Another brief report this week. Our regular instructor was away, and the girl who filled in for her decided a trek in the woods was a good idea, considering the fairly nice weather. Not a favourite thing of mine to do, though at least I got Murphy (anyone else is pretty much out of the question, in any case). It was also a bit better than last year, since they had cleared up some new paths, which meant we spent most of the time in the woods and not along a road (which I absolutely loathe). Murphy enjoyed himself (he tried to sample every tree and bush that we passed by) and was forward without being frisky. He did give some suspicious sideways glances to some stacks of branches and stuff, but other than that he was his usual, rock-solid self.
We got back to the stables with about 10 minutes left of the lesson, and ended up giving the horses (and ourselves) quite a work-out. I had kept my coat on since the wind had been pretty chilly during the day, so now I ended up riding in four layers of clothing. I was pretty soaked when we finished up as she had us cantering and working quite hard at it for a good while. The horses were nicely warmed up by the trek, though Murphy objected rather firmly to suddenly being asked to work, and tried to act as if I was some beginner he could easily dissuade. It didn’t work, and he ended up doing a fairly nice job after we had sorted out our differences. Though he did try to kill Amadeus while we were cantering.