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Rode Tommy. The flies are bad. The horses stand at the gate nodding as if in complete agreement at how much they need shade and the land, rain. As ever, I love Tommy almost more than I can bear, and tell him so. He’s on the verge of being too handsome. His silk nose, his glinty eye, the way he understands everything. He follows me in from the field, a headcollar without rope, he considers being led beneath him, which it is. Only at the road where he’d prefer to munch the verges than cross into the yard do I grab him, though I wonder if I just left him completely whether he’d eventually follow, the urge to be a herd, his friends already clip clopping away to be tied up and tacked, stronger than his love of cowslips.

We did the easy shaded road and forest paths up the top, cool and free of horseflies. T told me of another accident, this time with her leg, but in the exact same spot, a bridleway we avoided. A low branch, a narrow squeeze and her knee got caught. It makes me wince just to hear it. Again, she was lucky. It could have been so much worse. A week or so ago she’d been riding alone, not a crazy windy day but a bit of a breeze. Up the track from the farm road, Teddy plodding along. The next thing she knew she was on her back on the ground, one boot in a tree, Teddy staring down at her, Ronnie on her chest licking her face and Syd howling beside her. She looked at her watch and figured out she’d lost 40 minutes. This is what she pieced together: a branch had cracked and crashed upon the back of her head, knocking out cold. She’d fallen but the safety on her leather had failed and her foot, which had caught in the stirrup, turned her upside down and remained there, attached to the saddle as Teddy took off at a gallop and she was dragged, head and shoulders battering along the ground. Eventually, and praise be that she hadn’t bashed her head clean off, her foot had slipped out of her boot, the boot now free of foot had hurtled into the branches of a nearby tree and Teddy had stopped. How long she’d lain there, the dogs and horse thinking she was surely dead was anyone’s guess, but it was likely 30 minutes or more.

She managed to get them all back to the yard where she called her man who picked her up, but she being a nurse and therefore the most irresponsible and belligerent of patients, she did what you’re absolutely not supposed to do and insisted on taking two paracetamols and going to bed. Hells bells. She told me she said to J, If I start snoring funny, call an ambulance. Jeez.

And then a few days ago on the same track trying to lay the ghost of the accident, she caught her leg and nearly ripped the knee from the socket. We’re all, without saying it, keeping our eyes out for Event Number Three. May it be so minor as to count but do no harm. T has worked in ED trauma for many years. She says if she doesn’t keep her wits about her, sometimes the burns victims she cared for who didn’t make it through will pop out from behind the trees.

Eleanor

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