Bitterly cold - but thawing gradually

There's not really much to report, other than that it seems to be thawing, albeit very slowly.  It's been very cold at nights and for the first couple of days in the week didn't get above freezing in the day.  It's been a bit better the past couple of days, and today the sun came out for a while, which was a big help in accelerating the thawing process.  But there's been a bitterly cold north-easterly wind, which has meant that, even though in theory it's been above freezing in the day, it hasn't felt it, and the ice has been very slow to move.

But today's sunshine will have got rid of most of the snow, other than where there were piles of it or where it remained in the shade.  The first photograph in the chapter was taken on Monday morning, while this paragraph's illustration was taken yesterday (Tuesday).  In fairness, even before today's sunshine the bulk of that snow had gone by the end of the daytime yesterday, and Side Hill (seen yesterday in this paragraph) was looking much less white this morning, as you can see in the third paragraph, which shows a couple of Arab horses cantering around the all-weather.

It was good that we had a partial thaw today, with most of the snow disappearing and last night's hard frost coming out of the ground by mid-morning, because we've got Frankie entered at Plumpton on Sunday, and the thaw meant that he could have a schooling session over hurdles.  He's a very proficient jumper and it wouldn't have mattered if the schooling grounds had remained frozen, because he certainly wouldn't have forgotten how to jump.  But it was no bad thing for him to have a reminder, which he had at the end of the morning today, some time after noon.

Unfortunately William won't be able to ride Frankie at Plumpton as it's a conditional jockeys' race, but we'll be fine anyway because Joe Akehurst has always ridden very well any time we've used him - and he's schooled Frankie a few times in the past and knows him very well too, which obviously helps.  The horse had a different rider today, though: Petr Kriz is a Czech jumps jockey who, like so many of the jockeys in a country where they only race once a week and where it's hard to make a living, is now working overseas.

In Petr's case, that means working for Roger Varian, which is a very good job - but Peter does miss the jumping, so it worked well all round this morning: Peter enjoyed jumping Frankie, Frankie enjoyed it because he loves his jumping, and I enjoyed watching them.  Roll on Sunday - and let's hope that, while it looks as if it's going to continue to freeze hard at nights, we can maintain the daytime thaws, so we won't be iced up or snowed up at the weekend, and racing can go ahead.  I was surprised at dusk today to note that the icicles still haven't totally disappeared from the gutter along the top of the main stable block, but I'll be surprised if they're still there by the end of tomorrow.