Saving the arena and fingers crossed for Anja

Rock salt and tarpaulins every night means I can still work on Sundays! It might not be the greatest way to finish your working day on and your hands are far from happy dragging wet sheets in this cold but the surface remained really good and horses worked well on it.

The sun made it to Surrey today and there was barely any snow left. The temperatures dropped again in the evening though and I wonder what is the next week going to bring...

Suzanne has been away in Jamaica and I miss working with her and think her being away for so long is just totally out of order considering we are freezing our hands and feet of ;) She does deserve it though and we are hoping she brings some of the tropics back with her.

I schooled one cheeky pony in the morning and decided it was much warmer on her than on the ground so she stayed with me. No objection raised and I think she actually enjoyed watching her pals working while she played a hot water bottle.

Anja visited today, very pregnant and very close to her next week's due date. She keeps checking on me and watches the lessons and I am looking forward to bootcamping her into shape as soon as she is ready to get back in the saddle. We continued a "let's find a name for Anja's baby" game which is the highlight of our meetings. Anja doesn't find it amusing. Several months ago, we nicknamed the baby AnkyVanGrunsven and had a superb plan teaching her to look after Anja's pony and riding it and genrally being a useful stable hand. The plans collapsed after it transpired it was going to be the boy. Since then, it's Edward[Gal] but we are unsure as to how useful he will be as a stable hand/Mum's help with a pony. It's a bit of a worry but Anja is braving through.

I found this lovely photo I took on one of Anja's visits in November when the sky was blue and we had our lunch outside!

Pauline and I are off to visit Kingsley tomorrow so get ready for photos and videos overload!! I can't wait to see him :)

I will also put a post together on my Thursday meeting with the video company as I think they have a fabulous product that deserves a bit of a shout out.