Winter's Arrived

I'm afraid we're a bit behind with the blogging - sorry about that - winter has well and truly arrived this week!  The end of last week and the weekend were the sorts of days that are not good at promoting England as a tourist destination...grey, overcast, dull, and so damp and cold it goes straight into your bones...and, oh yes, just to add to that it starts getting dark at 3pm when it's so grey!!  Time to get out the thermal trousers, woolly hats, scarves and at least 6 jumpers to keep warm.  Even the wild birds think it's cold and when Ted and Jenny were away last week, a blue tit was tapping on the living room window to point out to Faye that they had run out of peanuts and seeds in their feeders and they needed attention and looking after too!

Tuesday was such a relief as we had bright sunshine and everything was looking beautiful again!

Winter can be beautiful!

 We really enjoyed having Angela come to visit us last week - she was able to work with Topsy which was great and we must say thank you to Angela for her donations of apples, chocolates and the lovely big storage boxes which will be going into our feed room.

We also owe some other "thank you"s as Catherine donated some electric fencing tape, Hazel-Ann bought the ponies some more salt licks, and Margaret's made extra marmalade and came over on extra occasions to help at the yard.  Graham's present of waterproof gloves have been invaluable this week - bizarrely, Faye's accidentally discovered that you don't get shocks from the electric fencing when you wear the gloves (and wellies), although that does change if you accidentally kneel on the ground and make contact with the earth!

There was a free listing day on ebay that we took advantage of so we sold a Meccano traction engine and Triang railway tender (kindly donated by Catherine), some jodphurs, polo bandages, and a Victorian fireplace kerb (donated by Ted and Jenny).  After the commission fees, we've raised just under £100, so thank you everyone for your donations of items.  Thank you to Jenny for helping to wrap up the items to post - it really can be quite a challenge!

The traction engine sold for £56

On Friday night we had an email from BBC Radio 5 live who wanted to do a pre-recorded interview about the Dartmoor Hill ponies - of course, we agreed and responded, but sadly even though we were still within the time limits they emailed back saying they'd found someone else to interview instead!  I'll blog again later this week about the subject and our response to Princess Anne's statement.

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