Why I hate shopping. And dressing up......

Later this month, my mother in law is celebrating her 70th birthday. And we can't get away with simply going out for a nice meal or taking the old dear on a day trip. Oh no, because she has gone to enormous trouble and spent an absolute fortune on organising what we have dubbed the Three Day Event. Now I have absolutely no problem with a solid weekend of partying (although my liver would probably disagree these days) but it's all the other poncing about that she seems to expect that is causing me grief.

Friday night, the dressage phase, will be fairly simple, a meal at the village restaurant, catching up with the huge entourage of friends and relatives who are jetting in from the UK for the weekend. Should be fun actually, might have to put on a clean, horse-hair free t shirt, maybe even one with out a rock band or sci-fi show logo on the front, but we should be able to manage.

The final day of the event should be fine too, as it's a hog roast in the garden. So maybe a second tshirt will be required. And there really will be showjumping as we are hoping to slope off to a comp in the morning up at the club before the do starts at lunchtime......

No, it's the Saturday that, in true cross country style,  will be the real test of endurance and ability to overcome large obstacles. Due to the words "formal dress" on the invitation, two words guaranteed to strike fear into my heart. Not just for myself, as being fat and over forty means I never look good in anything, whatever I wear. Which means I might as well be comfortable, which is why I usually slob around in jodhpurs and the aforementioned t shirts. Why go to the trouble of getting some posh clothes on? Because posh just really means uncomfortable. Skirts and dresses are not comfortable, I don't care what anyone says. Shoes that aren't joddy boots or trainers are not comfortable. And also not suitable for wearing near horses so why would I bother? But OK, I can probably scare up something I wore to a wedding a few years ago that has been gathering dust in the back of the wardrobe ever since so job done.

No, the real problem is Aliénor. She is a true chip off the old block and likes to wear jodhs and tshirts. She never wears dresses or skirts either. In fact, she'd probably be happier in a tux. As would I, frankly. And anyway, what exactly does "formal" mean? Black tie? White tie? Tails? No idea. Friend of ours has an amazing Tuareg outfit he got in Niger, he was wondering if this would be formal enough...?

But I digress. It was with a feeling of dread that I took Ali shopping the other day to find some "formal wear". I rarely ever enter a French clothing shop, and here's why:

 And these are just a small sample. There is some serious crap out there at the moment. Florescent orange looks good on my hi viz "don't run me over" gilet but on a dress?  And why would anyone make a dress out of loud floral fabric then decide it isn't busy enough so add random buttons/embroidery/ribbons/sequins til it looks like a Christmas tree?  I mean, I thought the French were supposed to be fashion icons, so why are they wearing this stuff?

Anyway, after a couple of hours wandering around in a daze and totally failing to find anything Ali would be prepared to wear out in public, we happened on a boutique (that's just a posh word for dress shop) selling some vaguely decent stuff and she tried this one on, which met with approval. Because it's black and has studs! And were it floor length probably wouldn't look out of place in Servalan's wardrobe.......

It looks a lot better on, but she's not prepared to model it before the Big Day.....
So flushed with success, we returned home, feeling relieved. Until someone said "you'll have a job getting shoes to match". We have to get shoes as well? Aaaaarrrrgh.........

Jubilee weekend fun......

Very busy weekend. Only just recovering from it now......

 Started off on Saturday morning riding the horses down to Tanya's for a day of horse stuff with a bunch of kids. Got them all sorted and on various horses and ponies and did a little showjumping competition. it was warming up a bit as the morning went on, and Polo for one didn't want to play ball, tried his usual running out tricks. Fina was a bit naughty with her unfamiliar rider, Lydia, too. But the others got on with it, even Maverick after some initial titting about at the brightly coloured jumps........

The big girls, Elodie on Peter and Aurelie on Solium, did very well.....

Then we had a break for lunch and in the afternoon tackled the Equifun course, built under the trees for a bit of shade.

There were a few tricky things in there. Everyone was fine with the lasso, pick up a hoop, ride one handed round a cone without knocking the ball down, put the hoop back.

Then on to the labyrinthe, which is a bigger version of the s bend for TREC

Then the serpent, three poles raised on one side, you can jump them or weave round them if you dont want to jump

The slalom, exactly the same as for TREC

the locomotive, 3 different sized logs, so you can jump the bigger ones or step over the smallest

Then that casse-tete, a few of them clipped the hoops, every faute gets you 20 seconds added to your time

The mat de cocagne, pick up the rope, ride round the cone, put it back without dropping it, a couple of them had trouble with that too.....

and the last one was the portes, 4 sets of cones with balls on top, each closer together than the last, easy enough at walk but some of them got cocky and tried to canter it, tennis balls were flying everywhere.....

Chucked in the bridge we'd made for last year's TREC too

Elodie won with Peter, Aurelie and Solium came second, Lydia and Chester were third, Hollie & Polo fourth, Jane and Ocarina 5th and Ali came last, mainly because Mav sent balls and hoops flying when he was dancing about and not cooperating, poor Ali did much better with him during the practise!

After that, we moved a few horses around, took some home, then went to the restaurant where Gary had made us some great curries. Had a massive thunderstorm in the night so all the kids abandoned their tents and ended up in the house......

Then on Sunday we had a Jubilee party, was meant to be a street party but the weather meant we had to move it indoors. Gave the girlies their rosettes:

Had a great meal, everyone had brought something along.......had to go out half way through and help load Peter into the trailer as he was playing the others up, but apart from that everything went smoothly!