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A wetland revival

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Editorial team
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How Dorset Wildlife Trust is restoring ponds, protecting species and tackling biodiversity loss with the help of the Species Survival Fund

Dorset wetland.
Image: Steve Oliver

Dorset Wildlife Trust received government funding last year to revitalise over 500 hectares of habitats – including woodlands and ponds – across 18 sites in Dorset. The funding, part of the Species Survival Fund, aims to halt and reverse the decline in species abundance by preserving vital habitats and creating nature-rich landscapes.
The UK’s rain-soaked landscapes provide ideal conditions for wetlands – dynamic ecosystems where water meets dry land. These habitats support a rich diversity of species, including dragonflies, damselflies, wading birds such as curlew and snipe, carnivorous plants, and fluttering butterflies. Historically, wetlands covered a substantial part of the UK landscape. Before Roman times, as much as 25 per cent of the British Isles may have been wetlands. However, modern development, agriculture, and drainage have drastically reduced their extent, leaving them to cover just three per cent of the UK today.
Wetlands are vital ecosystems, yet many in Dorset and across the UK are in decline or poor condition. Dorset Wildlife Trust is working to expand and revitalise wetlands across several of its nature reserves with government support.

Great crested newt in Dorset.
Image: John Bridges

Understanding wetlands
Wetlands are dynamic ecosystems, varying in size and shape, and defined by the presence of water – still or flowing – for extended periods. They may contain freshwater, brackish, acidic, or saltwater and act as vital transitional zones between land and water. Their distinctive soils and vegetation are specially adapted to saturated conditions.
Healthy wetlands provide critical benefits, including carbon storage, flood mitigation and rich plant life that offers shelter, nurseries and breeding grounds for wildlife.
As environmental challenges intensify, restoring and protecting wetlands is vital for biodiversity and human wellbeing.
Through the Species Survival Fund project, Dorset Wildlife Trust is working to restore and create new wetlands across nine of its nature reserves, including Brownsea Island, Lyscombe, Peascombe, and Nunnery Mead. This network will help wildlife move across the landscape, meeting their needs during different life stages and seasons.
One example is Brooklands Farm, Dorset Wildlife Trust’s headquarters, where a well-established pond is home to great crested newts, a protected species. Maintaining such habitats is essential, as ponds can quickly become overgrown with vegetation. To ensure light reaches the water’s surface and encourages aquatic plant growth, willows around the pond edge are carefully pruned. This work is timed for late autumn and winter to minimise disturbance, ensuring it takes place after the breeding season and once juvenile newts have migrated to land.
The clearance has reduced the number of dominating species around the pond edge, allowing a variety of other, less aggressive, plant species to flourish, including marginals such as native water-forget-me-nots which are already present but need a helping hand to become more established.
These provide a great place for species like the great crested newt to lay their eggs, and when in flower add a splash of colour to pond edges.
This intervention is needed because, before humans changed our landscapes by parcelling up land with boundaries, wild ponds would have a diverse mix of wildlife coming to their edges to drink, feed, bathe and hunt. The larger mammals visiting would trample and graze the vegetation, maintaining the open areas of the pond edge. Wetland restoration and creation, then, combined with traditional habitat management techniques, are crucial for preserving biodiversity, improving water quality, and mitigating climate change in Dorset. Success relies on collaborative efforts between government bodies, conservation organisations and local communities.

Restoration of Dorset wetland in progress.
Image: Brian Bleese

The Species Survival Fund initiative is funded by the Government’s Species Survival Fund, developed by Defra and its Arm’s-Length Bodies. It is delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.

Love in triangles – the Bloomsbury set in Dorset

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Editorial team
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Photograph of the participants in The Dreadnought Hoax

Dorothy Parker famously said of the Bloomsbury Group that “they painted in circles, lived in squares, and loved in triangles.” While this group of writers, artists, and intellectuals was based in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, they often ventured beyond London – particularly to Dorset, and especially to Studland.
The group’s core consisted of sisters Virginia Woolf, the writer, and Vanessa Bell, the painter. Around them were economist John Maynard Keynes, novelist EM Forster, post-impressionist painter Duncan Grant, art critic Roger Fry and biographer Lytton Strachey. The spouses – art critic Clive Bell and essayist Leonard Woolf – were also integral. Many in the group were bisexual and had numerous affairs, rejecting Victorian conventions in favour of bohemian ideals that prioritised personal relationships and individual pleasure.
Virginia and Vanessa’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, first brought them to Lyme Regis in 1901. They returned to Studland with friends in 1909, perhaps inspired by Stephen’s work editing one of Thomas Hardy’s novels. For Virginia, who struggled with bouts of severe depression, the trips offered respite from London.
The new train service to Swanage brought many artists to Purbeck for the first time, drawn by its dramatic coastline and downlands dotted with clay pits and prehistoric barrows. Dorset artist John Everett encouraged his contemporaries from the Slade School of Fine Art to visit. Inspired by the area, the Stephen sisters often brought their friends along.
In a 1909 letter from Studland, Virginia wrote: ‘Julian rushes straight into the sea. Nessa tucks her skirt up. Clive dives from a boat in a tight black suit. Yesterday I hired a gentleman’s – it was bi-sexual – bathing dress, and swam far out, until the seagulls played over my head.’

The Dreadnought Hoax
In 1910, Virginia and Vanessa returned to Dorset with friends, including Horace de Vere Cole, who was known for his
elaborate pranks. At the time, there was a rivalry between the officers of HMS Hawke and
HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy’s flagship stationed at Portland. A friend from the Hawke joked to Cole: ‘Couldn’t you do something to pull the leg of the Dreadnought? They want taking down a bit.’
Taking up the challenge, Cole and his friends staged one of the most famous hoaxes in British history. Disguised as Abyssinian royals – complete with blackface, turbans and robes – they tricked the Navy into giving them an honour-guarded tour of the Dreadnought. Unable to find an Abyssinian flag, the Navy used Zanzibar’s flag instead and played its anthem.
Throughout the tour, the group communicated in a mix of Latin and Greek gibberish, punctuated by cries of “Bunga, bunga!” De Vere Cole ensured the prank gained national attention by sending photos and an account of their escapade to the Daily Mirror. While the Navy was humiliated and threatened the hoaxers with symbolic caning, no real punishment followed and Virginia later drew on the experience for her short story,
A Society.

Cliff End Villa in Studland – still a holiday cottage today, it was rented by Lady Ottoline Morrell during Easter 1911.
Here, she began her affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell

The War changed all
In 1911, Vanessa and Virginia stayed at Harmony Cottages in Studland with Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry. Both Fry and Vanessa painted scenes from their holiday – and began an affair. Fry’s Studland Bay, one of the first post-impressionist paintings by an English artist, used simplified forms and mosaic-like shapes. Vanessa’s Studland Beach reflected similar influences, particularly Matisse, with its bold colours, rhythmic lines and simplified forms. The painting is often regarded as a visual equivalent to her sister’s experimental literary work, To the Lighthouse.
The sisters were also active in the women’s rights movement. Vanessa captured a leading suffragist on Studland Beach holding a Votes for Women pamphlet, highlighting the political undercurrents of their time.
Lady Ottoline Morrell rented Cliff End Villa in Studland during Easter 1911. There, she began an affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell, exchanging more than 2,000 love letters.
In her open marriage, Lady Ottoline was unafraid to take other lovers.
Leonard Woolf married Virginia in 1912, though their relationship remained platonic. Vanessa once observed that Virginia “never had understanding or sympathised with sexual passion in men.”
The group returned to Dorset in 1913, but with the outbreak of the First World War, the Bloomsbury Group retreated to Charleston in Sussex. There were still visits to Dorset, such as when Virginia and Leonard saw Thomas Hardy at Max Gate in 1926 – but the visits were more sporadic.
The Crichel Boys
After the Second World War, Dorset welcomed a new bohemian circle echoing the Bloomsbury spirit. Three “hyphenated gentlemen-aesthetes” – Eddy Sackville-West, Eardley Knollys and Desmond Shawe-Taylor – bought Crichel House on Cranborne Chase. Bed-hopping was de rigueur at their bohemian weekends of croquet and connoisseurship, recreating some of the intellectual atmosphere of the pre-war Bloomsbury set.
Guests included Duncan Grant, EM Forster and Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s former lover. Vanessa Bell painted at Crichel House but Virginia was no longer part of these gatherings, having taken her own life in 1941, during the Second World War.
by Rupert Hardy
The Tate has a fascinating gallery of images available to view, all taken by Vanessa Bell during the 1910 stay on Studland.

The inviting taste of a savoury cake

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Editorial team
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We British are renowned for our sweet cakes – but it took a French cook to create some savoury alternatives

Fanny Charles’ savoury courgette, gouda and parsley cake, recipe opposite

From Mary Berry and Delia Smith to the creative and exotic creations of the Great British Bake Off, we British have a lifelong love affair with cakes. The BV’s own Heather Brown regularly provides inspiration with her always-reliable and easy-to-follow recipes for beautiful and delicious cakes, buns and other bakes.
We are also really good at pies, tarts and cheesecakes – savoury and sweet. And we do make carrot cake, courgette cake or beetroot brownies … but these are all sweet. What we don’t have is a tradition of savoury cakes.
Last year, at a buffet lunch given by a friend who is a brilliant cook, we were introduced to savoury cakes and instantly fell in love. Light, delicious and very attractive, they are full of colourful vegetables like peppers, tomatoes and courgettes. Our friend loaned us a book, Les Cakes de Sophie*, by French baker and cookery writer Sophie Dudemaine, from where she had selected her recipes. I have been experimenting with them ever since.

Savoury cakes are quick, easy to make, most cook in less than 40 minutes and they are fairly inexpensive in terms of ingredients.
You can eat them hot and fresh from the oven, perhaps with a bright chilli, tomato and herb salsa or a favourite sauce. But they are just as good at room temperature, with a salad.
They are fine for vegetarians, but less so for vegans, as they do depend on fresh eggs and a selection of good cheeses (however, with a bit of trial and error and a good vegan cheese substitute, you probably could make a satisfactory vegan version).
Our current favourite is a date, feta and sun-dried tomato cake – it looks pretty and it tastes delicious. It’s great with a peppery green salad, and also good as a quick lunchtime snack or sliced to have in the car on a long drive.
This flexible use is what you might expect – most traditional English cakes (not the fancy, iced and decorated ones) are portable and versatile.
But with their colourful ingredients – some can even be layered like a terrine – the savoury cakes are also an appealing feature on a party table.

Anglo-Saxon cake
Over more than 20 years, Sophie Dudemaine has made her name as a successful cookbook author, cookery teacher, baker and pioneer of the so-called “easy cooking” trend in France. She ran a cookery school, restaurant and bed and breakfast in Normandy. She is a prolific writer and many of her books focus on cakes both sweet and savoury – she has acknowledged that some of her inspiration derives from the Anglo-Saxon style of cakes.
Most of the savoury cake recipes follow a simple formula of flour, eggs, sunflower oil, warmed semi-skimmed milk and gruyere cheese, with other cheeses, herbs, vegetables, smoked salmon or prawns for the different cakes. Like most basic recipes, you can tweak and embroider the original combination to suit your tastes. The quantities are pretty flexible too.
You could also experiment using your own preferred basic sweet cake recipe – using, for example, a simple sponge mix of 100g butter, 2 or 3 eggs (depending on size) and 100g self-raising flour, but omitting the usual sugar. As with a basic sweet cake recipe, you can multiply the quantities to make a larger cake.
Cooking times may vary – check that your cake is cooked by inserting a skewer in the middle. The mixture is more like a batter than a typical sweet cake, so you may have to experiment with timings. But if the skewer comes out clean, the cake should be ready. If it’s not quite ready but is getting too brown, cover it with a piece of greaseproof paper or foil.
Above is the recipe for our courgette and cheese savoury cake, which starts with Sophie’s core mix of flour, eggs, oil and milk. You can vary this basic recipe with whatever takes your fancy – eg substitute stoned dates, cut in three or four pieces, for the courgette, and use as many as you want, remembering that dates are very sweet; replace the gouda/gruyere with roughly cut up feta, and use a few more tomatoes, but omit the parsley (you could use a few torn fresh basil leaves, if you have them).
*The cookbook is in French, but with the power of Google Translate at our fingertips this isn’t a problem!

Courgette, gouda and parsley savoury cake
Makes 8 to 10 slices

Set oven to 180ºF, Gas 4
Line a loaf tin or square tin (the size you would use for brownies) with greaseproof paper – there is no need to grease the tin.

  • 150g self-raising flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 13ml warmed semi-skimmed milk
  • 10ml sunflower oil
  • 150g grated firm courgette (skin on)
  • 150g grated gouda (or gruyere)
  • 50-60g sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, very roughly chopped
  • Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped
  • Grated farmhouse Cheddar for topping

Gently mix the flour and eggs together until fully combined. Then stir in the warmed milk, thoroughly, and then the sunflower oil. At this stage it is a very loose batter. Grate the courgette and fold it in, grate the cheese and mix that in, and then stir in the chopped sun-dried tomatoes – fold them in gently – and finally the parsley.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and put in the oven. After about 15-20 minutes, check on its progress, and then sprinkle on a generous amount of finely grated Cheddar. The cake should be ready after a total of about 30 to 35 minutes, but timings depend on the shape of the baking tin – if it is a deep loaf tin it will take longer than a square brownie tin.

No safety net for Dorset’s lifelines

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Editorial team
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Edward Morello MP for West Dorset

Happy New Year! I hope this finds you well rested and full of cheese after the Christmas break. I’ll admit I was somewhat looking forward to Parliament coming back – it feels like there is a lot to do in 2025.
Already this week I’ve been speaking in Parliament about the devastating impact the Government’s planned increase to National Insurance Contributions (NIC) will have on West Dorset’s charities – especially our hospices. Weldmar Hospicecare is well known to West Dorset residents as a provider of specialist end-of-life care to patients in their own home, as well as at their inpatient unit in Dorchester. It does fantastic work.
NHS Dorset has notified Weldmar of a £400,000 reduction in Fast Track Funding from April. This cut, in addition to the National Insurance increase, along with ever-rising demand for their services locally, will create an additional financial burden of £600,000 this year.
Weldmar already subsidises 60 per cent of its NHS-commissioned care using charitable funds, but it is not sustainable or acceptable for charities to fill these gaps. The reality is these costs will result in Weldmar being able to support fewer people at the most critical moments in their lives.
Julia’s House, another well-known local charity, which provides care for seriously ill children in West Dorset, faces similarly dire consequences.
Only eight per cent of its income comes from the Government, making it one of the least-supported hospices in the country. The NIC increase alone will cost Julia’s House an additional £242,000 per year: yet their commissioning contract with Dorset ICB has increased by just 0.6 per cent, a rate far below inflation and the 5.5 per cent NHS pay award.
This inevitably means significant cuts to the amount of care available for those at end of life.
Charities like Weldmar and Julia’s House play a critical role in alleviating pressure on the NHS in Dorset. They provide care in our community, reduce avoidable hospital admissions, and support families in their darkest hours.
The Liberal Democrats are campaigning hard to get the government to reverse the NIC increases, or at the very least exempt charities from them. These organisations are the backbone of our communities, delivering essential services and support to those who need it most. They embody selflessness and service. We must protect their critical work and ensure that they can continue to provide comfort and dignity to those in need.
Edward Morello MP for West Dorset

Time to start shouting!

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Editorial team
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Open Farm Sunday 2023 at Rawston Farm

Our most important 2025 New Year’s resolution will be to keep building public engagement in our efforts to support UK food & farming. It is going to be a pivotal year to ensure and protect the future of our food and farming industry.
It is crucial that we help public really understand where their food comes from. This knowledge is a lifeline for British farmers and producers, so that they can build support and educate consumers in order to safeguard our farmers’ future.
I would personally like to thank Jeremy Clarkson for helping to build such public awareness with his high-profile farming ventures, as well as his additional help in the hospitality industry with his recent pub purchase – another area of essential trade that is on its knees, especially in our rural British communities and villages.

Just import it?
The recent budget has brought utter chaos to the farming community with the new inheritance tax announcement. I’ve seen comments that “we don’t need farmers, we can import our food instead”. What a ridiculous statement. It’s pure madness to even think it’s a viable solution.
There is a global hunger crisis and many major nations have stopped or have limited aid to poorer countries, alongside which, climate change is affecting everyone globally.
Slowly more questions are being asked on whether there is going to be enough food to feed us all?
We have an ever-increasing global population, and with all the turmoil going on in the Middle East once again, these are dark times affecting us all.
What if some countries choose not to trade with the UK? This would be a major problem, especially as we just don’t produce enough of own food to feed our own population. When there is no food on the supermarket shelves it will be too late to ask why and how it happened. We have to act now to protect the future of British food and farming.
Every one of us should be very concerned about food shortages – before we know it, food will be the new oil on the global playing field and then there will be tears and tantrums.
To have no reliable and supported domestic food supply is madness. No truer words than “No farmers, no food.”

Open Farm Sunday 2023 at Rawston Farm

Busy summer
As a seventh generation farming family, we will be hosting the 2025 Open Farm Sunday here at Rawston Farm in the Tarrant valley. This year the date for your food diaries will be Sunday, 9th June – more details will be revealed closer to the time. We have naturally invited all our Love Local Trust Local family to come and join us in order to help spread the word about local food and farming businesses here in Dorset. It’s such a wonderful opportunity for them to tell their fabulous stories to our many visitors.
And we are expecting a lot of people through the farm gates – we usually have around 2,000 people join us on the farm for this brilliant event.
Back in 2018, Open Farm Sunday was what started the Love Local Trust Local food and farming label, as it was clear people wanted to know what is produced locally and clearer labelling was much needed. This remains important: we still have a huge number of unregulated imports flooding into our country. They are then allowed to be re-processed and subsequently sold under the British flag – totally unfair to both the consumer, and of course, to our own UK food producers.
Dishonest at best and illegal at worst.
We need to support our community of Dorset food producers out there – come on local councils and governments of Britain, WAKE UP!! We need homegrown food on all our plates.
Let’s hope for a happier new year.

Barbara Cossins
Founder, Love Local Trust Local

Optimism delayed: not extinguished

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Editorial team
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Gary Jackson North Dorset Liberal Democrats

Pondering on the theme for this first column of 2025, I looked forward to spreading some optimism and positivity on my first day back at work … and found myself groaning instead at the news of Baroness Casey’s social care review. Labour’s social care review sounded good, until we heard the timetable.
Some near-term gestures aside, there will be no recommendations for a long-term solution until 2028.
This is a blow. Dorset’s population is older than average across the UK’s counties, and a sustainable solution to social care is essential to help the NHS. Despite many previous excellent reviews and commissions, it seems that we must once again repeat the exercise to buy time for this government.
In China it’s still the year of the Dragon until the Lunar New Year arrives on 29 January and we turn to the year of the Snake.
Nothing so exciting sounding here in the UK, where our government has made it feel like 2024 was the year of the stubbed toe – too painful to laugh off, but we’re just too hardened to cry about it either.
We could see it coming during the general election. Almost everyone I spoke to said they expected to pay more tax – they’d almost be glad to do so, to be rid of the Conservatives and get public services working again. The only people who seemingly didn’t know it were Keir, Angela, Rachel, Wes and co…
Boxed into a corner by undeliverable promises not to raise tax, they decided to escape by shooting a foot with the half-cocked pistol of winter fuel allowance. Then came a budget that hobbled the nation’s spirits, applying extra national insurance contributions that will just slow hiring and investment.
Let’s not even mention the farming inheritance tax bullet into the other foot. It’s been hard to maintain enthusiasm for this government – but we can’t afford for them to fail.
My optimism from this time last year has only been delayed, not extinguished. Our Dorset community resilience and local business innovation offer hope. Nationally, there are clear positives. Our national strengths – that Brexit and numerous Prime Ministerial failures called into doubt – are returning: we have political and legal stability, financial credibility and talented people. Our universities are stressed, but they and their research remain world class. Trumpian tariffs on goods may be threatened but our large and competitive services sector will help us.
Dorset needs sustainable social care, flood and climate resilience, intelligent devolution and planning reform in a thriving economy. All need to be fought for, and Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign through 2025 nationally to influence, and locally through Dorset Council, to implement and improve. I hope you will share my optimism and I wish you a Happy New Year.
Gary Jackson
North Dorset Liberal Democrats

Cinema at The Exchange, Sturminster Newton

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Editorial team
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NOT TO MISS!!

The Critic (15) Thursday 27th February, 7pm

Academy Award Nominee Sir Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings, The Good Liar) stars as a powerful London theater critic who lures a struggling actress into a blackmail scheme with deadly consequences. A suspenseful thriller co-starring Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace), Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Lesley Manville (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris)

WICKED (PG) Thursday 27th March, 7pm

Elphaba, a young woman with green skin, navigates life at Shiz University and forms an unlikely friendship with the popular Galinda. Their bond deepens as they encounter the Wizard of Oz, leading to a series of events that ultimately shape their destinies and transform them into the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. Starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Arivo & Jeff Goldblum

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Feel the Heat: Great Dorset Chilli Festival Returns This August!

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Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd August 2025

Mark your calendars and spice up your summer! The Great Dorset Chilli Festival returns for its 14th year on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd August 2025, bringing fiery fun, fantastic flavours, and fierce competition to the Stock Gaylard Estate, near Sturminster Newton (DT10 2BG). Whether you’re a chilli aficionado or just fancy a day out with incredible food, live music and entertainment, this is a date you won’t want to miss. Don’t worry if heat isn’t your thing — there’s a feast of non-chilli delights to savour too!

Chilli_Bolivian Rainbow variety

Calling All Chilli Growers! Enter the Chilli Plant Competition

Think you’ve got what it takes to grow the best-looking chilli plant? Start sowing your seeds now and enter the popular Chilli Plant Growing Competition, judged on Saturday 2nd August. With classes for seasoned growers and total novices alike, it’s anyone’s game to win a coveted rosette!

Competition Categories:

  • Class 1: Grow the strikingly beautiful (and very hot) ‘Bolivian Rainbow’ variety — perfect for pots and guaranteed to impress.
  • Class 2: An open class for any chilli plant — bring your best!

Plants will be judged on their appearance, development, condition, and fruiting, with prizes generously sponsored by local retailer Harts of Stur. Winners in each class will receive a £50 gift voucher.

Get Growing with Free Chilli Seeds

The festival is giving away free ‘Bolivian Rainbow’ chilli seeds (courtesy of Sea Spring Seeds) to help you get started. Quantities are limited, so don’t wait — email info@greatdorsetchillifestival.co.uk for your seeds and a copy of the competition rules.

Why You’ll Love the Great Dorset Chilli Festival

• Meet the UK’s largest gathering of chilli sauce producers
• Indulge in mouth-watering food and unique flavours
• Enjoy live music and entertainment for the whole family
• Cheer on competitors in fiery chilli challenges

Don’t miss out on Dorset’s hottest weekend of the year! For full details and updates, visit www.greatdorsetchillifestival.co.uk.

Save the dates, start sowing, and prepare for a weekend of sizzling excitement!

Back to work

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From winter woes to wobbly lines, Jess Rimmer takes us through the slow work (and horses who think they’re funny) to polished event horses

Jess Rimmer with Max (Mr Mister)
All images: Courtenay Hitchcock

I would start off by saying the traditional and polite ‘December has flown by’ … but in reality, it feels like it’s been one of the longest months of the year, and I’m very glad to be seeing the back of it!
The horses had been out enjoying their winter holiday, and excitingly, they all came back into work at the start of December to begin building their fitness for the 2025 competition season.
This isn’t all as “sunshine and rainbows” as it might at first glance appear! With competition horses, it’s super important that we build their fitness back up slowly, to set a solid foundation of strength and protect against potential future injuries.
Which sounds great … until you realise it means spending the entirety of a cold, grey December not breaking out of a walk on some rather fresh horses!
Mattie and Elsa haven’t let their halos slip so far. Max can have the odd spooky moment, but has overall been pretty good, too.

Max looking wild and woolly in his ‘bog pony’ winter coat

Jimmy, on the other hand, thought he was absolutely hilarious … he made a total fool of me on his very first ride back, bucking me clean off within about 30 seconds of my foot going into the stirrup! Luckily no harm done (other than a rather bruised ego) – the joys of excitable young horses and winter. As I said, goodbye December!
Having done nearly a month of walking, just after Christmas we started some trot work. We build this up gradually as their fitness increases – to start with, just a few laps of the arena, and after a couple of weeks they’ve built up to being able to trot twice up the gallops.
That’s about where we’re at as I write this: from here it starts to get a bit more interesting. We
re-introduce some basic dressage moves, some pole work, and maybe we’ll even have a canter next week (yikes – I’ll be holding my neck strap!).

Max enjoying the glamour of having an ear hair trim

Just a short back and sides
Following their winter holidays in the field, the horses are all looking rather fluffy and unkempt. It’s actually nice for them to grow out their natural coats – but they definitely need a tidy up before the 2025 season!
We will spend the next few weeks trimming their manes, tails and bridle paths until they start to resemble the sleek, shiny competition horses you are all accustomed to seeing!
It’s not only about appearance, but also practicality and comfort. As they build up their work rate, the horses will find their fluffy winter coats a little too toasty, at which point we will give them a clip to help them keep cool during exercise.
Clipping is a skill … one which I am yet to master. The first time I attempted to clip, it took me double the time it should have, and resulted in some very dodgy lines and an embarrassed looking horse (I’m so sorry, Bobby!).
One slightly tearful phone call later, and Stacey the magic head groom came to the rescue. I have had marginally more success recently, thank goodness, but it definitely isn’t something I’ve mastered yet!

Gently, gently
Although it’s no speedy process bringing the horses back into work, it’s so important for their long-term soundness, and it’s something which really can’t be hurried. In many ways, it’s very satisfying seeing their transformations from floofy, unfit bog ponies to fit, polished event horses. The work it takes to get there often goes unappreciated – despite the fact it’s happening in every event yard all over the country at the moment!


Hopefully things will start to speed up a bit in January – until then, it’s a case of numerous extra layers, plenty of hot cups of tea … and remembering to hold on tight!

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