Just because yesterday was a miserable, MISERABLE day (in terms of the weather, of course) and I spent a large part of the afternoon sitting at my laptop trying to dry off and warm up... All in the name of horses.
But we love them, right?!
Elsa Aldridge let out a deep sigh as she
stood in the doorway to the tack room, watching as the heavy rain lashed almost
horizontally across the yard.
The paddocks were almost under water, and
she was glad she had got the horses in to their warm, dry, cosy stables before
the heavens had well and truly opened. But she still had a herd of youngsters
grazing down the valley - wintering out - and she would need to take them hay.
She imagined the river was running high and the tracks running alongside it that
she needed to take to get to them, would probably resemble mud soup. She just
hoped the trusty old quad bike still had it in it to make it to them.
The sky was dark grey and showed no signs
of clearing any time soon. Wisps and swirls of lighter clouds dotted here and
there only served to tease her that they would break into clear, blue skies.
Timber Bear gazed out over her stable door,
hay trailing from her mouth which was carried away across the yard in the wind.
Elsa frowned as she watched it settle in the pools of water clogging up the
already struggling drains of the old farmyard.
The chestnut mare nickered as she observed Elsa,
wondering when her food was coming. Elsa took a final sip of her lukewarm tea
before placing the mug that had been warming her hands, back on the side. Minty
the yard cat snuggled beside the kettle, giving her a look to say he would not
be venturing outside any time soon while the rain was so fierce.
But Elsa had no choice, and she pulled her damp
coat tightly around her, zipping it all the way up to her chin. It was getting
tired and tatty, and had been drenched so many times that it was beginning to
leak. Her old faithful yard boots were going the same way, too, but they were
so comfortable that she didn't want to trade them in just yet. She contemplated
wrapping her feet in plastic bags before sliding them into her boots so that
she could prolong their life a little longer.
Her gloves were soaked, having had no
chance to dry out on the tack room’s portable heater, but she pulled them on
anyway.
"I love my job...I love my job..." she muttered to remind herself, as she waded
through the floods towards the feed shed. She grabbed a broom on her way, and
swept the debris away from the drains to let some of the water flow. But she
knew it was helpless unless she planned on doing that all day, which she most
certainly didn't, and soon the water was building up again. As she felt her
toes squelching against her sodden socks inside her boots, a desk job had
suddenly never looked so tempting.
She had a local recruitment agent’s number
stored in her phone, especially for days like this. Secretary or receptionist,
personal assistant or bookkeeper had all sounded so dull back in the summer,
but they had a certain ring to them now as she scraped her wet hair from her
face. But she wondered, as she looked around at her cosy little yard and the
long, loyal faces gazing longingly at her over stable doors, could she ever
bear to leave all this behind?
She remembered back to the summer, which
suddenly now seemed so far away, even though the eventing season had only
finished a month ago. She remembered easily the jubilation she felt every time
Sophia – her employer and best friend – crossed the finish line with another clear
cross country round under her belt. And there was nothing on earth like the joy
she felt when their horses had tried their hearts out, and especially so when
Sophia picked up a rosette and some prize money. She couldn’t imagine anyone
working in a boring office ever got those kinds of thrills. And those highs
surely made up for the lows such as miserable
days like these, didn’t they?
She suspected the only time those office
workers were at risk at getting even slightly rain damaged was when they popped
out to pick up their morning coffee, so hard was the life they led. But making
the switch to the warm and dry had been on her mind a lot recently, even though
she tried to shove it to the back of her thoughts.
I am
needed here, anyway, she reminded herself as the
occupants of the stables started banging at their doors at the first sign of
the feed shed door opening, and she could not restrain the smile that lit up
her face, even through the raindrops.
"So, this is it," Elsa spoke to
them all as she made her way along the row of stables with the wheelbarrow,
chucking in their feed as she went. “Summer is officially over, and winter is
well and truly on its way.”
She was soaked through to the bone, and
would kill for a shower. She ached all over, and hadn’t even finished her jobs
yet. By the time she had got inside and warmed up with a nice glass of red wine,
it would probably be bed time. But she would be back out again tomorrow, ready
to do it all again. Her horses would be waiting for her, gazing optimistically
over their stable doors in between grabbing mouthfuls of hay, at any sign of
her little cottage door opening. Then they would nicker at her arrival; a soft
sound that made her heart swell. It could be tough – and when it was tough it
was exceedingly tough – but more often
than not it was brilliant, and as she looked around her, the rain lashing her
face and stinging her eyes, she knew deep down she wouldn’t change any of it.
Not for anything.
While #3 in the #HeartsandHorseTrials series is in production, you can buy the first two here:
