SO. I woke up on Friday morning, gripped by fear. I had woken from a nightmare, in which my daughter had been kidnapped and was screaming for help from a fifth story flat window in Morocco, or somewhere like it.
Pushing the dream to one side, The Teen and I cracked on with our early morning start.
Two hours later I was making tea with a colleague, when I was told the Teen "had taken a tumble" at her riding stables and the paramedics were on their way.
The stable owner rang me, calm, reassuring yet assertive and I jumped into the car, numb and robotic to make the usual 20 minute journey to the yard.
But the roads were chock full of Bank Holiday traffic, several tractors and temporary traffic lights, so coupled with my emergency, the journey was the stuff of nightmares.
Dear reader, as you know, the A338 in most part, is a fairly swift highway, but on Friday, for some reason that I am yet to fathom, I ended up behind a driver, so tiny, that his Hyundai Matiz looked like it was radio controlled.
He was not touching 24mph and worse, he was stopping at random to let other vehicles cross his path. I was unable to overtake, so busy were the roads.
Deep breaths.
Almost an hour later I turned into the yard.
"She's talking. She looks worse than she is. She's okay."
I found my beautiful baby bound on a spinal board.
"Can I ride Storm tomorrow?" she asked.
I looked at the paramedics and smiled.
"We'll see how you get on sweet pea, maybe in a couple of days."
"Can I follow you?" I naively asked Pete the paramedic.
He stared at me quizzically.
"You know, behind your blue lights."
He smiled: "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that,"
Oh. Of course, that's illegal, probably.
The Teen was in shock and shivering as they wheeled her in.
With kind words and care, the staff checked her over, took x-Rays and cleaned her up.
While she may look like she's been through glass and is stiff and sore in places, she is remarkably unscathed for someone who landed on her neck and head from a height.
Have I done the right thing by encouraging her love of horses?
I was always taught to follow my heart.
I think it only fair that she should follow hers.
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