Woman in a man's world

Christmas 2021 - Part 2

The whole group sat at the table for a long time, talking, discussing and laughing. After everybody finished Lausa, Scott and David. The real grown ups stayed back to get the dishes. The grown up kids went to the living room.

"I don't think I've been to this part of your house before," Esteban said, taking in the view from the many windows.

"Yeah it usually takes a few years to see every part." Lando said, jumping down on the couch.

"True that, I've never seen the stables." Alex said.

"What?! Yes you have"

"No i haven't"

"Have"

"I haven't"

"Oh my god I've failed you, we have to go right now." Norah said shocked.

"I've never seen it too." Esteban added

"I don't think I've seen it since the renovations." George said. The group went back down to the front door, everybody put on their jackets, hats and gloves.

"Norah where are you going?" Laura came into the room.

"I'm gonna show the boys the stables, can you believe that Alex has never seen the stables?" She pointed to the innocent Alex.

"Yes okay but only showing and not for too long, okay?"

"Yes, I can follow my own rules maman. We'll be back soon I promise!" Norah hurried her friends out the door and onto the little gravel path to the stables. 30 years ago this was an old barn where they had cows and now, it was the most successful show jumping business in the UK. The open fields are usually filled with horses but during winter they stay in a lot more.

"So this is the first stable where we now have all of the pregnant horses, it's not too much to see. Over there is just a filling stable where there are a lot of horses that come and go. But we also have ferries, massage things and other stuff in there. But this!" Norah walked up to a bigger building, a few horse heads peaked out of the windows when the group walked in.

"This is the big stable where all of our competition horses are. So here we have around 30 horses right now, mostly horses that we brought up on our own." Everybody had a walk around and greeted a few horses.

"This is the legend, the horse my dad bought for 70 pounds and made one of the best show jumping horses in the world from it. He has won the most things you can win, with my dad, Matt and me. Now he's retired and spends most of his days in a big field."

"Is he retired already?" Mick asked.

"Well not really retired but we don't really have anyone that can ride him right now and he is starting to act like a grandpa, but he still competes just not like before." The group kept greeting the horses, Mick realised that a few horses were missing.

"Norah where are your horses? They're not here."

"Yes we have my stable left. Come! We changed this a few years back after a little incident between me and my dad. So now my four horses live here." Norah showed one last building, a smaller stable with six boxes. Only four heads peeking out.

"So all of my stars are in here, i have had plans on buying two more as you can see but ED happened so yeah. But these are mine." Norah went up to the grey one and gave him a kiss. The rest of the group went to all of the horses to greet them.

"Norah, which one did I ride the last time we did our winter ride?" Lando asked.

"I think it was Val, and I was on Splash." Norah pointed to two of the horses. The group kept interacting with the horses, Norah was along with her Monty. Hugging his face like always.

"You look peaceful," Charles said carefully, walking up to the girl and the horse.

"I'm always peaceful when I'm here."

"I'm happy to see you this way, it killed me to see you hurt."

"Yeah, you're not alone. I got a whole bomb from David a few weeks back about how hurt he was seeing me destroying my life. I don't understand why he has to turn things his way. I get it's hard but it's not like I can do anything about that, I didn't choose for this to happen."

"Yeah, we can't always choose what happens in our life. But I'm happy I chose to go here."

"Even though your flight got delayed." Norah gave Charles a smirk.

"Yes, I'm happy I'm here."

"Me too." Norah closed her eyes and continued to hug the horse. The group stayed for a bit until Lando got cold. They all walked back inside and sat down by the fireplace. Lando, who felt at home at Norah's, made himself a mug of hot cocoa to warm up a bit.