The favoured left foot.

What a morning!

Got up nice and early, found Tarka still laying down so I got him to his feet and very slowly led him to his stall. He couldn't bear any weight on his left hind but seems tender on his left front too. Poor little fella. I 'locked him up' for the day and gave him a small feed with a whole sachet of bute (pain killer) to keep him comfortable until the vet arrives this afternoon. He likes to stand in the stall when his feet are sore, the wood chip is quite springy and must be a nice surface to stand on. It breaks my heart leaving my babies when they're like this, fortunately with the hours that I work and the hours that Sam works the family is only on their own for about 5 hours a day. It is a catch 22 situation, you have to go to work to earn the money to pay for their care but at the same time you just want to lavish them with attention and sympathy when they're not feeling 100%.

When I stepped into the gypsy shed I was met with the horse feed bin on its side and grain all over the floor. I cleaned it up as much as possible and then carried on with the morning ritual.

As things always seems to go wrong all at once I soon discovered that the combination lock on the tackroom had given up and wouldn't let me in, so after several minutes of cursing I decided to prop the lock up on a rock and smack it with a sledgehammer which granted me instant entry!

Next I checked everyone else outside and they all seem ok, thank heavens.

Went back down to the house to see how Hoby was getting on. Last night's late night hobble to the house broke my heart. Hoby is such a trooper, he hopped on three legs to the house and presented his swollen left paw for me to look at. Straight away I knew the problem. He'd snapped a toenail off pretty close to the quick on Friday night, it wasn't close enough to bleed but it must have been close enough to let some nasty bugs in. He'd not favoured it at all over the weekend but being so muddy around home at the moment it was inevitable that he was going to get mud in it, so an infection has broken out in the 'toe'. It took a few tries before I got hold of the vet to book Hoby in for the day and Tarka in for the afternoon. Hoby needs to be sedated for anything medical related, he's become quite intollerant of poking and prodding in his old age.

I got ready for work, shovelled in a spoonful of chocolate gateaux birthday cake (and I wonder why I'm not skinny!) before grabbing Hoby and loading him into the car. I opened Sheamus's gate on the way past and he made a beeline right for the gypsy shed to take care of the horse feed spill. No amount of persuasion could get him out of there so I secured the other bins as best I could, wondered when he'd learn't how to climb into the gypsy shed and rushed off, now running late. In all the excitement I completely forgot that I'd grabbed the horses' halters and had them in my car, what a ditz!

On the drive to the clinic there was a road block and a policeman standing in the middle of the road asked me if I had any children. I replied with a simple 'no' but felt like saying, I have pets and sometimes I wonder which are more work.

Hoby went into the vet clinic without any reservations and I had to sign a form that said I understand that Hoby might cark it whilst under sedation/ anaesthesia, that's always a sobering moment, I felt such a massive sense of detatchment from my boy as I drive away from the clinic chocking on tears.