Another ride, Another walk

Today, Saturday, is the Youngest Daughter's last day here, so we had one last hack out together.  Yesterday I rode with S and Ugoline, leaving Flurry's boots off.  We were out for about an hour, mostly on the roads as the ground was pretty slippery everywhere, and Flurry felt pretty good - a bit lazy, but not lame in any way.
Flurry was barefoot once again today, and he felt great the whole time except for a short spell near home, when we were descending on a stony lane.  I'm really pleased with how good his feet are, but I don't expect him to be able to trek full-time without his Renegade boots.
He is also much fitter now, and is hardly sweating at all on the shorter hacks.  Of course, he's lost a lot of hair too, which helps.  I attempted to make another Flurry (called Furry) out of his hair, but to be honest, I think it looks more like a Golden Retriever :

Maybe Furry could be an Assistance Dog someday?

YD and Pepite

The only incident on the hack involved three men on dirt-bikes.  We heard them long before we saw them, and we were disappointed to see them turn up the lane we were on.  We were both fairly relaxed, though, as we were passing an unfenced field, and there was plenty of space to get off the road.  We were delighted when all three bikers stopped and turned off their engines - how kind is that!!  I thanked them and wished them bonne route, and carried on.  They waited ages after we had passed before starting their engines again, but it still wasn't long enough, especially when they all revved their bikes really hard!  Both horses did a fair old scatter, but calmed down just as fast, thankfully!

So the YD said goodbye to Pepite (a little sadly) and the cavalry saddle (less sadly) and we headed into Apt for a flying visit to the market.  It was the busiest we'd ever seen it, it's Easter weekend, of course, and the tourist season is really getting going now.
After a quick lunch, we headed back to Colorado Provencal with the LSH.  We'd been raving about the colours and the walks, and we thought he'd enjoy it too.  Of course we knew he would take ages to walk around, given that he'd be stopping every two minutes to take photos, so our plan was to do the "three hour" walk as fast as possible and then do one of the shorter walks.

We whizzed around the first circuit in an hour, recharged with beer, coke and water and allowed the LSH to catch up with us.  Then we went around the second ("two hour") circuit, a bit slower I have to admit.  My legs were beginning to complain (it was pretty hilly) and indeed felt a bit jellyish towards the end, but we did it - a total of roughly 9km, in about an hour and three quarters.

The YD and the hyper-terriers enjoying the view at Colorado Provencal

Yippee, I'm fitter too!

Anne arrives back tomorrow (Sunday) but too late to ride.  We're planning on a fairly easy hack on Monday, but on Tuesday, we're doing a sort of dress rehearsal for Le Big Trek.  We're riding to a friend's house near Apt - the distance is approx 18km, over mixed terrain. It should give us a chance to think of other essential items we need to have in our saddle bags, and it should also give us a really good indication of the sort of distances we will be capable of covering when we officially start on Thursday.

Four days to go!