A new week, a new season.

According to the weather men, today is first day of Spring and at some points today, I could believe them.
There was no wind this morning and the sun was making a valiant effort to show itself. I took Remy out for a short lungeing session and then wanted to start the exercises in-hand that I've been doing in the stable. These are preparatory exercises at halt, including the stretch down and to the sides and flexions both sides. I soon discovered that it is a whole different ball game outside and Remy couldn't understand the need to stand at halt while I fiddled about at his shoulder. He wasn't naughty, just confused and a little impatient, so definitely something to work on.
As the weather was so nice after our horrible weekend, I took Anky up to the school for a lungeing session. She looked fairly relaxed on both reins, and offered a nice relaxed canter, something that she's never done on the lunge. At one point she had a little squeal and a kick of her heels, but nothing too melodramatic. Between changes of rein we did giravolta  and the steps were measured with good crossing over. She's made my day.
The trailer is now back on the yard so when we brought them in we had a trailer loading session. It's been a while since our last session so we brought Corky and Bonbon in first and Jim led Corky through and I followed with Bonbon but let her stand inside nibbling the hay for a few minutes. I then led her through without Corky as a lead and , no problem, she just followed me up the ramp and inside. Again, stood calmly while she nibbled the hay and then led her out the front. Brilliant.
We then brought Anky and Remy out and did the same, Jim led Anky through and I followed with Rem. He followed me in without any hesitation and we stood calmly for a few minutes letting him nibble hay. I led him down the front ramp and he was really calm. Next job was to load him without Anky's lead. After his previous inability to work out how to put his feet on the ramp I wasn't sure what to expect, but I walked round to the back ramp and walked up it expecting him to follow me and that's what he did, no problem at all. We stood in the trailer for a few minutes while he sniffed the front and nibbled hay and then I led him down the front ramp.  Double brilliant!  I was contemplating riding Corky for a full house, but it started raining quite hard so thought better of it.