Rural rides

‘Ring us when you get lost and we’ll come and get you,’ was the reaction of the gamekeeper at the farm where I keep my horses when I told him I was going on a trail ride with three female friends. ‘Really,’ I said, ‘just because four women are going off on a riding holiday does not mean we’re going to get lost and need a man to rescue us. We can read maps, you know. We’ve got a compass. And a TomTom.’

‘Right you are,’ he said, giving me one of his deadpan looks. Which was unfair, I thought, because we were very well prepared. We packed all the required elements in our saddlebags, including the map and directions from the trail riding company.

The problem with maps, however, is that they really can’t do much for you if you don’t look at them. Call it exuberance, call it a moment of blondeness, but as we cantered off across a field at the start of our first day we all assumed that someone else knew why we were cantering in that particular direction. Sadly, no one did.

And it wasn’t until we got three miles further on that someone thought to ask, ‘Where are we, you know, on the map?’ Things can change pretty quickly from idyllic to nightmarish. One minute we were riding happily along the Ridgeway in bright sunshine, the next minute we didn’t know where to turn because the map no longer coalesced with where we thought we were. And that was when the skies turned black and a torrential rainstorm came crashing down on us.

It is at times like these that people’s true characters come out. Friend number one was thoroughly inspired by it all.