I've become a helicopter parent

Britain’s more traditional weather returns along with the first steps towards a new normality, but nothing can dampen Tessa Waugh’s spirits as she becomes rather too involved in her kids’ riding lessons

- Tessa Waugh

IT made a nice change to be trundling down the road at the weekend with Mary and Alec in the pick-up beside me and a trailer containing two ponies. Going out en masse is such a rarity these days that there was a celebratory feel in the car despite the rain bashing at the windscreen and the wind whistling in the trees. Lockdown seems to have that effect – it urns the most ordinary things into an event.

The ponies, however, weren’t feeling the love as we unloaded them at the other end. Sally was bracing herself against the swirling winds and Rusty was taking in the outdoor school with a jaundiced eye. He hates riding lessons. Karen was there to teach them, all smiles under a woolly hat, and they began to warm up, doing the obligatory circles in walk, trot and canter.