Today was not a day for going out in unless you absolutely had to. So, armed with the gallant and helpful Floss, we got all the horses inside for the morning, fed and Haakon’s rug changed. They were pleased to come in and didn’t need asking twice.  It was also good to get them onto hard standing for a few hours and to let them have a break from the filthy day.

After a quick flit around the others – whole carrots given as a neighbour kindly bought me some bags of carrots for me as an equine Christmas present!  The Minions had two bags between them, Brá and her two friends shared another bag and Les Icelandic Girls had a bag as well.  Today’s training for little Sóley-the-Foalie was to eat small bits of carefully bitten off foal-mouth-sized carrot from the ground before her mother and sister snaffled them and all in a howling gale too!

There are no photos.  Only an idiot would take a camera out in this weather.

This afternoon I have spent with Aunt Kate’s diaries and am now transcribing 1897 – so going along well. I am getting used to Kate’s style of writing and choice of words.  She is 18 now and with the arrival of the bicycle, she has more freedom.  She is not attending lessons as much but continues to draw and is now taking an interest in the household day-to-day accounts.

Of course, I need help! I always need help.  Please do your best. Any suggestion gratefully received. I am stumped.

“Doz and all of us to Dr Neales. I had my nose burnt and Doz had her cheek burnt. The other to ? ; Ex in evening.”

Ok, so what is having your cheek burnt (nose might be sinuses cauterised – they have three appointments for this in as many days). And the next line? The others to ? : Ex (3h?) in evening.  I don’t know.  The others to Second: Exhibition in evening.

Ok, next problem…..

Alys and Paul sang “Mutter**** after supper. Anyone recognise this song?

And lastly, “Played croquet in afternoon. I octy came up again. I rested.”  What is I octy or Locty or Jocty……

Anywho, if you like that sort of thing, go and read the diaries. She goes to London and watches a cricket match and to Cambridge to watch the university rowing.

“Then I went with Doz to St John’s Wood and to Lord’s Cricket Ground. Saw part of match. M. C. C. and Ground v. Australians. First got 219, second all out for 18 runs. Saw W.G.G. and Stoddart and Rankit Singhi (Ranjitsinhji), etc. Had front seats.”

Little Efstur (means Number 1, the highest) is growing up fast now.

By Álfur frá Selfossi IS2002187662 and out of Brá frá Reykjavík IS2002287901 – he travelled from Norway in utero all those years back.

Efstur was born in May 2016 (I remember it well – here is the blog entry including a film of his birth) and so will be 4 next year.

And somewhere along the line, someone has turned Efstur into a sensible boy.

A while back, seeing Efstur’s potential (five-gaited with a jaw-dropping trot and a BLUP of 114), I gave him to Daisy, my eldest daughter.

The next few years are going to be an exciting time for Efstur as he begins his training with Daisy.

So that’s another little boy nearly all growed up.

These past few months Efstur has done some growing upwards (and outwards) too. He is now taller than Taktur.  They were standing together this morning before having their food and I suddenly noticed!  I was taken by surprise.

Efstur is a nice boy. His future is exciting.  Let’s hope he lives up to his name.  He is also very orange *** sigh *** – another ginger ninja.

We’ve had a lovely few days but the weather is revving up again, wind and rain-wise, though temperatures are high for us.

Hey-ho, as the horses are all on hay (the silage this year is very wet; too wet for us), I find it very frustrating watching it all blow away so the daily routine changed again.

First in were Haakon and his field friends.

Haakon is fed separately because he has TurmerAid and Devil’s Claw in his fibre feed.

Iacs and Klængur had their buckets together and finished first. Now you can see why Haakon has to be fed separately. He gets very annoyed if hassled.

Iacs is No 1 Hassler.  He enjoys this title and is proud of it!

After all feeds are finished, buckets are inspected (just in case and you never know someone might’ve left a bar of chocolate in them) and washed up.  I put out three haynets/bags – one in each corner  – and Klængur and Iacs were moved in.

Then the remainder of the boys were called up and they all went straight into their stable. All excpet for Dreki who missed the door, and then proceeded to go round and round outside trying to find his friends.  Perhaps not the brightest star in our firmament.

And so we left them to it for the morning to eat their hay.  Afterwards, hard feed for Taktur and Efstur, rugs on and out into their respective fields.

It is a hassle but at least no gold-encrusted diamond bathed hay (cut from the fields of Valhalla by virgin unicorns) is blown away.  It can be shat and pee’d on but not blown away! 

After a good Christmas lunch, we, as a family, always try to go for a walk to get some fresh air and exercise.

So, once we had rendered the kitchen Monster-proof, we all duly set off but there were hill sheep around and ‘Bert was quickly diverted and left us.

‘Ster and Lambie determinedly averted their gaze and said they were coming with us.

It’s ok, I thought, ‘Bert will come home when he wants to but he changed his mind and decided that a Christmas walk with his family was better than chatting up the hill sheep.

We all, man and sheep, strode off on our virtuous Christmas walk.

This walk is a family tradition, though there have been some years when horrific weather has been too bad and we have had to give up before we got past the end of the house – we were blown back in!

BeAnne was a token sheep or were the Boyzens token dogs?  Anyway, something smelled nice. Her Maj is wearing her Christmas kerchief.

I think this was one of our memorable Christmas walks.

I loved it.