Boiling Hot!

It's B week, and given the weather this week, that seemed like an appropriate headline! It's been a week of ups and downs for us, but we've come to the end of it feeling very positive and grateful for our wonderful community, so thank you everyone.

Burnt Hay

As many of you will know by now, our hay fields were subject to a suspected arson attack on Tuesday evening. This was incredibly upsetting and disappointing as it destroyed a large amount of our freshly cut hay before it could be baled, and scorched the ground, making it unusable for hacking. We will need to allow it to recover and then reseed it, so it will take some time before the land is usable again. It could have been much worse, however, should the fire have been allowed to spread it could have impacted the horses that were grazing in adjacent fields, or the forest school space which is used by a local primary school. We are incredibly grateful to our neighbours, who called the fire brigade, and to the fire fighters, who came so quickly and put the fires out.

As a way of beginning to help us recover from the damage, and plan for the winter (with now much less hay), we set up a Just Giving page. We have been totally overwhelmed by the response from our community, and we are currently at 440% of our target. We are so indescribably touched and grateful for all of the amazing support we've received. Beyond the overwhelming number of donations we have also had offers of hay and support from local media including BBC Points West, Radio Bristol and ITVX. Thank you so much to everyone for all of your kind words and support. Everyone here at the Centre appreciates it, it reminds us why we do what we do.

Boiling Hot

If you haven't noticed, it's a bit bloomin' warm at the moment. We have put in place special contingencies for the heat, including:

• No horses are doing more than 2 lessons, with the majority also having large breaks between lessons.

• The majority of lessons have been moved to the outdoor arena, which is cooler than the indoor and tends to have a breeze. The couple of lessons happening in the indoor still, are slowed paced, less advanced Private Lessons.

• Staff will be sponging all horses every hour, on their shoulders and bottom (not under tack) and not scraping water off, which will help to keep them cool.

If you are coming for a lesson please remember to bring a water bottle, but also still dress appropriately for riding. Hopefully it will cool down next week.

Bertie!

No B week would be complete without everyone's favourite cheeky chap! He is feeling much better after his surgery and is back to his naughty self! I've had a couple of people ask whether they can get a print of Bertie, so I popped one on Teemill. You can now get your #TeamBertie T-Shirt in men's, women's and kid's styles, and an art print, framed or unframed. Why not treat yourself?

Best of luck!

And finally, best of luck to everyone who is competing in the RDA National Championships this weekend. It's going to be a hot one so make sure you keep hydrated.