NGS Open Gardens Day at Upwaltham Barns

After seeing the article on my ride in the Observer, Cognac and I were invited over to Upwaltham Barns (http://www.upwalthambarns-weddings.co.uk/home.html) to talk to people about the ride and to hopefully raise some sponsorship money. Upwaltham Barns is a wedding venue, made up of converted barns and surrounded by beautiful gardens, set in rolling downland.  Cognac and I rode over the day before, Cognac stayed in a field knee deep in grass and Jez and I camped in the field alongside him (we woke up in the morning to find he had cropped the grass surrounding the tent while we had slept) In the morning I tacked Cognac up, with his saddle bags on, and took him down to the main courtyard, where they were doing tea, coffee, cake and light lunches. Cognac was a good physical 'prop' and was impeccably behaved while everyone admired him and asked questions about his tack.
Thank- you to the Kersley family for having us over, especially thank- you to Sue for her wonderful cake!
While we were at Upwaltham, we decided to head 'just over the hill' to the Jubilee beacon lighting at The Nore, Eartham. So just as the sun was setting we set out, myself on Cognac and Jez on a bike, however we managed to get horribly lost in Eartham woods and probably criss- crossed back and forth for what felt like hours, frustratingly we could hear the laughter and could see flickers of the light at times through the trees, but all the paths seemed to lead around it and we only seemed to go around it. When we finally got there, everyone had cleared off home! and the few people who were still there as they were camping that night, where rather bemused to see a horse appear out of the woods! The view from the top of the Nore was (almost!!) worth the journey and we could Cognac cast a pretty picture in the light of the beacon, looking out to the coast. We stayed long enough for Cognac to graze and to have a glass of wine. I had a good chat with Sophie, who was very interested in our ride as she had ridden all her life until moving to London and said that as a child she has taken donkeys to France and they had trekked over 100 miles!