Rain, rain, go away......

It's been fairly wet here since we got back from the UK, but today it hasn't stopped raining hard all day. By four o'clock Ali and I had had enough of being cooped up so we got kitted out and took the girls for a walk.

They didn't seem to mind, especially as there was something to eat en route!

Sky had a bit of an issue with running water though, she was highly suspicious of the noise at first and did a fair bit of snorting

Fina just tried to drink it.......

Then we headed home down the road, where Sky decided she didn't like the noise the cars made going past in the wet, we stopped by the road for a while so she could eat the verge and after a while she stopped flinching every time a car went by.

Their field is half lake at the moment, still, at least the ducks are happy......

We were supposed to go and do a SJ comp with the kids tomorrow, but as we don't fancy getting towed out of the "car park" (waterlogged field) by a tractor, we're going to give it a miss......

Met an amazing lady.....

When I was Googling the London Marathon a while ago, I came across this site. Claire Lomas is a former 4* eventer who was paralysed in a fall a few years ago and can only walk with the aid of a robotic machine. Her story came up in my search because she is walking the London Marathon to raise money for Spinal Research.

As we were still in London on Monday after the marathon, we got in touch with Claire and asked if she'd like some company for a bit of her marathon, and she said she would. So on a wet and cold morning, we all headed back into town to find her, and  I'm glad we went. Claire is a real inspiration, she always seems to be positive and smiling. We walked from mile 2 to mile 3 of the marathon in Charlton. It was so wet and involved hills which are really tiring for her so we ended up resting under a bus shelter......

You can really see from this pic how hard it is for her to walk in the suit

She can't feel anything so even knowing when her feet are going to hit the ground is difficult.......

The SNO was very good and didn't whinge (much) and she made friends with Claire's daughter Maisie when we stopped and had lunch with everyone in a café (you can see the "robot" in the background of the pic)

We were really impressed with Claire's courage and determination and will be following her progress round the marathon course. You can sponsor her here, we have........

The London Marathon

Well, today was erm, interesting......
Yesterday we got to Excel to pick up Mike's bib etc, were pleasantly surprised to have to queue for all of five minutes compared to the nearly four hours for Paris. Some organisation at last, we thought, compared to the piss up in a brewery not being organised at all in Paris.

However, today in London we (the spectators) rapidly discovered that the great organisation began with and ended with the runners. Today the fastest way to move around London was to be in the race......

Got to Greenwich, discovered barriers everywhere manned by marshals or police so no nipping over the road wherever you fancied like in Paris. Saw Mike at about 6 miles in, no problem. Then tried to get back on the train.........

Security people everywhere, massive queues, ended up walking miles instead. Then spent an ill advised hour standing on a small ledge in front of some railings which had a good view but made my back ache a lot. Mike arrived just after I'd had enough and had got back down to street level.

Then we had to fight our way to the finish, Mike having the easy option of running there, us having to get on a train, get off at one station, be told that the station we needed was shut, walk to a third station.......wait ages to be able to use the crossing to get to the finishers area, piss ups and breweries were definitely back on!

Still, he made it, very tired but happy. And the pink hair was real, (despite some people thinking it was a Photoshop job) and it worked, he ceratinly got noticed.......!

One down....

Well here we are in Paris just having a glass of wine to recover from the Paris Marathon today, Mike had to run it obviously but the kids and I spent the whole time rushing up and down steps to Metro stations, standing in overcrowded trains and then on freezing cold and windy streets waiting for him to put in an apperance! He now has no reason to complain about hanging around at the next TREC or SJ comp we do........

Things I have to change before doing it all again in London next week: wear shoes more comfortable than jodhpur boots for yomping around a city, get Mike to dye his hair pink or something so he's easier to spot, and if humanely possible leave the SNO behind!!!

Mike is in pretty good shape, considering, having followed the advice in the official guide to the letter (think they might need to use a proper translation service next time):

 The small bandages for his tits worked well so I didn't get the complaining about jogger's nipple this time (got no sympathy from me anyway, I remember breastfeeding)

A week to recover, then off to do it all again in London. Still time to sponsor us here.

Gandalf's gone on his holidays.....

Rode the boy down to Tanya's today as we're off to Paris then London to watch the other half run marathons so he's going to have a couple of weeks off from the bullying girlies and can chill out with Ches and Polo without getting pushed around (as much).

Took Sky along for the exercise, by the end of the ride she'd finally got the message that I wanted her to canter sensibly alongside Gandalf rather than bucking, biting and trying to blat off ahead of him.....

Gandalf was full of beans and did an average of 7.8 km/h, trotting and cantering the whole way. Not sure if that was because he wanted to keep up with Marathon Man or whether he knew he was going to Tanya's where there's lots of grass and no one to annoy him.

Took us ages to cross the main road in the village, the horses were both very patiently waiting to cross and ignoring all the large lorries rattling past when a bloke in a car parked (in the way) on the pavement called Mike over and told him horses had no business being near such a busy road! Tant pis, monsieur.......

Here's the map.

Then we walked back with Sky on her own, along the main road with its big rattly lorries and she didn't worry about them at all. Kept trying to deafen us neighing for the others though.......

The girls will be going into my neighbour's paddock tonight which has lots of grass, so they'll be happy........

Lovely day with my daughter

Went for a nice Bank Holiday ride on Monday. Ali and I rode up to Jane's in Bonneville, then swapped our two mounts for Ocarina and Maverick. Ali put him through his jumping paces again, he seems to quite enjoy it....

...and I did some more of the bending stuff with Ocarina. She's very stiff on the left rein and leans in like a motorbike, I've been trying to get her to stop leaning in and flex better.....

There were some nice soft moments but she's very resistant to the hand sometimes and tense through her neck

She's also in a hurry all the time so we did some standing still and doing nothing practise and I worked on slowing her down every time she rushed.

Jane wants me to come and work with her regularly, might have to find time to do that......

Nice ride home afterwards too :-)

Youngster's Challenge

Been practising this, another challenge on Horsetales, this one just for the under 16s. It involves an egg and spoon and some one handed riding, which proved tricky in practise........

Where's the egg?

....but the girls got there in the end!

Here's Éowyn's on the lead rein (Gandalf was a bit plein d'haricots)

And Ali's entry for the non lead rein kids

Great fun, hopefully this will be a regular thing.

This month's challenge......

We have started a monthly challenge on the Horsetales forum, nothing complicated, this month it's sit to the trot for 30 seconds.

Ali and I decided to have a go bareback, here's Ali's video:

and here's mine:

Ali originally tried it with no headcollar on, but that didn't go so well as all Fina was interested in was eating......!!

Got lots done today

Exercised 4 horses today on 2 hacks. Took G and Sky out this morning, and Sky was a total hooligan, prancing, snorting, exploding whenever we tried to canter, wish I had a helmet cam, she was so funny........

Map and pics  here

Then this afternoon I took Ches and Kinna out, wanted to check out a ride I'd meant to do a while back but forgot the map last time, this time I remembered it and we did a lot of new tracks and ended up doing 12kms. Kinna kept trying to stop dead and eat grass, when this didn't have the desired effect, she kept trying to get in front of Ches and bite him. Still, we had a nice ride on the whole.......here's another map

Teenagers, eh?

How the rules have changed.....

Was just talking to Ali about when I learnt to ride and it got me thinking. Remember when you were learning to ride and your instructor told you all theses things, like always lead from the left with the lead line in both hands

never let a rope drag on the floor

always keep your hands down and together

Always mount from the left

A lot of it is sound safety stuff that was drilled into us, but experience has changed what I do. A lot....

Now my rules are things like never start something you don't have time to finish, always reward for the smallest try and be firm, consistent and calm no matter what happens.

Although very occasionally I really do have to mount from the left ;)