Goodnight Columnist Tessa Waugh’s hunting diary
As she drags the ponies in through waterlogged fields, Tessa Waugh wonders how she can motivate her zombie-like children to take more notice of their equine charges
AVE you ever wondered, as you drag yourself out to some waterlogged paddock, what the hell you are doing when two perfectly able-bodied human beings are sitting indoors on screens? Last week I had what can only be described as a damascene moment when I was bringing the ponies in.
It was raining, obviously, and they were on particularly ignorant form. Rusty — think Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in pony form — would walk over the top of you if he could. I’ve given up bashing him because I always come off worst. Josh won’t manoeuvre past the gate, he just stands there looking at you with an expression that says, “How long until you break?”.
Standard stuff made worse by the fact that the gateway to their field is now a bog. It suddenly occurred to me that there was something deeply wrong with this scenario. “I am a complete bloody mug,” I announced, to no one in particular. This has got to stop.
HT’S easily done. You’ve got 10 minutes to do a job — bring horses in, muck out, whatever — and getting everyone motivated and outside to help is going to take just as long. I have a friend who happily confesses that she does everything ponyrelated for hers — tacking up, mucking out, the lot. All they have to do is show up and get on.
Then there’s another whose girls are totally self-sufficient. She just checks in occasionally and drives the lorry. Like most aspects of parenting, the most desirable option — i.e. the
‘This time I didn’t bother with the, “I will get rid of those ponies” threat. It’s been said
too many times’
Isecond one — takes more effort to achieve, or perhaps she uses an electric cattle prod. When screens reduce children to zombie-mode, I find nothing short of 50 watts gets them moving again. Then you have to factor in the cold turkey period, because when they come off the device, they are rendered useless for at least 10 minutes and act all scratchy and distracted. A bit like crack heads planning their next hit.
“There are several children we know who would kill to own a pony,” I said to my husband Adam the other day, “and here we are trying to get ours going, when most of the time they would rather be doing something else.” He agreed.
The upshot of all this is that Alec and Mary are doing more to help. Even the youngest,
Jack, ventures outside occasionally. How? Well, this time I didn’t bother with the, “I will get rid of those ponies” threat. It’s been said too many times. I did say, “I will be in an early grave if I carry on doing all this on my own,” (without shouting) and amazingly that has worked, for now, anyway.