Training Bursary Blog: Sarah-Jane Brown Part 3

Well, we are four weeks in now to a very different world, let’s all hope a temporary one, but I sadly believe we may be facing restrictions for a while. So what is life like at Shoestring HQ?

Both Mum and I work for Cornwall Council and are now based working from home. My job has changed enormously as generally, I have been a visiting officer going to Commercial premises and undertaking various health and safety enforcement and advice visits. All visits have stopped except in emergency situations and predominantly much of my job simply can’t be done. I am therefore part of the team enforcing the new Coronavirus regulations and for Cornwall a big part of this is ensuring that appropriate holiday businesses are closed in line with the regulations. Over the last week, the Council have had over 600 emails concerned that holiday properties are operating and I have been part of the team following this up.

Horse wise the horses are not at home, the yard is 10 miles door to door, but I am the sole occupant of my yard so I cannot delegate the horses to anyone else. I travel twice a day to see them and luckily see no one else pretty much, we have ensured we are isolated as much as possible. I have cut the girl’s work totally back and at the moment they are being ridden every other day, this will give me the opportunity to either pick them up or if circumstances dictate give them a holiday. With no school and the ground drying out this has really limited what I can do.

The first thing I stocked up on was my Dengie feed and the horses have enough for several months. Saying that when we met up with the Dengie team in January both were slightly above the perfect weight, I hate to think how they would be assessed now. With minimal work and the grass coming though, they are both looking more ready for the show season than an eventing one.

Ellie eats very little anyway so it has been impossible to reduce her bucket feed, but Fliss has had her Alfa-A ration halved and having a powder vitamins and min supplement instead of a balancer. She is finding this lockdown all rather boring!

We have had some fun times on Facebook if anyone wants to follow Shoestring Eventing. Quiz night on Friday, positive post on Thursday and then some Q&A’s as well as some eventing chat.