Sea Crossing

2am at Dublin Port

For those of you who haven’t been put through the torture of seeing me add a new status update on Facebook every 12 seconds it’s time for an update. (In my defense, the new stables have wifi throughout so it’s just too tempting not to tell you all what I had for breakfast)
Once again we find ourselves crossing the seas to find a new spot to call home, this time it is a shorter trek over water but an adventure nonetheless. I’d like to say it was an easy crossing but little did I know, becoming part of the Manx geography has it’s difficulties. Picture if you can at two in the morning, a horse lorry docked in Dublin harbour waiting for the off. We worked in convoy, horses, cars, trailers and belongings, almost felt like we were off to Narnia. Turned a little more like the quest to Mordor and I wasn’t feeling much like Legolas when we received the phone call from the English port to say they weren’t taking on horses because of the weather and it might be another four days before they did. Lorry turned about without the convoy which headed on and we trucked down what seemed like an endless number of pretty chocolate box villages and roads to get to our temporary home in Chester.
 Over-nighting in Chester

 Back On The Road Again

All the surprised ponies unloaded into their quarters with their mostly racehorse neighbours and it was amazing to see how what was once a svelte dressage horse suddenly looked like a plough horse next to those tiny legged creatures. Rex quickly had a queue of people who couldn’t quite fathom that horses came built like him, 18 3 seemed like an impossibility. That was until he popped his head over the wall to say hello to his tiny cousin, a little cute point to point gelding. That evening brought me to the pub, “oh a haven in a storm” you say. That was until the staff let me know that the village turn off the water because of the water shortages so no shower and the internet was out. The second night, fortunately they were fully booked and I moved to more upmarket premises that had actual hot water and the dearest woman, like someone’s grandmother who was insistent on feeding me up like someone’s grandmother. When I showed her the high protein meal plan I’m on she giggled but did her best to make a no yolk omelette for my breakfast and the prescribed 100grams of oats that were fantastically well cooked. She gave me her secret and told me to never tell anyone, so here it is.......
But wait, we were back on the road before I could finish my breakfast and with the gods smiling down on us, we made the ferry. One long snooze, some rubbish tv and several awful cups of coffee later we ascended the ramp to be greeted by the most heartwarming sight, a costa coffee shop, I mean, a welcome to the Isle of Man sign. 


Finally Home

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