Christmas for us horsey folk isn’t quite the holiday that everyone else seems to experience. When we hear our less horsey companions looking forward to the Christmas break, we know this isn’t quite the case for us. I am by no means a grinch, in fact the complete opposite — I LOVE Christmas, but yard duties are still to be done, and horses are still to be ridden!
I’m sure anyone with a yard to run will empathise with me about the fact that Christmas is a time when anyone working on a yard wants some well-earned time off — cue a yard full of horses and just me to do them. With all the family that we seem to fill Puttenham with between Christmas and New Year, this to me didn’t seem like it would be a problem. Lots of guests means lots of extra helping hands — as the saying goes ‘Many hands make light work’. Well, whoever came up with that saying hadn’t try to make light work of Christmas with the Binghams! There was much to do around the house to prepare: spud peeling, sprout chopping (you all the know the drill), combined with the sound of the wind and the rain outside, meant that my little helpers seemed to shy away into their warm mulled-wine corners!
Read more here
