Sinking up to my shins in mud, I was forced to dig a moat around the horses’ shelter to try to drain away rainwater so they had a dry shavings bed to lie in at night. With the wind and rain lashing us as trees bent double and groaned, the horses began racing around. After shovelling for hours to create a series of irrigation trenches, and with the horses settled snugly in their shelter eating hay in the warm, I was put in mind of Noah’s Ark. I find it a logistical nightmare trying to get two ponies inside a shelter, so the story of how Noah had to load up two of every kind of creature remains my Old Testament favourite.