HORSE RESCUE

MY two boys when younger there now 16 and 20, they were dressed for the village fete fancy dress comp , don't worry this is not normal dress for Yorkshire Children , they came second and third , the clown out fit took ages to make... the things us mums do.

A case of neglect the RSPCA should know about!

I got the saddle and bridle and loads of kind free advice from rocking horse restorers and makers Stevenson Bross ,they make fab horses and are often featured in country living.
my dappled old beauty made about 1890
At least some one rides DO Do, they often canter round the Green!!!


This morning the fire brigade were practicing water rescue at the waterfalls near my house It was very entertaining and a pleasure to watch as 8 firemen in Wetsuits do there bay watch routine!!, and as I plodded around with the furry babies in the LOOOVELY sunshine ,I began to ponder on the old question " what would you save if ( god forbid) you had a fire" ... I thought I would do a monthly post on my most treasured possessions,.the thing's I would rescue , of cause after my family, human and animal, in a fire , first up ... My rocking horse. When my two boys were small I really wanted them to to have a rocking horse , I had a real pony when I was little ,but never a rocking horse, and I wanted my boys to have some thing to remember and treasure and to hopefully to be come a heirloom to pass down the family.( I often have my rose tinted glasses on) old antique horses were out of the reach of my budget and my boys were two and six at the time and I was a stay at home mum, but then I found a rather ramshackle antiques center just out side Dundee ( we were living in fife ,Scotland at the time ) and in a old shed I found a rather distressed rocking horse ,It was still a little beyond my budget , but I rambled on to the elderly man about my rocking horse dream , he knocked a load off it price wise , and he said I could pay for it over three months, and he let me take there and then! how trusting was that.. he had never seen me before. So I took it home with the daunting task of renovating it in secret for Christmas for the boys present .We lived in an lovely old house rented from a big country estate ( my husband was.. is .. in The RAF and we have lived in 17 homes in 26 years, I have refused to live in married quarters so we have rented and bought all over this country ,more of this latter) Any way luckily the loft was huge, and its where I worked. I bought a book on rocking horse Restoration and over several weeks I kept disappeared in to the loft Or the stables as D and I called it to work on the horse . Several times I nearly poisoned my self with fumes off shellac ( vanish) etc I used . The boys asked why mummy spent so much time in the loft and D told them I went up there to meditate, Apparently at play school eldest son told his teacher I went up into the loft to medicate.... !!!... she always looked on me with suspicion after this... Any way Christmas morning came we hid horse under blanket and tied bows on it.... at right moment daa derrr.... They were totally under whelmed , they rode it a bit and used to pretend they were knights and stab him with there swords but on the whole it was,nt there bag..., I swiftly came to the conclusion rocking horses are a girls passion , friends with girls come to the house and they love it, comb the main ,feed it custard creams , and bestow affection, .... any way I love Do Do, the boys named it( why Do Do ? think it has boyish rude humour involved but name stuck!!!!!) , and I treasure him( he looks like a boy!) and I will just have to hope for grand daughters in future ...