Thursday 23 September 2010

Day 1 on the Canterbury Pilgrimage

Just made it to the lunch time stopping off point at Gravely Hill.

It has been raining almost since we left Epsom and we have had to meet up with Caroline to give her some weatherproof gear.   I am travelling in the back-up car with Campbell, who is the team's Rider Support.  The journey is going quicker than we thought it would when we planned it.  Smelly looks relaxed and is taking the journey in his stride, walking slowly and stopping off for grass at regular intervals.

The day started at 7am at St Martin's Church in Epsom, where Simon, the Vicar, gave both Smelly and Caroline a blessing for the journey.  Meipe and Gill joined us at the church, although they won't be able to do the ride with Caroline as both have horses that are not well enough to take part.   Meipe plans to join Caroline for the last leg, riding a friend's horse - more of that later.

It was good to see Jim at the Church seeing us all off, one of the other Shadow Trustees.  He is joining the party over the weekend.   Coran, who has been planning the filming for weeks now, is too poorly to coming along today, so Alec has stepped-in.  Thanks to Alec for the help and if Coran is reading this, we wish you better soon.

At Walton Common we met a woman who recognised Caroline and Smelly from some press coverage she had read about the journey and the Museum of the Horse initiative.

We chose this spot because of the views and the fact that we could get a few good photographs and some film footage - but sadly, the landscape is covered in grey cloud it is just bucketing down with rain.    Hopefully we will be able to get  a picture or two (as I am writing this, the cloud is lifting at bit and the rain easing, so we may get better pictures than we think, we will see).

1 comment:

horsewriter said...

Very pleased that the heavy rain finally stopped and that all has gone well so far.
Hope Caroline and Smelly are both able to dry off and enjoy the rest of the day.