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David and I intended to go for a reasonably long walk today, somewhere away from the Forest but it didn't work out quite like that. We decided to go and 'do' the horses on the way, and luckily we did. With Blue and Pie in a separate field, I was flummoxed for a little minute to find only five horses in the other field. Someone was missing! Henrietta is normally first up the field to hunt for Barleyrings but there was no sign of her anywhere.
Knowing that most supposedly lost or stolen horses (or mules?) are found upside down in a ditch in their own fields, I walked the boundaries of our field several times, and the adjoining ones, to make sure she wasn't stuck anywhere, and all I could find was a suspiciously mule-shaped hole in the fencing next to the old pony pound. Someone had gone walkabout and thank goodness it was someone who knew her way around, makes friends easily and doesn't play with the traffic. Nevertheless, David and I spent a very nervous afternoon looking for her down the driftway, in the inclosure, over at a local farmer's, on the green and on the plain. Not a single sighting and just my special 'come-on!' yodel echoing across the Forest.
Finally we had to give up, and having given this ignominius news to the local Agister whose never been exactly keen on me, and a few Commoners, I went home to alert my neighbour and the Verderers' Office. Marvellous Nathalie went back up the field just ten minutes later to find a smug mule waiting outside the field having had the time of her life on her Forest excursion. Nathalie told me that as she was knocking in the nails in the fallen rail, Henrietta appeared to be sizing it up again in case she fancied another night on the tiles.
Old photograph: we didn't catch a single glimpse of her in four and a half hours! I am writing this with gritted teeth.
