Winter wonderland

I was right when I wrote last night that we'd wake up to a good covering of snow this morning, because we found about four inches on the ground at daybreak today. It wasn't a difficult prediction to make, though, because the bulk of that had fallen prior to bedtime last night. The great thing about a snow-covered landscape at night is how much effect any light has: the snow just seems to reflect any light back into the atmosphere, so even in the country a moonlit night on a snowy landscape will be like daytime with colours toned down. And in a town (as we are) there's so much light anyway with street lights and lights from people's houses that the photons just keep going round and round and one can see everything. As this photograph of the stable yard, taken out of the kitchen window at around 8pm last night (ie nearly four hours after nightfall), shows. There seemed to be fewer photons zapping around come bedtime a couple of hours later when I went out for a final walk round: it was a very grey gloomy atmosphere by that time, but that didn't stop Alamshar revelling in the snow and having a good play-around (as this second photograph shows).

Come this morning there were even fewer photons in evidence as Gemma and I set off to arrive on the Heath at 7am on the siblings Kadouchski and Douchkette, but even so it was considerably brighter than one would expect at that time of day, which was obviously half an hour or so before the official time of dawn. Visibility was getting better once we were having our trot along a more or less deserted Heath, but even so the light at the top of Long Hill isn't the sun (which was still quite a long time off being ready to peek over the horizon): it was the lights from a tractor harrowing the Long Hill polytrack. And therein lay our problem: presumably caught out by the amount of snow which had arrived, the Heathmen (who are normally very efficient, even in the depths of winter, in the aim to have the canters ready for use by 7am) had effectively closed every canter at the time they were all meant to be opening, which meant that we had a very frustrating period of trotting up and down the side of the Heath trying to find one which we were allowed to use. I can't say that I was very happy with that at all because it was all rather unnecessary: one can canter on snow safely enough, and the all-weather surfaces beneath the snow wouldn't have been frozen solid, so the fact that the canters hadn't been harrowed in advance of the start time was augmented by my opinion that the harrowing which was taking place at the time the canters were meant to be open wasn't really necessary anyway. As it happened, though, all was well that ended well. I didn't see the funny side of it at odd times when Douchkette found the repeated hold-ups and changes of direction reason to mess around (which isn't much fun when the underfoot conditions are icy) but ultimately we were able to canter up Warren Hill a couple of times on an excellent, freshly harrowed and lump-free surface. And later in the morning we were able to use the Long Hill polytrack, which was ultimately presented in similarly pristine condition. It is just rather annoying to turn up at the particular time when the regulations say that all the canters will be open, only to find one after the other that they are all (unnecessarily) closed. Still, that's only a minor quibble, and I can't say that this morning was much fun for the (very diligent and conscientious) Heathmen either.

Anyway, the bonus of being forced to use Warren Hill was the pleasure of getting to the top. As going up Warren Hill one is heading eastish, at dawn the trees at the top are backlit - and as today the trees were snow-clad it meant that we were treated to a mighty sight as we approached and reached it. That was really, really nice, as I hope that these photographs show. The first time we went up things were still rather dark, but the second time I was boldened to try an action shot, and I think it came out rather well.

The following lot we went to Long Hill, which saw four of us - Hannah, Hugh, Adam and myself riding Ex Con, Agent Almeida, Ben and Panto - enjoy further sights as the sun started to rise about the horizon. It was lovely enough on the Severals, where naturally the diligently ever-present Gerard Butler was supervising his string on foot, as this photograph shows, and then even better up and on top of the hill. Some strings went out this morning and some didn't, but I'm sure that all those who did would have found it more fun than a nuisance. After we'd come back down we saw some more strings out in the Severals trotting rings, including the string of our neighbour Willie Musson (pictured farther down the chapter, with George McGrath riding the horse in front). Later in the morning when our last couple of horses went out for a canter up Warren Hill all-weather I accompanied them on foot, which was good to see the young horses going up so sensibly and well. And it was also good to see Sir Mark Prescott's well-disciplined string of horses going up there, as the final photograph shows. The horses are walking onto the canter in a well-ordered crocodile, with Sir Mark's assistant William Butler walking along behind to keep an eye on things.

I think that as regards the text this probably hasn't been the most exciting chapter I've ever written, but I just found myself with so many really nice photographs on my camera (well, I think that they are really nice anyway) and I wanted to put plenty of them up here. And of course I needed to find the words to pad them out - hence my waffling on even more than is ideal or usual. But I think I've now written enough - so it's time again to head outside as dusk is falling. I don't think that the temperature has got as high as zero today (other than in the areas which had sun on them) so the snow's still with us - and as it's forecast to be minus 5 or 6 tonight, conditions won't be very good tomorrow, and certainly a lot more tricky than today. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Exeter Road's our biggest worry because it's thick sheet ice - what we did today was lead the horses down there and get on them at the bottom - and is only going to be worse tomorrow after a slight element of thawing followed by re-freezing, but I'm sure we'll work it out. These conditions certainly beat the usual constant cold rain!