Brought up on a diet of anthropomorphised cartoon animals, your children may have a particularly rosy view of country life. Bears chat laconically, rarely rip anyone to shreds (baddies excluded) and never defecate in the woods. Badgers, foxes, stoats and birds of prey all rub along, sharing lookout duties, snappy one liners and schemes to outwit any villainous housing developer encroaching on their habitat.

Step outside your front door though and you’ll find the la réalité francais somewhat different. Take capybara. Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris is a bloody big and virtually indestructible semi aquatic rat, introduced from South America and now found everywhere in France. 

Having never before competed in an Endurance competition, I thought the time had come to have a go. And as I hate doing anything in a half hearted way, I wanted to be fully prepared. So, first things first. Read a book, browse the internet to get an idea of training, speeds and equipment and make a plan. This takes a few days and then finally I feel ready. The family are very impressed with all my preparatory work but think perhaps it’s slightly over the top for just 10 km!

Normally my choice of horse would be my Arab "Ras", but due to some saddle fitting problems, "Sunny" has unwittingly taken up the challenge and been fast tracked into a sleek and streamlined form. Not easy for a horse with a lot of Irish Draught in him.

When you were small, the world viewed through the ‘box was black and white and big - and mainly grown up too, with children’s term time programmes limited to a couple of hours a day. During the holidays though, along with the joy of dumping your satchel in some soon forgotten corner came the exotic delights of imported US tv series - long since digested by our American cousins but with great theme tunes, unfeasibly good looking and orthodontically perfect children and, best of all, guns. Amongst these was Champion the Wonder Horse who, à la Skippy, had a nose for crooks and kids stuck down abandoned mineshafts. But it was Champion’s canine sidekick, Rebel, who most impressed - not least when seizing said baddies somewhere deeply uncomfortable until the sheriff arrived.