Last Saturday my regular riding clients came by for a countryside tour. I have a mother and daughter who go out with me a couple of times a week, sometimes with a friend for the daughter. They are delightful people, I love going riding, and what could be better than being paid to ride with people you like? But after our ride as we were feeding the horses some chopped carrots, one of my geldings mistook my hand for a carrot in his zest for grabbing all that he could, and I got a nasty chomp on the left hand in the fleshy web between my thumb and forefinger.
Luckily my client did a lot of hiking and she had some steri-strips at home. These bandages are used in place of stitches when you have an accident in a remote area and can't get to someone to stitch you up. Handy items. I used some to close the wound but it's pretty ragged and in a spot that moves almost constantly so I opted to skip the stitches.
For the first two days, my left hand was pretty much immobilised, but it's healing nicely and I'm back to being able to type. Pretty much a shaggy dog story as an excuse for why I haven't posted.
Winter has arrived here and the nights are cold enough to drag out the old quilts from the drawers under the beds. I even invested in an oil radiator that is currentlly taking the chill off the air in the living room. That helps, as otherwise I'm wearing more clothes in the house than outside of it. The good part about winter is the clearness of the air and the way that the stars are so close at night.
The horses love the chill air and are full of energy, not that I need them energetic until my hand is healed. The parrots are eating voraciously and I've upped the octane of their bird bread by adding unsalted peanuts to the mix. They are living outside and wearing down coats, to be sure, but they and the dogs are much hungrier in the winter because of the chill, I think.
I took the photo of the tourists at the Giza Plateau the other day when I was there with a guest. The authorities try to push all the trinket sellers and the horse and camel men to a spot that they call the "scenic overlook". As you can see from the photo, the spot isn't very scenic but the view is pretty good. It almost looks like the Great Pyramid on the right is larger than the middle one, which isn't the case at all. It's quite extraordinary how the pyramids change sizes depending on your viewing spot. Just like a lot of other things.
