Flax age 14.

And long may he be evergreen:)

For reasons I may, sometime, go into – if I can ever truely explain it – Flax was, pretty much, retired aged 8. Today, he turned 14 and he and I enjoyed a ride, with a friend and her Highland pony Chester.

We wandered up the old and disused railway line that runs between West Bay and Maiden Newton and we scrambled through to the Powerstock to Eggardon lane and walked up past Whetley and Kings farm. We saw few cars, after the initial melee – below the woods at the ‘they-don’t -call-it Look Out Corner- for nothing’ – which we survived, with humour.

Sliding down the flinty path with all of Lyme Bay picked out in blues, ahead of us; and looking inland, to Pilsdon Pen and Beaminster – where West Dorset, showed her best lacy petticoats, of cowparsley, beneath the thick green silken dress of grass. We four just stared into the view – what else can you do?

Flax, for all his raw, youthful, energy remains an untapped resource for me – those years ‘off’  -of wishing we could be free to roam – seem light years behind us, somehow; yet I don’t know what changed. I showed up and so did he – and suddenly for no apparent or specific reason we are free. Free to ride away any time we choose. Happy Days.