5 th February 2012

Woke up to much more snow than I had expected, if you can use a rain gauge to measure snow we had just over 2 inches. Once we'd sorted out the horses and cleared the snow away I headed out sledging with the children and Sophie. Having got sufficiently cold and wet we decided to go to the Kings Head in Bledington. Archie Or Ewing has the Kings Head in Bledington and The Swan in Swinbrook, both pubs are great. Archie and I were in the pony club together, we both did a fair bit of trethalon, Archie was an amazing shoot, he always scored near on the maximum of 1000. After a lovely lunch we walked the dogs before evening stables.

When we have a freeze up I am paranoid about burst pipes and not to disappoint we had one! The pipes on the farm are very old and one always splits or breaks completely, today's broke completely and flooded only one stable. Last year we flooded 10. Not only is it a huge pain it is very expensive as all the shaving end up on the muck up with new going in. If you work on the basis that it takes 10 - 12 bags at £6.00 / bag a burst pipe cost me a minimum of £60.00 for every flooded stable.

Thank god for Sky plus, I thoroughly enjoyed the Wales v Ireland match and felt for the Irish as the penalty given against them in the last 3 minuets in my mind wasn't justified. They we penalised for a dangerous tackle and that cost them the game. It maybe that I am able to watch plenty more of the tournament with the weather forecast and p2ps next weekend have no change if the weather doesn't change.