Family life in the Dutch side of my family revolves around looking after the four horses. The horses are all getting on, in fact they age between 16 and 38. The photo below is of Odin the pony, he’s the oldest and he had a bit of a cold that day but it cleared up fine. You definitely don’t want to stand too close to a horse with the sniffles!

It’s unusual for horses to live well into their 30s but these ones are so well looked after that it has prolonged their lives. They’re stabled every night and whenever it’s chilly, if they had lived outside on icy fields they would have succumbed to ill health long ago. Tara, the only mare and tending to fat as mares do, needed to have her hooves trimmed and my niece Kirsty went on a course to learn how to do it herself. Unfortunately you can’t see her properly, they are action photos, it’s hard and dangerous work.

Kirsty has her mum Hanneke helping to hold Tara as still as possible, but she lost patience for a minute there.

It’s a family effort when Kirsty’s dad – my brother John – steps in to help to smooth off the edges using a rasp.

Jack and I stood well clear of it all, outwith kicking distance anyway! Those horses are really big and I have a sneaking suspicion that horses resent ‘being in captivity’ and really hanker after running free and independent. Odin makes escape bids every now and again, despite his great age and the life of Riley that he leads.