Today we managed to get the horsevan out of its snowdrift (I had parked it up on the road a few days previously) and drove it over to Leradale. I wanted to bring Waffle home.

If I have a thing, it is that I am not a fan of horses/ponies in rugs that I can’t see and keep an eye on.  They instantly get stuck.  Waffle doesn’t seem to have the essential Shetland pony winter undercoat (I think he didn’t grow it in autumn, when it mattered, as he was living in the stable recovering from laminitis) so for his health and well-being, he can live at home with Storm, Albie and Tiddles plus his rug, if necessary.

Newt was beyond appalling this morning.

He had a very twitchy bottom – we had words and then I had to go an apologise and explain the words because Newt took umbrage. FFS – he sulked!

Anyway, buckets for the old ladies.

The others don’t need them now the grass has begun to appear.

Once finished, I walked Waffle very carefully up the track and over the ice to the horsevan (parked a little way down the road) and loaded him.

He was pleased to see his old friends. Newt has taken up bullying Waffle so I think he was relieved to leave him behind.

The ponies are out for the few hours of daylight and then back into the stable for the rest of the day with soaked hay.  Waffle will get used to our routine.

Meanwhile, the electricity has been off most of the afternoon to stabilise our’s and others’ supply.  I wrapped Christmas presents by lamp light praying it would come back on. It did.

Monday was vile. Everyone was up around the house either in stables, sheds or wandering about poo’ing everywhere (my thanks to Iacs, Haakon and Klængur who took this job very seriously).

And then the power went off in the afternoon and that was that.

As it got dark (3 p.m.), I ran around hanging up haynets while praying everyone was keeping safe.  It was all I could do.  That, and spend the whole night awake worrying.

Tuesday morning and I put the boys out into their field as they had not really used their stable overnight. My theory was that they might as well poo everywhere in a field intsead of the mess around the house.

No power meant the nights were long and very cold. We are better off than most, we have a Rayburn (poor-man’s Aga) for hot water and cooking, as well as a bottle-gas cooker in the kitchen. Our bedroom is directly above the kitchen too.  The sitting room has a mult-fuel stove and OH dragged the gas heater in too so we had two warm rooms – the kitchen and the sitting room.

One of my huge worries was Waffle. We managed to drive over daily (somehow with many prayers – it was very scary) to see the ponies taking food to warm them up. Waffle was always shaking and soaked to the skin so I took a rug with me and that helped hugely.

On Wednesday, I threw my little ones out together with the Old Men. They sniffed, pulled a few faces and then just got on with it.

So, we’ve managed to keep our heads above water.

OH even managed to get to town for provisions and bought me a present – five yellow buckets!

A huge thank you to my “helper(s)”.  Everyone was brilliant.

We had a 6 day power cut but the electricity is finally back on and I will write more this evening.

We managed, everyone is fine and we’re all still here, safe and well.

The Old Men came up this morning to see if there was anything better going than their field of lovely uneaten grass.  How they suffer.

Iacs and Haakon hung around looking hopeful so I caved and went and found an ancient equine lick bucket that could do with being finished.

Haakon instantly made it his own but occasionally let Iacs have a shot too.

To start with, there was a bit of arguing ……

But nothing huge ….

….. and, eventually, they both got used to take it in turns.

Klængur was in the other field – he hadn’t see the lick bucket – and I encouraged him to stay there as he does not need any sugary calories. Not now, not never. Luckily, he couldn’t be bothered to go back up the hill to join in.  That would’ve involved effort and he couldn’t be arsed.

Three little Shetland ponies have been busy.

Oh, yes. I found this terrible example of their nibblings when I opened up in this morning.  I was not happy.

So OH and I put up some sheep hurdles in front of the wooden bars and sprayed some crib stop which I swear Storm actually likes (little sod!) I was playing nice but if they go on like this, I will cook up my chilli/fairy liquid (washing up liquid) concoction which is guaranteed to stop the nibblings.

But, for now, I hope the hurdles will keep them away from trying to gnaw their way out to freedom.

Bloody chipmunks.  They never stop and they are not sorry!