On Sunday we all got up at a ridiculous hour to attend Rhiannon's first gymkhana.
I'd spent the previous couple of days baking cakes to sell in order to raise money for the pony club and with these safely packed in the car, we set off.
Autumn is showing its face here and it's possible that Sunday was the last properly warm day we will have for a long while. Some trees are turning colour and I found my first conker a couple of days ago.
Although the early morning was chilly, the day turned out hot and sunny. When we arrived, the older riders were doing dressage on beautifully turned out and polished horses.
Initially it was a bit chaotic with kids trying to find the list of which horse they were riding and for which game, but that was soon sorted out.
Rhiannon was sad she wasn't riding her favourite horse, and a bit worried she had three separate mounts for each of the three games. Apparently one of them wasn't well behaved.
The gymkhana contestants were separated into groups according to experience and age; so the younger ones were led by helpers. Rhiannon's group had no help.
First up was the flag race - kid carries a flag and gets the pony to trot up to a traffic cone at the other end of the ring, places the flag in the cone and then trots back.
Next was a slalom, followed by something billed as Kartoffel... something. Kartoffel means potato, so the kids were very puzzled by this as they'd never practised anything with potatoes.
It turned out to be a sack race! Ride the horse to the end of the ring, get off and climb into a stinky potato sack, grab your horse and jump all the way back to the start.
For this race Rhiannon was on the 'naughty' pony. It did not want to play. And it did not want to be led. So it bit her hand... twice. No major damage done, and it didn't stop Rhiannon finishing.
She got a rosette and a prize. We're all very proud.