2nd cross country lesson with amazing cloud backdrop

John had a rush of evening students, so we got to ride cross country instead of show jumping.  It started raining two days ago, but we lucked out and didn't get rained on during loading, grooming, the lesson, or unloading at home, and even better, the sky had super interesting clouds and great evening light across the cross country field.
Duke warmed up great; pretty calm and not so looky at the big boxy jumps.  He stayed soft and pleasant, so I gave him a quick warm up and then just let him walk around.  Last night, at home, he got tenser and tenser riding in the indoor arena - I don't know if it was because Luca was in there, because of something I was doing, or what - but eventually I gave up trying to get him to relax in there (when Jazz came in) and rode him outside in what was almost dark and a drizzle, and he calmed down a lot.  He's around other horses in the warm up, so I'm not sure what it was.
John had us start with a little log, jumping it toward the water and the other fences.  He said to ride it like a show jump, that Duke is perfectly good at cross country, so work more on thinking show jump to the fence.  We rode it turning left, then right, then left, and at first, although Duke was jumping just fine, I kept trying to cut the corners and instead of going straight a stride or two (there was plenty of space), I would haul him around the corner immediately.
From there, we jumped a little A frame, then a little wide table, then a table with a rolled log on top, then the roll top headed back towards the barn.
The A frame I had a bit of a hard time lining it up the first few times, but sweet Duke kept trying.  We had to ride just past a whopper upper level fence, but Duke hardly even gave it a glance.
We did a bit of drifting, and Duke is very good about landing on the lead when I use my leg aid in the air, but when I use my left leg to scoot him over, it means we're going to land on the right lead.
He got a wee bit strong, but stayed obedient, halted when John told us to, and was easy to bring back, so I thought it was a great lesson in how far we've come in just a few months and what a great horse he is.  We walked around the fields with mom a bit, and he stayed all Cool Hand Duke, even when other horses came and went nearby and in the distance.  He's a good boy.  I'm glad I got to work him a bit before fall and winter, so we have a good idea of stuff to work on over the winter to get ready for spring.  I'm excited about how much better we'll know each other by the time show season starts next year.