behaving more stoically than a stoical being. A kind of horsey Zen. I wonder whether she is really the Dalai Llama rather than Tonto.

Anyhow, I get on to avoid my suede saddle becoming sodden. Foolish really when neither the bridle or the girth are fastened. Well, the bridle is completely unbuckled whilst the girth is so loose that I can't actually tighten the girth without falling off. So I decide to ride for the road gate and dismount with more spring than oh, I don't know, more spring than a spring onion. Grey mare heads stoically for gate ignoring stong gales and a deluge that was so heavy that it felt like water was being poured down my boots. Oh, because water was pouring down my boots and down my neck. I dismounted at the road gate and proceeded to attend to girth and bridle and wonder whether I really did want to sit on sodden suede.

I did. Wet through to my pants I was. I had just got used to this feeling when stoical horse stopped dead, viewing a fallen tree with suspicion. "Its not a monster, you fool!" I said aloud. "No", she said, "I'm looking at the monster BEHIND the fallen tree, its just well hidden.....LET'S GO!!"
At this point my phone rang. Road is like a river, horse is levitating and my darn phone is playing the most annoying tune. Horse is continuing to levitate and complain about monsters but I cannot shut my phone up because touch screen phones do not work in the rain. Great, my emergency phone. Next time (if there is a next time) I shall place phone in fully waterproof / soundproof container. Luckily horse levitated past tree and we were on our way, enjoying splashing through the rivers that had, until extremely recently, been roads.

We headed for the deep slushy mud of the Worcestershire bridleways. I did seek to see if the boots were still in place and they were.

And all was good. We had a blast. The boots did not twist and stayed on at all paces. I may be a convert, maybe. The clouds parted and the sun came out as I untacked.