You’ve gotta love a man with a digger and today they arrived first thing to dig out the muddy gateway of the winter track – the one where Newt struggles to walk through – so I had to feed the Shetland ponies away from there as a) they would offer to help, b) escape and c), d) and e) be very annoying….. a lot.  T’is their way.

I know this.  They have form.  Many a fencer has been “helped” and had his tools taken off him and sandwiches not-so-very-politely removed.  I have heard the outraged screams and pretended not to notice.

Not mentioning any names but honestly the finger points mostly Waffle (and all his friends).

So the digger and the driver were spared the expert help of the Shetland ponies because I shut the gate first.

However, the boys didn’t seem to mind.  As they are not used to eating from real buckets (we favour the indestructable rubber trug method), they had a great time trying to work out how to steal from each other.

And my new and improved gateway is now a vision and ready for winter.  Hopefully it will harden up and dry out in the next few months and then be ready now firm, not waterlogged mud for winter and not descend into another soggy pile of gutter (Shetland dialect for mud).  This is an experiment.