Trip away

As a child I lived near Newbury and as most girls was mad about horses!! Every weekend you would find me up at the riding school helping muck out, clean tack,groom the ponies and generally get in the way until it was time for MY hours hack.

....then and I'm showing my age here!!.... Newbury was a market town and I rode my bike to the stables about a mile out of town....

now it is very much in town and has a Nissan Garage where it was..progress... however I digress....

We used to hack around the American Airbase...I remember the high wire fences..masses of barbed wire....
It was situated on The Commom and it didn't take long to get past the wire and out onto heath land and beech woods....as my riding got better us experienced riders where allowed to hold our horses back while the 'novices ' gently rode on....
I remember vividly the feeling of reining in the horse...whirling in circles with the anticipation of the race that was coming...and boy did they know what was coming!!.....waiting for the signal from the leader in the distance and then we would all gallop for our lives....the horses racing....the adrenaline pumping until we caught the others up....what freedom that feeling gave....

My walk this week on the now restored Greenham Common brought back those memories...
The now famous runway that was making Newbury a sitting target for a nuclear attack in the 60's has been dug up and is now a lovely country common with masses of wildlife and plants...ponds and walkways........however there are still the remnants of its previous life...the signs...the bunkers..and its many fences a reminder of its past..

But now it has a calming beauty as well......

..early morning mist...it's going to be a beautiful day...


lots of grazing livestock who are so laid back they just don't care!!!

If only I had a horse again to relive that feeling of exhilaration and freedom...