Dear Mr Surgeon

Daisy is home for the Easter break.  BeAnne is very pleased to see her, in fact a little too pleased and I have been dumped.

Daisy tacked up Iacs and off they rode into the distance with me following her on foot, like I used to when she was 10 years old.

I must say, Mr Surgeon, that following on foot is very boring for 2 miles and I really do want to ride my horse who is 100% safe rather than look in the drains for non-existent frogspawn.

My life is very dreary, with little going on apart from a 2 mile trudge every day along the road, or sometimes into the hill.  I can’t sit and I can’t drive so I don’t actually go anywhere.

It is a total misnomer that you “sit” on a horse. I ride with very long stirrups so that if the horse mysteriously vanished, I would be left comfortably standing up. There is no actual pressure on my spine and riding helped my intolerable sciatica.  It was the only time during the day I didn’t hurt.  Also my horse has never trotted in his life so there is none of that up and down (posting) that others do, just a very gentle walk or flat tölt (see the film).

You did ask me not to ride until after the injections and I have had the injections so now I don’t know whether I can ride or not.  I hardly dare ask because I am worried you will say No again.  But if I don’t ask, I won’t know and I will go on looking for the mythical frogspawn in ditches forever.

Even BeAnne gets to ride.

She doubles up as an armrest too.

So please, Mr Surgeon, look at this rider, my eldest daughter.  This is the face of someone who hasn’t ridden for ages, having been studying at university for the last 12 weeks.  Look how happy she is.  Don’t you want me to be happy too?

Yours utterly depressed, if I am perfectly honest,

Frances