Diary of a 21st Century nobody - Helping out.

riding boots

I love the fact that my child has an all-consuming hobby. I love the fact that she is so 'into' horses that, as well as riding regularly, she now wants to volunteer to assist at the riding stables too. That is real dedication: whatever the weather, twice a week she comes in from school, races upstairs to get changed into her riding clothes and leaves the house without having anything to eat or drink, and spends her evening tacking up, untacking, grooming and feeding the horses and ponies, as well as mucking out their stables and assisting younger riders in their lessons. She returns home cold, muddy and happy! And that, apparently, is just how she likes it.

In fact, it's how I like it too. There was just one issue....

her riding boots were so covered in mud and muck that it was becoming a real problem, especially in the winter, getting them dried, cleaned and polished before her next lesson. As a result, they were becoming very shabby. So, as a treat for all her hard work, I bought her some full-length, waterproof 'yard' or 'mucking out' boots purpose built for working on a stable yard. She was delighted, and I was certain that for her they were a huge improvement. However, they did raise a new issue....These boots are so tight-fitting that she simply cannot remove them from her feet without assistance, and it has become Mum's task to meet her at the doorstep and,with tissues to protect my hands, grip the filthy articles and twist and pull them off her feet - a job I have to TWICE (as she, naturally, has 2 feet!!). This creates an amusing, if messy, tableau; so far I have a) pulled her off the step and onto the pavement, b) been caught out by a rapidly ejected boot which hit me in the chest (muck and all!) as it flew off her foot,and c) slipped on an icy surface as I pulled them off and ended up in a heap in the snow! We do laugh about it, but have both been hurt, too. It has become a bizarre routine that whenever she works at the stables I get a dirty as she does!

 

muddy riding boots

wet wellies

mucking out

 

Then, last night, on a wet, cold 'filthy' evening she walked straight indoors without waiting for me to go out and help her. Fearful of all that muck and mud getting on my floors, I ran to the front door to meet her with " Wait, wait, my floors; mud; horse muck" (or something along those lines!). She simply turned to me and smiled sweetly saying "Oh, don't worry, my boots are clean." And, indeed, they were! "How come?" I asked. "Well, I hosed them down before we finished" she replied. "Oh, have they got a wash facility for you now? Great idea." I enthused. She turned to me with a puzzled look on her face "No," she stated sweetly "there's always been a hosepipe to clean your boots with. I just couldn't be bothered to do it before now"....... All those weeks outside in the freezing cold, covered in horse muck and mud from her boots because she 'couldn't be bothered'?? AAAGGGHH

 

 

 

Comments

If you have registered on the site you can login to view 0 comment(s) on this page.

Post Comment

If you have registered on the site you can login to post a comment on this page.


Website design by ReZolve. An SSIDM website - v2.9.010d [2]. Loaded in 0.0469 seconds.