Week One: Epping to Saxmundham

Day 1: Epping Forest to Hunsdon

Setting out on a trip like this, it's nice to begin with familiar settings. And familiar people.

The first hour or so was through Epping Forest on routes that Peggy and I had covered in the past, and we were joined, by Gideon, my long-suffering fiance, for the first hour on foot.  After I said goodbye, Peggy and I headed properly out of London by crossing the M25. I was a bit nervous about this as Peggy hadn't been across the motorway often.

Even past then, we still hadn't left home. Along a quiet country road, we met our yard's hay and straw delivery man, who worked nearby.

It made the day feel very safe, as we were in surroundings that I'd ridden before - I barely needed to consult my map.

Riding towards Roydon we hit our first incident, as we met a magnificent fox bouncing along a bridleway like Pepe Le Pew. Poor Peggy, already unnerved by passing a greyhound farm, took one look and turned tail and fled. She stopped  very quickly, as she realised she'd have to pass the dogs again!

At Roydon, she didn't take kindly to the Stansted Express thundering by, and showed a caution with railway tracks that I hadn't seen her show before. However, the rest of the trip was short and uneventful.  Briggens House Hotel on the edge of Roydon had kindly allowed us to pass through their grounds to reach the next bridleway and we reached Hunsdon in good time.

Such good time in fact, that Peggy was still lively and unwilling to settle for the night. This might well have had something to do with the tempting grass outside her box. She thought it most unfair that she should be shut inside with boring hay while that lovely grass taunted her outside.

Day 2: Hunsdon to Great Canfield

Already on our second day, we had company, as we were joined by Lucy and her mare, as she guided us through the maze of a disused airfield to our route. Riding up to Bishop's Stortford was lovely, and it became clear that we were truly out of London as Peggy proved wary of the sheep that we passed. Luckily she didn't notice the llamas at Perry's Green - I dread to think how she would have reacted to those!

She's already taking level crossings and motorways in her stride. She's a fantastic horse that way - show her something once and she tends to be fine about it in the future.

Crossing the M11 was a strange experience. From a distance, even though I could see the motorway, there was an eerie silence, broken only by the horse's hooves and some birdsong, while cars sped by, doing our daily distance in about 15 minutes of driving. It looked like something from a science-fiction film - it was easy to believe that this silent traffic was running on something other than normal engines.

The afternoon was incredibly hot, far hotter than I had anticipated. Setting out on April 22, I had hoped to get Peggy and myself accustomed to the distance before we had to add heat to the equation, but it wasn't to be. Temperatures were well into the 20s and the lack of wind didn't help. Peggy flagged and constantly tried to turn back after we stopped at a stables for water. At one point, she jumped into a ditch in her effort to persuade me that we should go back NOW, and petulantly got out again when I made it clear she wasn't winning.

I was very relieved to reach Ashfields at Great Canfield where she was scheduled to stay the night. She happily scoffed her feed, much to my relief, since her indifference the previous night had worried me. Normally she's a horse who'll try and push you out of the way when you arrive with dinner.

Paul, the polo manager at Ashfields, invited me to stay and watch the polo. I couldn't think of a nicer way to end the evening than watching some very fit horses and riders practising on a pitch. I wasn't in the mood for heading into Great Dunmow, and was fortunate to stay at the Black Lion at High Roding, a 14th century inn with excellent beer. The barmaid was valiantly celebrating St George's Day, something else which cheered me up. It's always annoyed and slightly dismayed me that the English as so willing to celebrate other countries' national days while ignoring their own. In discussion at the Black Lion, we agreed that St George's Day can have unfortunate connotations at the moment, but that seems to me to be even more a reason to reclaim the holiday for people who want to celebrate England, rather than use it to knock other nationalities and ethnicities.

Day 3: Great Canfield to Braintree

Another hot day. It started off well, with Paul at Ashfields recommending a different route along a disused railway. We had slow progress - Tom's predictions at home that I'd have trouble with the girth on my Australian saddle were proving true.

We detoured to reach the railway, but we finally did, only to be confronted with stairs! The bridleway signpost pointed up them, so Peggy gamely climbed them, with me very grateful for the security of the Aussie stock saddle!

Again, we had very slow progress, and I led her for a while. The heat, even though we were sheltered from the worst of it by trees, was proving too much. Outside Rayne, we were forced onto the A120 by a padlocked gate. Peggy, poor lamb, didn't enjoy this at all, but behaved impeccably despite being very tired. I, in turn, was getting rather sunburnt. At Rayne Hall Farm, the farmer invited us up to the airstrip for a drink where Peggy gratefully gulped down some water and had the remainder emptied over her neck to cool her down.

Unfortunately, the evening didn't prove any better. Towerlands, where she was staying, did not live up to its reputation. There was no-one there, and the manager couldn't be bothered to even come out at all. What annoyed me most was that there was no water for her until I managed to beg a couple of buckets.

Luckily, I was helped by various people who rented stables there, the most prominent of whom was Jo, a 17-year-old showjumper. She took me to buy feed, found me buckets, and settled on a suitable stable for Peggy. I was very aware that I was disrupting the others' routines, but they were kind about it.

Jo topped her kindness by taking me into Braintree, which seemed a strange combination of old-fashioned prettiness and Essex brashness, but I was only interested in bed!

Day 4: Towerlands to Colchester

Sometimes I'm an idiot reading maps. I lost half an hour coming out of Braintree by blithely heading down the wrong road.

Today was very road oriented. The roads coming up to our destination, Wash Farm at Aldham, proved very slippery and going was very slow indeed.

Wash Farm was a joy and a complete contrast to Towerlands. Dorinda and Marcie took great care of Peggy who was thrilled to find herself out in a field for part of the evening.

I took a bus into Colchester where I pottered around while waiting for Gideon to arrive.

It's a beautiful town, especially on its back streets. Going down one, I found the Quaker Meeting House, an elegant bow-fronted  building, which was beside a church with the best-kept graveyard I've ever seen. The place was obviously tended with love. The graves were old, mostly 19th century, but the stones had been cleaned until legible again. One grave in particular was striking - covered with ivy, it looked like a well-tucked up bed rather than a straggling mess.

It was only when I went around to the church that I realised that it was, in fact, Colchester Arts Centre. Later on, I saw another one which is now the Natural History Museum. It struck me as being nice that these two buildings were still used for community purposes, even if they were rather different from those they had been designed for - a far happier fate for the buildings than chic apartments.

Day 5: Colchester to Ipswich

Peggy's timing can be impeccable. Today it poured down solidly, and her girth gall had swelled up alarmingly. She was clearly unfit to ride, so Nicky, who keeps her daughter's horse at Wash Farm, kindly boxed Peggy up to Mace Green, just outside Ipswich.

I have no idea what Ipswich is like, since I was too busy having a girls' night out with Ann Roe, a friend.

Day 6: Ipswich to Wickham Market

A very very very long day. 9 hours in the saddle.

It was an interesting ride - Peggy went through the edge of Ipswich with impeccable manners, although her progress was naturally slow. Before that, she'd already passed some ostriches with few qualms, but pig farms proved to be a different manner. She leapt 10 feet sideways into a ploughed field when she got her first whiff of pig.

It rained in the afternoon - a long dismal day, not helped by her refusals to pass pig farms. I had to dismount a couple of times to lead her past them.

We were both exhausted and grumpy when we finally reached Valley Farm. We were so tired that when I was asked if she'd got by the camel okay, I asked "what camel?" She perked up when put into a field for a graze. The owners of Valley Farm fed me coffee and kindly drove me to Saxmundham, where I was staying with Gideon's cousins, Tom and Marie-Sophie.

Peggy's not the only one in a stable tonight - Tom and Marie-Sophie's house is a converted one! The kitchen still has a hay manger on the wall.

Day 7: Saxmundham

SLEEP! Not getting up until mid-morning was bliss, as was being joined by Gideon again. Living out of bags is much easier when he's able to show up and deliver the next chunk of maps for me and take the old ones away. I know I'm going to miss that when I'm too far away for him to make the trip easily.

We went back to Valley Farm, where I heard Peggy had encountered an electric fence when she realised I had gone. There's no harm to her and it cheered me up to realise that she does miss me when I'm not there.

Valley Farm have a herd of Camargues, including the only Camargue stallion in Britain. Most of them were in stalls during the day for work, but Gideon and I pottered down to the fields and discovered that their white animals have a couple of striking exceptions. In one field were three magnificent and very friendly chestnut Suffolk Punches. I adore heavy horses. I admire thoroughbreds and other breeds, but there's something about a heavy horse that is stunning. Peggy, as a part Shire, has the bulk of her pure-bred cousins, but lacks their height, but this trio had both height and width. I think it may be something to do with their sheer size - there's something wondrous about so large an animal being so friendly towards humans and so willing to work.

There was a total contrast in the next field in the shape of two Falabellas, the smallest ponies in the world. They, too, came up to say hello, although Gideon was too busy chatting to the Punches. He's not hugely into horses, although he gets on well with Peggy (I suspect she likes him a lot more than she likes me), so watching him standing there with the carthorses was a lovely sight. I'm going to have to take him back there some time to ride them.

Back to the Diary.