Daniel is up to his old tricks, breaking away from Steve and running off across his new summer field. A warm and dry April led to The Boss announcing all-day turnout for the horses last week, a month earlier than last year.

The boys and their mates are in a large, upland meadow, high above the canal, where we hope Daniel will not be as badly plagued by the flies as he was last summer.

Steve, recovering from a bout of flu, was taking off their head collars when an over-eager Daniel galloped off with his lead rope wildly trailing.

“Must be off. There’s acres o’ grub in ’ere,” said Daniel, dodging every attempt a breathless and cursing Steve made to catch him.

After an exhausting ten-minute chase, Steve once again puffed over the brow of the hill to confront the naughty chap.

“A bloke gets no peace to test such lushuss-lookin’ grass,” Daniel grumbled, finally allowing Steve to remove his head collar.

“Don’t you start,” Steve said as our elderly lurcher, rejuvenated by a dental operation, bounced off as he approached with her lead. She ran down the grassy lane to the stables, full of the joys of spring.

May is a particularly special month to be out and about in The Yorkshire Dales. Even a short walk along the lane from the livery yard brings the smell of wild garlic and the hammer of the woodpecker in the burgeoning woodland by the canal towpath. Hawthorn blossom froths in hedgerows sheltering clumps of violets, cowslips and primroses.

Sheep and lambs are everywhere. Esme thought her last hour had come when a fit and fiery Mrs Horse thundered up the cross-country field, pounding through a host of woolly sunbathers. It was sheep to the right of them, sheep to the left of them, sheep in front of them – and sheep underneath them. As the flock scattered, Mrs Horse leapt clean over a less-nimble ewe.

On Bank Holiday Monday, Ladies at the Yard watched in horror as a tiny duckling plunged through the slats in the new horse-washing area to land with a distant plop in the watery depths. Anxious seconds later, the fledgling reappeared after scaling a subterranean build-up of old straw and haylage. The Boss caught it in his big fishing net and restored it to its mother.

“Two days’ noshing and you’re a barrage balloon,” said Steve as he brought Daniel in from the field at the weekend.

“Mighta overdun it a bit,” Daniel agreed, clearly feeling over-full as he stood yawning in his stable.

After a gentle hack he was ready for a nap. “I’ll ’ave forty winks before supper,” he said, eyelids drooping.

Steve Wright & Jenny Loweth