A bothersome but beaut day

'Twas a day for catching up with the sister and doing a bit of horse riding, although it almost wasn't. V-line wasn't operating out our way this weekend because of track work (mind you, V-Line is a major sponsor of this year's Castlemaine Festival, and for the past few months I've been looking at ads on the sides of trains and posters at stations touting the joys of taking a leisurely train trip to the Castlemaine Festival, except, well, anyone who tried to get here for the final weekend would have had to bus it. Go figure.) Because I wasn't zooming straight into Melbourne, I had to hitch a ride with a bus that stopped at every little country station between here and where my sister was picking me up (she lives way out on the other side of Melbourne.) I wasn't worried, I thought I had plenty of time. I thought wrong. We drove along the highway, turned off the highway, through a town, the driver got out to find people huddled in nooks and crannies, the driver herded said folk onto the bus, we got out of the town, we got back on the highway, we drove along for a while, turned off the highway... Anyway, putting a chaotic morning firmly behind us, my sister and I calmly continued on our journey just to see what we could salvage from the day, and actually got to ride for about 5 hours. We rode with a small group of experienced riders for the first ride, then there were just 3 of us for the second ride. It was a drizabone day - periodic showers, strong winds, then spells of stillness and sunshine - but we got plenty of cantering, jumping, and wending through the forest done. At the end of the day, feeling wonderfully tired, with the sun set and us in front of a huge, roaring fire drinking strong tea and munching raspberry and white chocolate muffins, the heavens opened and it began to pour and hail. My lovely sister then offered to drive me straight home so I wouldn't have to fumble around on a dark and stormy night in search of a bus heading my way, so here I am, snug as a bug in front of my computer while she's still out there in the aforementioned dark and stormy night heading for home. Foalwatch: Since we last visited Daylesford, Butch the stallion once again became a dad, siring this little one, who is just one month old. I love fluffy foal tails. *There go the paragraphs again. This is getting bloody annoying.