Twelve Days of Christmas: A bestselling Christmas read to devour in one sitting!. Trisha Ashley
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the note that Mo and Jim had left tucked inside it, for a bit of inside information, and learned that the owner was more than happy for the house-sitters to help themselves to any of the food in the house, including the fish and game in the larger of the two freezers. ‘But not the alcohol, since the wine cellar is locked’ had been added, which was okay by me, because I wasn’t much of a drinker. Other than that, the TV reception was lousy and mobile phones worked best if you stood in the ear of the horse on the hill, or ten paces down the lane from the lodge and two steps right. (I expect finding that out kept Jim occupied for hours.)
I glanced at the generator instructions and discovered it was in an outbuilding and was automatic, so should in theory look after itself, and then made sure I knew where the main water stopcock was and the fuse box. The latter I found in the tack-room, with a working torch next to it on a shelf, together with a couple of candle lanterns and a wind-up storm lamp.
I was starting to form a picture of Jude Martland, who was clearly quite practical and obviously cared about the animals … And yet, he paid his cleaner a pittance and neglected his lovely house, so he was either broke or mean – maybe both. Or perhaps those with an artistic temperament simply don’t notice muck?
I went back in the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, and checked out the animal care instructions. Merlin, who was now leaning heavily against my leg with his head on my knee, was easy: two meals a day, with a pill for his arthritis crushed into the breakfast one, and he needed daily walks to help prevent him stiffening up.
Well, didn’t we all?
I’d already spotted his brush, food, biscuits and a supply of rawhide chews in a cupboard in the scullery, next to a hook with a dog lead and a large brown pawprint-patterned towel helpfully marked ‘DOG’, in case I had found it a struggle to make the connection.
The horse was an Arab mare called Lady, which I would have thought a delicate breed for an exposed, upland place like this. She was twenty-five years old and that sounded quite an age for a horse too. But then, what do I know?
She had a paddock with a field shelter behind the house, where she spent the day unless the weather was extremely bad, though he had omitted to define what ‘really bad’ entailed. I should ensure the water in the trough was not frozen over and that a filled haynet was hung on the paddock fence. Billy would go out with her.
Who, I wondered, was Billy? I puzzled over that for a moment and then read on.
She was brought into the stables at night and this would need mucking out and the water replenishing every day, a process I vaguely remembered from Laura’s brief horse-mad phase. She was to keep her rug on all the time, except when it was removed daily for grooming and to check for rubbing.
In the evening she had a warm mash cooked up from ingredients to be found in metal bins in the tackroom and liberally spiced with a medication called Equiflex …
Good heavens! I was starting to think that Lady was going to take up most of my time and be a lot trickier to care for than I’d hoped, and I admit I was getting slight cold feet about it. So I thought I’d better take a proper look at her before the light totally vanished and Merlin, seeing me put my coat on, was determined to accompany me, even though I thought he ought to stay in the warm.
Along one side of the cobbled yard were the outbuildings that I knew contained the woodshed, generator and the extremely large oil tank that supplied both that and the central heating – but exploring those would have to wait for the next day.
Merlin and I went into the barn and I found a light switch by the door. Lady put her head over curiously and I saw that she was not much bigger than the ponies Laura had ridden and had a gentle expression and big, liquid dark eyes. Emboldened, I opened the door of the loosebox and slipped in to check her water and hay, and the fastenings of her rug … and I was just stooping over the bucket when the straw rustled and then something butted me hard in the legs: it was a small, black goat.
Billy? Obviously. But someone might have mentioned it! Luckily it had no horns, but it was now staring at me with light, slightly-mad-looking eyes.
I topped up the water bucket from the tap just outside the loosebox, foiling Billy’s attempt to get out, because I wasn’t sure how easy he would be to get back in again.
There was plenty of hay, both up in a net out of Billy’s reach and in a hayrack lower down. Lady’s warmly-lined rug was secure and she looked comfortable, so I left them to it for the moment.
I’d taken Merlin’s lead out with me and now attached it to his collar: I wasn’t sure if he was likely to run away, but I have learned through long experience that it’s better to be safe than sorry. We went out of the side gate and followed the track alongside the paddock towards the hill. We didn’t go far, though, just enough to stretch Merlin’s poor old legs and mine. By the time we turned back I needed the torch I’d put in my pocket, and the lights in the courtyard looked bright and beckoning.
The wind was biting, so the threatened cold spell might actually be coming and I think we were both glad to get back into the warmth of the kitchen. I was feeling really weary by now, but there was one last task to be performed before I could settle down there: Lady must have her hot mash.
I followed the recipe to the letter: one scoop of quick-soak dried beet, steeped in boiling water for ten minutes, one scoop of chopped alfalfa, two scoops of pony nuts and a handful of linseed cake. Then I left it to cool a bit before stirring in the Equiflex.
It smelled quite nice, considering.
Merlin would have come out to the stables again with me, except that I thought he had had enough of the cold for one day and so shut him in, despite his reproachful expression.
Lady was eager to get her head in the bucket, though I had to hold off Billy, who wanted to share. Even little goats, I found, were surprisingly strong. I’d taken a handful of biscuit-shaped things from a container marked with his name that I’d spotted in the tackroom, but he was more interested in the mash.
Horses give off a surprising amount of heat, don’t they?
* * *
Merlin greeted my return with huge relief, as if I’d been gone a week, so I expect the poor old thing was feeling terribly confused.
When I’d thawed out I phoned Laura, but only for long enough to give her the number here to ring me back: clients don’t appreciate you running up huge phone bills, but obviously using my mobile was going to be tricky. I only hoped Sharon was exaggerating the frequency of the phone lines going down …
‘How are you getting on?’ Laura asked. ‘What are the animals like?’
‘The dog’s an old lurcher, a sweetie called Merlin – he’s a bit lost and lonely, I think, because he keeps following me around. The horse is a white Arab.’
‘Grey, horses are never white.’
‘You can call it grey, but Lady’s as white as snow, with huge, dark eyes. She’s very old, quiet and gentle, so I don’t think looking after her is going to be a problem – except she’s living with this little goat no-one mentioned.’
‘A goat?’
‘It was in the loosebox with her, so I suppose it’s keeping her company. It’s got a bit of the evil eye and it kept trying to eat her hot mash. I had to hold it off, and it was surprisingly strong.’
‘Hot mash? You had to cook dinner for the horse?’
I described the cordon bleu horse mash and confessed my worry about looking after the elderly, delicate-looking mare, and she made reassuring noises.
‘I’ll tackle mucking out and grooming tomorrow. I only wish I’d been interested in that sort of thing while you were having riding lessons, though I expect it’s just a matter of common sense.’
‘You wheelbarrow the old bedding to the manure heap, and then spread a layer of new straw – simple. Mucking out will be good exercise, too.’
‘Yes,