Delayed in Amherst

Lady was not the only one to feel sad at leaving Folly Farm on Monday, but it was a glorious ride through Oxford and up over the Leicester Ridge .......

......to West Leicester, pronounced Lyesester here in Nova Scotia - I find it quite difficult to remember not to say Lesster!
Here we were put up by the genial Norma Tower and her partner Bill Carter.  Lady had a pile of hay in the barn while I feasted on stew with chow (green tomato pickle) and apple crisp (crumble) with blueberry ice-cream.  You may notice that blueberries feature heavily on the menu in these parts, not surprising in view of the fact that the little town of Oxford claims to be 'Blueberry capital of the World'

Norma, Bill and camera shy cocker spaniel Rascal.  They also had two superb Percheron geldings.
 It was a relatively short morning ride into Amherst, where we were kindly being hosted by Gillian VanSnick-Daniels and farrier husband Justin at Gillian's VS equestrian centre.  Gillian has worked and trained in the UK and now mainly trains warm bloods to sell on, so Lady has been in very exalted company
I suppose it was only a matter of time before I ran into the inevitable setbacks, and the latest has been that I found myself unable to withdraw cash from my bank accounts - a disaster when in the process of buying a second horse and booked in for urgent dental treatment in Amherst.

 It has meant that I did not make it to New Brunswick today as planned, but I did have the opportunity to drive down to the Petitcodiac river estuary yesterday afternoon.  The one piece of information about Nova Scotia that has stayed with me since my school days is the fact that the Bay of Fundy has the greatest tidal range in the world.  Tidal water is funnelled up the long narrow bay to form 50foot tides. And I was not disappointed - here you can see the huge mud banks exposed on the sides of the river by the falling tide.

Amazing to think that only six hours before, the sea water was up to the level of the grass where I am standing.