Walking in the rain

I have to admit that occasionally the sun doesn’t shine down here on Exmoor – in fact it can be a little damp and yesterday was a case in point. The mist had come down and it was starting to rain quite heavily. We had been over to friends the evening before and so had a rather late night and I was feeling tired. Derek had gone to Exeter to pick up Lucy so after I had finished all the chores, I settled down in front of the woodburner to read the paper – bliss! Within 5 minutes I was woken up by a tapping at the window and there were the spaniels all looking at me with great big brown eyes. Their message couldn’t have been clearer if they had shrugged their shoulders and said ‘Excuse me. Walk?’

Clearly there was no way I was going to get any peace. So donning wet weather gear and loading up the dogs, I set off to Cloutsham and Nutscale reservoir – bad move. By the time we got there the rain was coming in horizontally and it was blowing a hooley. I was wet and cold but the dogs loved it and within 5 minutes I was too. We saw a large herd of about 50 stags and hinds only about 100 yards away. A woodcock flew up right in front of us and it was so windy, it was held by the wind current and seemed to be stationary in the air for a few seconds – its plumage was beautiful. We also saw a fox and loads of frogspawn. By the time we got back to the truck we were all soaked but felt 100 times better!

Derek had a very sad incident this week. He was walking in Annicombe when he saw a yearling Exmoor pony in distress. Following it down to the stream he found its mother very badly injured. She had fallen about 10ft off a ravine into the stream and it looked as though she had broken her leg. All the Exmoor ponies belong to someone and all the herds tend to stay in the same area. Derek contacted Joanna who holds all the details of the ponies and their owners and she was able to contact the owner who sent for the vet. Although they are such hardy creatures accidents will always happen and it was lucky that Derek found her and she was quickly put out of her misery. Unfortunately the poor creature had to be put down but the foal was old enough to fend for herself and she will remain within the same herd.


Our last 2 little (actually not so little now) sprollies have just been collected to by their new owners John and Lin who are great friends of Al and Martyn. It is very sad that we won’t have the ‘pack’ to entertain us anymore but we know that they have all got great homes. Feedback we have had so far is that they have all settled in well and nobody can get any work done!