One Young Fool in Dorset (18 page)

Annabel and I spent ages planning and deciding what
we needed to pack. It was summertime, but good weather can never be
relied upon in Britain. Therefore, rain-proof jackets and
wellington boots were essential, as were jeans, T-shirts and
sweaters. Then came the question of underwear.

“I think I’ve had a brilliant idea,” I said. “Rather
than taking lots of pairs of knickers, or less and then having to
think about washing and drying them, why not take paper pants?”

“Paper knickers?”

“Yes, I saw them at Boots the Chemist. They come in
packs. I’m going to buy a couple of packs, I think! They’re
disposable so I won’t have to worry about washing and drying them,
I’ll just throw them away at the end of the day.”

Genius.

Annabel didn’t follow my lead, which was probably
very wise.

Our holiday took place about 45 years ago, so I’m a
little fuzzy over exactly where we stayed in the Black Mountains. I
believe we slept in a ‘bunkhouse’ and I remember that there was a
roster sharing out the chores. Some cooked, others cleared up after
the meal. Those not working were free to sit on beanbags and sing
Where have all the flowers gone?
while one of our fellow
guests, a German
with
long hair, strummed his guitar.

When we arrived, all our mounts were tethered in a
line outside in the yard and we were allocated a pony each. Annabel
was given Dougal, and my mount and companion for the week was a
sturdy little mare with calm, liquid eyes and a shaggy mane. Her
name was Megan. She sized me up briefly then carried on munching
hay from the rack on the wall.

We were handed a bundle of reins, rugs, brushes,
hoof-picks, saddles, and additional horsey paraphernalia, all
baffling to a novice like me.

Annabel and
Dougal

First we had to put a halter on our ponies, then
take it off again. Megan didn’t mind that, so long as I didn’t get
in the way of her hay munching.

“Good,” said Jack, our trek leader. “Now you will
groom your ponies. Give your pony a good brushing down.”

I enjoyed that, and I think Megan did too, although
she didn’t stop munching long enough to tell me.

Megan and
me

“Now,” said Jack, “pick out each foot with your hoof
pick. Avoid the frog and the quick, and as you groom, check the
horse for lumps, bumps or swellings.”

Obediently, we did as asked. Megan didn’t seem to
mind standing on three legs while I picked her hooves. It certainly
didn’t spoil her appetite.

“Is your pony still munching?” I asked Annabel,
beside me. “Mine never seems to stop.”

“No, he stopped ages ago.”

“Right,” said Jack, “now for the bridles. Put the
reins over your pony’s head, like this.”

Done.

“Put the bit in the horse’s mouth.”

For the first time, Megan objected, and I knew why.
I was interfering with her food intake.

“Put a finger on each side of the bit and gently
push against the horse’s mouth,” said Jack.

“Ouch!”

I think Megan mistook my novice fingers for a bunch
of carrots.

“Victoria, it’s a good idea to put your thumbs in
the very corner of Megan’s mouth, where she has no teeth.”

Now he tells me!

We succeeded in the end, after much fumbling. By
now, Megan had finished her own hay and had started on
Dougal’s.

“Well done, everyone,” said Jack, as I rubbed my
bruised fingers. “And now for saddling up.”

We all watched as Jack demonstrated with his
pony.

“Put on the blanket first. Place the front on the
horse’s withers, and slide it down a bit so the hair isn’t pushed
into an unnatural position. Place the saddle gently on the horse’s
back and buckle up the girth.”

That looked simple enough. I followed his
instructions and as Megan munched, I slipped the girth around her
sturdy middle and buckled it quite tightly, allowing space for just
two (bruised) fingers, exactly like Jack showed us.

“And now it’s time to mount! Stand next to your
pony’s left front leg.”

We did so.

“Hold the reins in your left hand. Put your left
foot in the stirrup. Stand on your left foot and swing your right
leg over … and there we are!”

Jack was astride his mount, and our party began to
copy his movements.

“I did it!” called Annabel, patting her Dougal’s
neck.

Megan stood munching quietly as I positioned myself
correctly. I placed my foot in the stirrup and swung myself up. The
next thing I knew, I had landed with a thud on my backside on the
ground on the other side of Megan. The entire saddle had rotated;
the girth was much too loose. Megan probably rolled her eyes but
she didn’t even stop chewing.

How can that be?
I had tested the girth. I’d
left space for just two fingers.

“Ah, Victoria,” said Jack who had appeared at my
elbow. “My fault, I should have warned you about our Megan. She’s a
bit of a devil, plays that trick on all her new riders.”

“Well, she got me good and proper!” I said, still
rubbing my sore bottom. “How does she do it?”

“She’s a crafty one! She inhales as you buckle up
her girth, so of course it’s much too loose. Next time, wait for
her to exhale before you buckle it.”

We hadn’t been on a single trek yet, and I already
had bruised fingers and a bruised behind.

The next morning, we saddled up with no mishaps.
Megan had finished her breakfast and was contentedly cropping grass
as I prepared her. I was extra careful with her girth, and the
saddle fitted with no problems. I was one of the first to
mount.

If you are an experienced horse rider, pony trekking
is probably not for you. The pace is leisurely as the ponies follow
each other, nose to tail. There is plenty of time to enjoy the view
as the ponies plod along. It suited me just fine.

One of our party was a tall German who had come with
his companion, the chap who played the guitar in the hostel every
evening. The pair were friends but had very different
personalities. The guitar player was a free spirit, quietly-spoken
with long hair and a leather band around his forehead. His tall
friend was loud and demanding.

“Jack! We make our horses run here,
ja?
” he
shouted to our trek leader.

“No, Klaus, we don’t.”

To be honest, Klaus, the tall German, looked a
little ridiculous astride his pony. His legs were so long, his feet
nearly touched the ground. But this didn’t stop him urging his
mount to go faster. He would sneakily hold his pony back so that he
could urge it into a canter to catch up with the party. Klaus’s
pony was obedient, but refused to go faster than a slow jolting
trot, which meant that Jack quickly saw what he was up to.

“Klaus! Our ponies aren’t built for speed! And this
terrain is dangerous. A pony could easily end up with a hoof in a
rabbit hole and a broken leg.”

He waited for Klaus to catch up, and kept his eye on
him from that moment. Klaus sulked but never managed to turn his
pony into a racehorse.

Megan, my pony, was definitely not built for speed.
Actually, she wasn’t really built for any kind of movement at all.
Her mind was only occupied with filling her stomach. Persuading her
to abandon a tasty clump of grass and resume our journey was often
extremely difficult.

By the end of the first day in the saddle, I was
loving it, but I was sore. Muscles that I didn’t even know existed
ached and throbbed.

And I discovered that my decision to pack only paper
knickers was probably not a very clever idea after all. When I
undressed that night, I was shocked.

“Annabel?”

“Yes?”

“You know those paper knickers I brought?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I wore them today.”

“And?”

“Well, they’ve gone.”

“What do you mean, gone? Stolen?”

“No, gone.”

All that was left was a band of elastic round my
hips and another round each leg, with a few tattered pieces of
paper hanging off. The rest of my paper knickers had simply worn
away.

* * *

The pony trekking holiday was soon over, and I was
back home in Wareham. It was hard persuading my mother to take us
out. Unless there was some kind of horticultural attraction, she
preferred to stay at home pottering in the garden.

However, I do remember one family outing that didn’t
turn out quite as planned.

17
Fords

Prawn Cocktail

D
orset is a beautiful county, sprinkled
liberally with picture postcard villages. Thatched cottages cluster
around village greens. Dorset has more than its fair share of
heathland, beaches, agricultural land and woodlands.

Once a year, we all climbed into Ivy the Land Rover
for a springtime outing. Ivy was now a very old lady; she’d been
elderly when my parents first bought her. However, she was happy to
trundle along the country roads with us kids in the back and my
mother gripping the steering wheel as though it was threatening to
escape. Ivy chugged a little going uphill, and her engine was so
loud we had to yell or use hand-signals, but she never let us
down.

Except once.

In spring, shy, yellow primroses blossom on banks,
and bluebells are a swathe of colour in the woodlands. No matter
how many times I saw them, they took my breath away. As far as the
eye could see, the blue flowers carpeted the ground, the
flower-heads nodding in the soft spring breeze.

In those days, it wasn’t illegal to pick
wildflowers, and my mother dug up dozens to transplant into our
garden. We gathered armfuls to put in every container we could find
at home. I’m ashamed now that we picked so many, as wildflowers
soon die when they are picked. We should have left them for other
people and the wildlife to enjoy.

This particular time, we drove along a back country
road where the trees overhead met to form a green tunnel. A little
further ahead, the road forded a stream. My mother pushed her face
near the windscreen, and stared ahead.

“What’s the matter?” asked my sister.

“
Ach!
” said my mother, stamping on Ivy’s
brakes and sending us all flying in the back. “I don’t know how
deep this ford is. We’ve had a lot of rain recently.”

“It looks quite deep,” said my sister. “The water is
flowing quite fast.”

My mother stared at the water. We were still some
distance away.

“Perhaps we should turn back?” somebody suggested.
“Find another way?”

The road was deserted and she could have easily
executed a three-point-turn, but my mother flatly refused.

“You
know
I don’t reverse.”

She opened Ivy’s door and strode to the water’s
edge, thinking. She looked up and down the stream, then
returned.

“
Ach,
I think it’ll be okay,” she announced.
“I think Ivy is high enough to clear it. I’m going to take a run at
it and go through as fast as I can.”

Determinedly, she climbed back into Ivy and revved
the engine like a racing driver.

“Hold tight!” she yelled and stamped on the
accelerator.

Ivy careered bravely towards the water and straight
through, her speed causing much splashing. Out of the other side
she came and began to climb the slope.

“Well done, Ivy!” shouted my mother.

“Hooray!” we kids yelled in the back.

But our victory crow was premature. Without warning,
the engine died.

“Quick!” yelled my sister. “We’re rolling back into
the water!”

My mother stamped on the brake and applied the
handbrake.

“I
don’t
reverse!” she muttered.

And there we sat, with water draining out of the
engine and running off Ivy’s paintwork in little rivulets, until
eventually another car came along.

The car approached from behind. It wasn’t a high
car, in fact it was much lower than Ivy. But it had no problem
fording the stream and overtaking us, then coming to a standstill
in front of Ivy.