Somewhere in Shetland there is a little faat black pony who loves dancing in all the water buckets left out for him and his friends by his kind and extremely tolerant owner and rescuer.

He just can’t help himself – like a moth to a flame….

Waffle only has to see a bucket of water and whoosh, he’s in like Esther Williams but without the flowery swimming hat.

Yes, Waffle, the finger points at you.  He is definitely the culprit, despite looking incredibly innocent and rarely caught on film comitting this heinous crime.

These are the preferred buckets, kindly filled daily with fresh water because of said dancing and they are always empty when we find them.

Luckily no one has to rely on this water because there are numerous streams, ditches and even a whole loch-full of water in the adjoining field below.

Which is lucky really because absolutely no one is talking to Waffle or He Who Dances in Water Buckets – that would be his Native American name if he had one.

Absolutley no one!

We had a go at trimming Hetja’s hooves.  It wasn’t easy.  She’s a big girl by our standards and was fairly unhelpful too. It made us realise that Shetland ponies are much easier to trim and also much more co-operative.  Well, mine are.  Having said that, we haven’t trimmed Newt yet so we may change our minds on that score. The night is still young.

Again, Daisy was on clippers and I was on rasp duties and we did our best, despite some severe leaning and snatching back of her hinds.  And yes, I did bollock her for this.

However, I think we did a good job. Like I said, Hetja was not helpful and we climbed back into the car feeling like we had been in a rugby match.  It jolly nearly killed us both.  Only another billion to trim (well, that’s what it feels like anyway).

I have renamed Hetja the Heffalump Cowbag!

I think we all agree that everyone has splendiferous hair today.

(even with a turquoise splotch).

A dignified old lady.

And, for some strange reason, everyone was looking remarkably clean.

Even Storm.

Albie is such a handsome chap.

Sóley and her silly-foalie-frilly!

One engimatic Waffle served with a side order of handsomeness!

And to think folk cut, trim, pull (and even dye to take away the natural wind bleached look) a Shetland ponies’ manes in some countries is quite beyond my comprehension.  Why would anyone do that?  They are truly beautiful as they are.

BeAnne has always been a water dog so, as it was such a nice afternoon, we all went down to the burn in the field.  We even took some bits of wood to throw in.

Which she duly brought back.

She had a little swim and then a lovely roll.

Two of the Muscovy ducks had finally found the burn, which is quite an achievement in itself as it is a long walk down the hill and back.  They were very happy splashing around.

We heard some shouting and turned around to see who was following.

Monster is a very strange cat.

He did a lot of this sort of thing.

And we all laughed with him, not at him.

Monster and BeAnne are good friends, sometimes.

We asked Monster to sit in the daffodils and look pretty, so he did!

And then he looked weird again.

We asked BeAnne too.

So she just looked like not herself really.

Still, it was nice to sit on a rock in the Spring sunshine with our strange little family.