Riding in the Rain Started off today to ride for an hour from Crosswell Riding Agency – just round the corner. It was mid-day and another file of horses had already left.

Although it was dry and warm where we were Carolyn made a sensible decision looking at the mist rolling down from the Preselis. The earlier group, out for two hours, were going to get wet.

As it turned out our one hour ride left us soaked during the last half hour with heavy rain.

One of the pleasures of riding in a group is that you meet so many different people. Today, one of the riders was six and a half (didn’t get her name) and she was a charmer without realising it.

She was here from Hong Kong for a prolonged holiday – family from the area.

First she asked Carolyn, “Which is your favourite horse?”

“Sally”, says Carolyn, obviously knowing a thing or two about child psychology.

“She is mine, too,” says the girl patting Sally, the little pony she was riding. “But I like Megan as well.” She then went through the various horses and in the end she seemed to have decided she liked them all.

Gwyneth from Eglwswrw, riding a small white pony, said she had now bought an Arab horse – or her parents had as she was still at school.

I liked her attitude to horses as well – caring. Similar to that of my daughter, Roz, who had and has a similar concern.

Anyway, the rain soon pelted down – raining “knives and forks” as the Welsh language has it. The horses picked their way down a muddy path with boulders and stones.

Reminded me of that line in Animal Farm: “four legs good, two legs bad.”

Apart from a slight slip from one when her haunches lowered as she recovered in an instant. Soaked and a bit cold but no one complained. Another good day.