Piles of photos for you to peruse, wince and look at.  Scuse our faces – that is pure concentration rather than the glamorous photoshoot face.

First, I let my friend Carole have a shot on Klængur.  Carole has her own perfect Icelandic horse, Hakki, but it is always nice to try another.

Bless him, Klængur went superbly.  He was listening to Carole and giving her his very best.  I had explained to him previously that I expected this.  Funny boy, that he is, when I was in the school, Klængur would veer inwards to tell me just how well he was doing!

It is good for me to see photos of him going well for someone else.  I never see this as there is never anyone around to photograph me.

Next it was my turn.  Bjørn asked me to ride Taktur – something I rarely do these days as it is Bjørn who is training Taktur.

Riding Taktur is awesome – it is very different from either Klængur or Haakon.  Taktur is much thinner to start with so it all feels very odd to me.  I am used to a good substantial old-style Icelandic horse.

Carole was on camera, the light was failing and she did her best with my “bitchy resting face”.

Taktur takes your breath away.  He offers everything from your slightest thought and I know I didn’t do him justice but he gave me the world anyway.

I even managed trot, which is unheard of.

It is all good practice and Bjørn said he asked me to ride Taktur so I could see just how bloody difficult it is.

And he is right.  I was a sweaty mess afterwards with very achey legs.  Bloody hard work!

I am not happy with Iacs.  Methinks he has got very used to his life of luxury and does not like being down-graded back to normality again.

His hoof is better now and everyone is over at Clothie because that is a relatively mud-free field, while the weather is behaving.  However, I still go over daily to feed Taktur his Handsome Prince food.

(and yes, he has no headcollar, and yes it is the scattald (open hill) and yes, he could potentially roam for miles as he is a young stallion – but no, he won’t go anywhere, and yes I do trust him and yes I do know you should never trust a stallion, and no, it is not madness because the only place he would go is home!)

I could see the others liked having a little something too so I lugged over 5 square buckets with a smidgen too.  Yesterday they loved it and spent hours with their own bucket getting every last bit.

Today, Iacs was incensed.  This was not enough. He wanted more.  So he systematically went round to each horse and their bucket throwing it and the contents around the field.  This resulted in nobody having anything.

The sensible ones looked at the ground and started finding morsels to eat.

The others made their feelings known.

They even gazed jealously at Taktur eating his grub undisturbed by Iacs.

And poor Charlie was very depressed until I gave him his own private leftovers in the corner (see above photo of Charles Buttons Esq).

Luckily, I had also brought a pile of carrot peelings and cauliflower leaves so I distributed them to those that deserved them rather than those that were rude.

Yes Iacs, I know where you live and next time I am tying you up!

I have spent the best part of my day looking at this – OH’s computer and its internal problems.  The grey spinning thing went on forever, not helping while I surfed the inter-super-highway looking for solutions.

After many hours, a headache and swear words, I went outside to clear my head.  I definitely needed some kind of therapy.

Obviously, I turned to the experts.

They are always on hand with their computer advice and support.

Their fluffy noseys are wonderful to help you take a step back, take stock of the situation and decide what to do next.

I was sorely tempted to go straight to the computer’s major data banks with a very large axe and give it a reprogramming it would never forget.

But, remembering I was the adult in this situation, I decided to erase the whole hard disk instead.

And I felt a huge sense of relief.

(Storm was not very helpful as he wanted to eat grass but managed to lift his head once to look hopeless!)

My poor OH is now not happy.  He had backed-up apparently a few weeks’ ago and is now sitting on the sofa tutting and sighing to himself while he tries to remember what was on his computer that was important.

Now he needs one (or four) of these!

Firstly, I just want to say thank you for all your messages/comments/emails of support and advice about little Jack (et Potato).  They are hugely appreciated and it is lovely to know that you are out there thinking about him.

As today’s weather was good, ie no rain or wind, OH and I went over to Sandness (4 miles away) to collect more silage bales – ok, OH did all the work, I just watched.

Afterwards, we went for a walk on Norby Beach with Loki and BeAnne.

We were the only ones there and it is always nice to have the beach to ourselves.   I always feel resentful if anyone else arrives, like it should be my private beach.

BeAnne did some paddling, which she loves…..

And Loki did some too out of necessity, which he loathed.

OH and I had an in depth discussion about coastal erosion which mostly consisted of him saying this beach would make a fabulous project for someone as it changes shape daily.

And then me saying that I should have listened a bit more in Geography lessons as I could’ve bored him with endless information about this.  But I hadn’t, so I didn’t.

Meanwhile, the dogs had a good time running around and OH walked throwing some driftwood while I took photos.

And it was good to have a change of scene in slightly calmer weather.

If you are wondering about the boys.  Everyone is fine.

This is my poor little crofthouse surrounded by what was once grass and is now a vision of mud.

Depressed muchly but it will recover in spring. It always does.  I am beginning to forget what long grass looks like.

Today the snow was in the process of thawing, helped with alternating drizzly and pouring rain.

The boys were all together in the Minion field.  This field is about the only one that is not pure mud and, as they seem to get along fine, I thought they could spend the day out there.

To begin with, they all disappeared and as Taktur was going to be trained, I felt unenthusiastic about traipsing across this huge field looking for my little herd.  As I watched them vanish over the hill, I could see Klængur had drawn the short straw and was babysitting Storm and Tiddles.

Afterwards Charlie took over.   He can’t decide if he is a big boy or a Minion.  I am encouraging him to be a big boy as I think, once he had wedged himself into the Minion shed, there wouldn’t be room for anyone else!  His BFF is Taktur.  They are having a lovely bromance.

So that is the herd.  It has taken me some time to trust Taktur not to hassle Tiddles and I probably could’ve put them out together sooner, but it was not a risk I was willing to take.

They still all come in at night.  The big boys separate from the Minions and go into their shed while the little ones are put to bed!

Everyone can go out into a field if they want but they are not left together.  Maybe in Spring.