September 2009
Everything is just about beginning to settle into an abnormal normality following the birth of our daughter Layla in mid June. She is thriving, an absolutely amazing little person.
It’s a distant memory that I took most of June and July as paternity leave. Then I was put to the grindstone. From Aug 7- Sept 6 I taught five clinics, most of them five days long. As usual, we had some fascinating horses, and it was good to get back to it, in spite of the intensity. I also did two call outs. Fortunately we had a great working pupil for a couple of weeks, and Nicole is already back teaching. She says it’s way easier than looking after two very small people, but having said that she has to teach with Layla in her sling, so she’s still very much on duty. Somehow, we’re also trying to get our second book finished. We’re hoping it will be out for Xmas.
But the new arrival has given us the opportunity to re-examine certain aspects of our lives, and the fact that we have many “free-loaders” in our herd has become painfully obvious. It’s not that we didn’t already know we were an unofficial charity, it’s just that we’ve come to the realisation that it can’t continue like this indefinitely. We’ve come to the difficult decision to re-home a few.
To that end, whenever there’s been a spare moment on a clinic, we’ve been working the perfectly sound but underused horses that have been gracing our pastures for the last few years. There’s Karma, Sensi’s daughter, a Trakehner x TB, and High Flyer, the Welsh cob. We’re hoping to get them just a little more established before moving them on. Selling or loaning horses has never been our strength, which is probably how we’ve ended up with no less than nine of them! Of course, it isn’t an easy time to be doing this, and we’ve had even more enquiries ourselves from people wanting to find homes for theirs, but we’re confident that in time we’ll find somewhere really good for them. (Anyone interested?! Email us@whisperingback.co.uk if you are!)
We’re looking forward to several more clinics this year – in fact, it’s really only Christmas that we’re stopping for. We had our ten year anniversary of taking over the lease here last week, and we’re wondering what the next ten years will bring.