We have been delighted to be able to welcome visitors back into the home, whilst we were able to see our families, we were sadly unable to take part in some of our usual activities. The team used the internet to stream singers and exercise classes and whilst they were great fun, it was not quite the same.    

Just before Christmas we had a visitor to the home who was quite unexpected, we’ve had a myriad of animal visitors over the years, dogs, lizards, creepy crawlies but we have never played host to a horse. I exaggerate slightly, it wasn’t a horse, it was a pony. We had a visit from a wonderful, friendly, house-trained Shetland pony.

What a lovely time we had, the pony wanted to be friends with everyone and lapped up the attention. There are some of my friends here who have fond memories of horses that they have owned, ridden, or worked with and for them it was quite an emotional morning. It was just lovely to watch them interacting, you could see in their eyes how much it meant to them.

We were so sad to say goodbye to our new friend, we would have liked to have kept him. The pony became the talking point for the entire day, we had learned so much about the breed and their history and it was fascinating. Did you know that Shetland Ponies have been around since the Bronze Age? That’s a very long time. It was also lovely to hear from other members of our little community, they told us of their experiences, and we were all fascinated to hear them.

I don’t know who had the idea to bring a pony to visit, I don’t know how they managed to house train him, but I do know that we are all glad that they did. Hopefully he’ll be back very soon, we’ll make sure we have a carrot ready for him.