Now the proper New Forest post 1

Now that I am back home it is catch-up time again.  We had the Fleamarket at Carmarthen yesterday, but were so tired when we got back - late, as we got stuck in a huge traffic jam the moment we joined the main road into Carmarthen from the showground - that the car is still unpacked, so I need to do as much as I can of that, and just leave the really heavy boxes until my beloved finally wakes up and is ready to help me.

I am being held to ransom by the apple harvest too - talk about a bumper one, and on ALL our trees.  I have given boxes and boxes away, but there are still lots to be picked, so I think the birds will do well this year.  I have made some chutney and will make more, but it's finding the time to do it as the garden needs more autumn tidying and I have a long list of "fings to do".

I hope you will enjoy these pictures from a local walk at Ashurst which I did on two of the three days I was in So'ton staying with my friend.  It is difficult to see her so poorly and not able to bounce back as she did a year ago.  It was a lovely visit though, and as we have been friends since we were five years old, I feel like one of the family when her children and grandchildren visit.

I'm not sure if this mare is yet to foal, or whether she is just saggy from previous foalings, but I think there may be a very late foal for her.

A photo to demonstrate a) the reflective collar round this mare's neck in case she strays on the road in the night, and b) how her tail has been cut by the Agister to show which part of the Forest she is hefted to.  The ponies are caught up in the annual Drifts and foals separated for weaning/selling (though there are VERY few of them now as no real market for them), wormed, fillies being retained will be branded with their owner's mark.  They aren't wild as such as they all belong to the Commoners who live on the Forest and have grazing rights.  HERE is a note about the system.

Certainly not the deepest part of the Forest, as this was just a short stroll from the main road, but you could keep going and end up in Lymington or Brockenhurst if it took your fancy!

The trees were turning and some of the colours were stunning.

How I managed to get the only car in the area that morning in MY photo shows how ditsy I can be!!

I loved this lumpy old tree.

This is it from another angle, with better lighting.

Some more photos tomorrow.  Now I really MUST unpack the car and stew up some apples.

There are several MORE boxes and still LOTS more on the trees . . .

This is the one we have picked MOST from!

Some very lucky ponies

After our walk, WD and I went back to her house and went out to make a fuss of her ponies, who were bought off the Forest or rescued, and live such happy lives with her.  Here is Woody, snug as a bug in his rug.

The chocolate pony and the ginger pony take their job of reducing the grass in the rested field very seriously,.  They are good examples of the sort of mish-mash of bloodlines in New Forest ponies, many different sorts of stallions having been released onto the Forest in Victorian times to "improve" the breed.  The chocolate pony has a mealy nose which shows that he has Exmoor blood in him.  The ginger pony has driving cob, as he has an upright shoulder and more bone than most Foresters (ooops - sorry, if you're not horsey, more bone means he's got chunkier legs and an upright shoulder holds a harness collar well.  For a riding horse a long sloping shoulder is preferable).

The rescue pony, who came as an unweaned foal after his mother had been killed on the Forest roads, is now 9.  I can remember him as a dark grey foal.  He mobbed me the moment we went into his paddock, licking my hands in great delight!  We had great Pony Cuddles.

This is his friend, who spent quite a few years happily roaming the Forest before being brought back up to do some work again.  He is The Boss in this field, and let the grey one know it when he pulled a face at him!

I also met WD's lovely puppy, who was so well behaved, bless her.  We had soup for lunch, and chatted and bird-watched from the lounge, and I was lucky enough to see one of the Redpolls which has been visiting WD's many bird feeders.

Ponies of a different kind.  Tricia, John and I went into Ringwood on the Wednesday and this stunning bronze mare and foal canter across the square.  So much movement in those figures.

A corner in Ringwood, looking towards the Church.  There was a nice little shop here where I got some more Bamboo socks.  They are SO warm . . .

This is Tricia's ginger pony.  Again, quite a chunky chappy and with the large head common to the breed.

He was hopeful of Food.  Ponies, especially the barrel-shaped ones, have a one track mind!

Another ginger one!  He is also a New Forest pony, although he was bred on a German stud and imported when his owner moved here.  He is a great age indeed (32 or 33 I think) and only has one toof left.

He is very grey on his face now, with big salt-cellar hollows above his eyes.  He was snug as a bug under his rug though, and pleased to see us and be made a fuss of.

Sorry pony, just an apple core today . . .

So now I am back at home and back into my routine, though that was spoilt yesterday when this wretched fluey cold bug returned (a combination of a day's travel, followed by sharing a bottle of vino).  This will be my FOURTH week with it, and I had a temperature yesterday (I regretted wearing my new bamboo socks by the time we were in Tesco's and I nearly took them off to cool down!)  In the night I woke up sweating like a race-horse again, so I am hoping I will feel a bit brighter today.  I know I daren't do anything much until this has finally left me as any exertion (gardening for example) brings it out of the woodwork once more.

It was lovely to see Tricia again and I'll be going back down again in March.