Saturday, June 14, 2008

Those were the days



This photo shows Tess riding her pony to school on her last day of primary school, last year (she now goes to the local high school). We often used the horses as transport to and from school. Here below is a snippet from my writings, jotted in 2005 (Cooper, alas, is no more as his soul crossed the rainbow bridge in 2007 and his body rests deep underground in the bottom paddock)


Rain

I decided to pick the girls up from school this afternoon, on the horse.
Rain bucketing down, the horse and I canter along the track to school.
Slick with sweat and water
we clop through the school gates, turn left at the girls’ toilets, and pull up under the covered play area, hooves loud on the concrete, the canopy redirecting the rain to fall in rivulets from the roof. The girls tumble out of the library, yelling “Cooooooper!!!!!!”.
With practiced ease, Tess tucks her bare foot on mine in the stirrup, grabs my hand and swings onto the horse’s rump in one fluid movement. I lift Yarrow onto the saddle in front of me.
“Let’s go home, Mum”
I turn the horse and we clop out of the school gates, together on the horse in the teeming rain.

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