Well 2021, you’ve been real. Who could have ever guessed that we would still be under the curse of the COVID. Another stop-start season and a serious bump to the year for us personally.
January saw Cara in crutches after Nikki accidentally ran her over with the quadbike – long story, check out our March 2021 newsletter for more gory details.
https://www.wilderways.scot/uploads/9/8/7/8/98784940/march_21_issue_8.pdf
The year went from bad to worse and both Cara and Nikki were floored with COVID after visiting Nikki’s mother in hospital, who we very sadly lost to COVID at that time. On our knees figuratively, and in Cara’s case literally, we spent a miserable February to April trying to pick up our spirits, improve our health and rehabilitate our bodies. We have never felt fatigue like the long COVID we experienced.
To add insult to injury, due to the continued uncertainties, we again could not travel to Knoydart for our May & June adventures this year. So another depressing start to the year, emailing guests to try to move their bookings. It simply amazed us how patient and understanding everyone continued to be despite knowing how disappointed they were to be missing yet another adventure. We can not thank you all enough for your support at this difficult time, it was definitely you guys who kept us going, ready to fight another day.
With international travel still very much restricted, we looked again to the domestic market, who were mostly now starting to get onboard with the idea of staycations, though they had to keep reminding themselves that the Scottish weather is somewhat different to Spain! We did manage to sneak through a few Dutch and German guests within the small window allowed in July but they were few and far between. We were delighted that all our rides did go ahead on some form, but again the numbers on each ride were very much reduced. Thankfully you were all delightful and the horses were keen to be back to work so a great deal of fun was had all round.
Every cloud has a silver lining and with less time in the saddle over the last 18 months we were able to make good progress on some of our other projects. In April we were over the moon to see our long awaited arena project finally get underway. Due to the financial crush of COVID, we were initially disappointed to have to reduce our arena specification to an outdoor rather than indoor arena, but as work got underway our spirits were lifted. We can not tell you how happy we were to make those first hoof prints in the sand in October when it was finally finished. An emotional and monumentous day!
Of course the absolute highlight of 2021 was the safe arrival of our first ever Wilder Ways foals. One good thing to come out of COVID, a local stallion in need of some grazing in 2020 and unable to travel to his usual spring holiday field. We were worried he would not stay in our fields so his owner suggested we ‘give him some friends to keep him entertained’. At that time our herd were not expected to be in work for the foreseeable, so we decided to give him 3 friends. 11 months later in April 2021, Una was born, daughter to Uisge, quickly followed later the very same day by Sirocco, son of Kneka. A month went by and we were starting to worry about Ruby, but hurray, here came Falkor, a beautiful fit and healthy colt. Mum and babies were all doing so well, all mares foaled themselves, outside, completely naturally. That’s the Wilder Way to come into the world!
So generally the world in on the up – feeling grateful and hopeful for 2022. We finish the year a with a trip ‘down south’ for the Horsemanship Showcase and its just the breath of fresh air we need. It invigorates us to come home and test out what we have learned on the herd and give us lots of new ideas for integrating more of this into our holidays and adventures into the future – so watch this space for new things to come.
January saw Cara in crutches after Nikki accidentally ran her over with the quadbike – long story, check out our March 2021 newsletter for more gory details.
https://www.wilderways.scot/uploads/9/8/7/8/98784940/march_21_issue_8.pdf
The year went from bad to worse and both Cara and Nikki were floored with COVID after visiting Nikki’s mother in hospital, who we very sadly lost to COVID at that time. On our knees figuratively, and in Cara’s case literally, we spent a miserable February to April trying to pick up our spirits, improve our health and rehabilitate our bodies. We have never felt fatigue like the long COVID we experienced.
To add insult to injury, due to the continued uncertainties, we again could not travel to Knoydart for our May & June adventures this year. So another depressing start to the year, emailing guests to try to move their bookings. It simply amazed us how patient and understanding everyone continued to be despite knowing how disappointed they were to be missing yet another adventure. We can not thank you all enough for your support at this difficult time, it was definitely you guys who kept us going, ready to fight another day.
With international travel still very much restricted, we looked again to the domestic market, who were mostly now starting to get onboard with the idea of staycations, though they had to keep reminding themselves that the Scottish weather is somewhat different to Spain! We did manage to sneak through a few Dutch and German guests within the small window allowed in July but they were few and far between. We were delighted that all our rides did go ahead on some form, but again the numbers on each ride were very much reduced. Thankfully you were all delightful and the horses were keen to be back to work so a great deal of fun was had all round.
Every cloud has a silver lining and with less time in the saddle over the last 18 months we were able to make good progress on some of our other projects. In April we were over the moon to see our long awaited arena project finally get underway. Due to the financial crush of COVID, we were initially disappointed to have to reduce our arena specification to an outdoor rather than indoor arena, but as work got underway our spirits were lifted. We can not tell you how happy we were to make those first hoof prints in the sand in October when it was finally finished. An emotional and monumentous day!
Of course the absolute highlight of 2021 was the safe arrival of our first ever Wilder Ways foals. One good thing to come out of COVID, a local stallion in need of some grazing in 2020 and unable to travel to his usual spring holiday field. We were worried he would not stay in our fields so his owner suggested we ‘give him some friends to keep him entertained’. At that time our herd were not expected to be in work for the foreseeable, so we decided to give him 3 friends. 11 months later in April 2021, Una was born, daughter to Uisge, quickly followed later the very same day by Sirocco, son of Kneka. A month went by and we were starting to worry about Ruby, but hurray, here came Falkor, a beautiful fit and healthy colt. Mum and babies were all doing so well, all mares foaled themselves, outside, completely naturally. That’s the Wilder Way to come into the world!
So generally the world in on the up – feeling grateful and hopeful for 2022. We finish the year a with a trip ‘down south’ for the Horsemanship Showcase and its just the breath of fresh air we need. It invigorates us to come home and test out what we have learned on the herd and give us lots of new ideas for integrating more of this into our holidays and adventures into the future – so watch this space for new things to come.
