Settling In

It's hard to believe we're only here three days, but when I count it up, that's what it comes to.
We're in a strange state of limbo in the house, as Rod and Angela, from whom we are renting it, are not leaving until Jan 4th.  They can't wait to get going and get out of our hair, as it were, and we feel we can't really settle into a routine here until they leave.
Anne and I are hoping to fall into a proper routine with the horses over the next couple of days.  The plan is that she will pop up in the mornings, feed them and take their rugs off, and I will drop by just before dark to put the rugs back on.  We intend to ride in the middle of the day, when temperatures are at their warmest - in fact, we're hoping to ride them for the first time today.
I can't wait to share pictures of their feet, they are so much better in the dry conditions here!  Hopefully we'll do a post on that tomorrow - non barefoot fiends can skip it!!

Cookie and Cinnamon have settled well into the house and quickly discovered where the best "bed" was :

They're getting on fine with Poppie, the resident canine.  Cookie has had a couple of grumpy moments with her, so Poppie is not 100% comfortable with her, but at the same time, Cookie is trying very hard to get her to play.  I'm sure within a couple of days, they'll be the best of buddies.  Cinnamon is in a constant state of "grumpy granny" dog, and growls ferociously whenever Poppie tries to make friends.  I think they will end up mostly ignoring each other, which will suit Cinny just fine!
Unfortunately, my dogs are not getting on so well with the resident felines!  Within minutes of our arrival, Cookie had chased Squeak, one of the cats, around the dining room.  The sensible cat nipped out through the cat flap and took refuge outside.  We were quite sure that Cookie wouldn't fit through the cat flap, so when she stuck her nose through it and Squeak scragged it for her, we thought "serves her right" and assumed she would back off.  But no, she is part Jack Russell, after all, and she quickly dived straight through, no trouble at all, and had a merry five minutes pursuing the cat around the courtyard while George and I tried to catch her.
So then we had the bright idea of closing the cat flap, so that Cookie couldn't go through it any more.  This worked fine, until Smudge, the second cat, appeared.  Cookie launched herself at him, Cinny thought this was a great idea and joined in.  Poor Smudge made a dive for the cat-flap, bounced off it and did a sort of "wall-of-death" run around the room, pursued by two hysterical terriers, eventually taking refuge on top of one of the cupboards.
So now, both cats were seriously spooked, and reluctant to show their faces.  We kept Cookie on her lead for the rest of the evening, but the two cats stayed in hiding.
We resolved to make a huge effort to keep Cookie restrained for the duration of our stay, but things went amiss early the following morning.  The dogs had just been fed, so Cookie was off-leash, when Squeak appeared again.  She quickly realised her mistake and dived through the cat-flap (open, thankfully) with Cookie in hot pursuit.  Once in the courtyard, Cookie lost sight of her, and while she ran around the outer section, the cat strolled up to the kitchen door.  I had another of those bright ideas, and thought I'd open the door to let her through.  Unfortunately, I forgot that Cinnamon was at my feet, and instead of the Squeak coming in, Cinny dashed out and helped Cookie chase her up into the rafters of the shed.
Another terrorised cat... or should that be terrierised?
It looks like we'll end up with the cats in hiding during the day, and free to roam at night when the dogs are locked up in our bedroom.  We'll have to be much more vigilant with Cookie in general.  Hopefully the cats will grow in confidence if we manage to keep her restrained.