Buried alive in mud!

I think Mum is loosing the plot having abandoned me for a week, while she went off to look at Zippy's homeland - supposedly Zippy is an Irish cob, not that it says anything such thing in her passport!  Mum says it was for work, but I have had a look through her phone, now do these pictures look like she was working????

OK, maybe this one does, but it still looks far too much like fun and not hard work at all!

Anyway I digress, back to Mum's craziness.  Now she says its adventurous to go on our expeditions and its exciting, personally I think she is starting to take me on suicide missions.  I haven't told you about the cow episode (mental note will tell you another time) but today fresh from not being ridden for a week it was decided we would do a fittening ride up the road along the track and back.  OK I was up for that.  I set off at a smart pace, happily trotted long sections of the road until we got to the top. Then it all started to go very wrong!

Mr sheep man and his dogs were moving the nosiest set of sheep I have ever heard and annoyingly he was taking them towards the track Mum and I wanted to go along.  OK, so we quickly reformulated a new plan, go up the hill instead.  So up we went through the gate like usual, now the next section is steep and muddy, so Mum in her wisdom (not) decided the ground to the left with bright green grass looked better than the muddy slope we normally climb - how wrong could she be!

It's only about a 10m stretch from the bottom to the top of this section and I found myself all too quickly knee high in mud, then thigh high, and then tummy deep.  Errrr Mum I don't think this is the right route to take.  I did not panic, we took a moment to assess the situation, Mum considered getting off (but hey Mum we don't want to get your boots and chaps dirty do we!) and then stayed on.  I thought about turning around, Mum thought about that too and in the end we decided to push on. It's one of the few times I have wished I had longer legs, but we made it out of the depths and to the top of the bank - phew, definitely time to catch my breath!

You can see from the picture below the mud tide-line on me, I was seriously that deep in mud.  Mum so was proud of me to get us both out safely and I didn't even loose a shoe!

And still there was more drama, well nearly, so once on top of the bank Mum decided a little canter around the bottom field would be better than going up the steep track - just in case the crazy cows were around - ohhh Mum how wrong AGAIN!  The cows were in the bottom field, this required some serious stamping and snorting (from me) and slowly and quietly Mum and me turned around and crept away - neither of us could cope with the drama of being chased again - not this morning anyway.

After that I decided to take control we headed left over the hills to avoid having to go down the muddy track and had a nice canter there and back before carefully walking down the hill back to the road and trotting most of the road home to get some very well deserved tea and all before 8am!

Definitely time for a nap and a snack.