What's in a name?

Ali and I have spent ages thinking about a name for the new girl. Céline means "heavenly" so we have been looking at astrological names. We came up with a few from various baby name websites, quite liked Seren which is star in Welsh, or Izarra, star in Basque and Synnove, which is Anglo Saxon for gift of the sun.  We looked at the names of actual stars, there are a few like Chara, Merope or Heka that are nice. But none of these was quite right.

So we went back to the old favourite, Tolkien. Quite like the word Isil or Ithil, which means moon in Elvish. But in the end we settled for Elentári, one of the names of Varda, a Middle Earth deity. It means "Star Queen" in Elvish, Tolkien wrote that Varda  created the stars before the Valar descended into the world, and later with the dews from the vats of Telperion she made the constellations......

 

 

 And they have a similar hairstyle ;-)

 

The new girl

Been a bit busy this week. On Thursday, we took Kinns down to my friend Sarah's near Montauban as she is going to spend the summer there getting an introduction to classical dressage. As we were driving all that way (huge thanks to my chauffeur, Tanya), I thought it might be worth checking out  this little cutie whose ad I'd seen on the internet

Turns out she was worth it, not just because she looks like she should be in a L'Oréal ad (and one of my friends thinks she looks like Pamela Anderson) but because she is an unspoilt baby who was a bit apprehensive but was nonetheless prepared to let us take her away from all that she knew and stick her in a trailer (twice).

So she is here now, settling in with Sky at the new field down the road we've been offered the use of, it's clear she's not been handled much, has never had to give her feet, Howard is coming to trim tomorrow, I suspect we won't get much done. She's also had a headcollar on for too long and has a scab under her chin due to it rubbing. And she still has a lot of foal coat, needs a bit of a grooming session.

But we'll get there. She doesn't even know what a carrot is, just like Kinns didn't at first.....she's a yearling, Comtois x Mérens, will definitely get big and chunky enough to carry me around one day, her legs are nearly as wide as Sky's already :-/

Oh, and her "official" name is......Céline. Which I hate. So we are currently brainstorming a better one....

Really?

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I have just been made aware of the existence of this book. About a Fjord called Seraphina. Concidence? No.......

The author did indeed used to own a "a lovely Norwegian Fjord mare named Seraphina, the inspiration for this book." And then she moved to America and Seraphina couldn't go too, so I got her. And as those of you who regularly read this blog will know, that's when the hard work really started.......

So the blurb on Amazon says: "All the family's animals - the dog and cat, the chickens and ducks, and her mother's big grey horse - are awaiting this joyous arrival."

If only fact had followed fiction! Hardly a joyous arrival....and my "big grey horse" wasn't to chuffed with her behaviour, I can tell you. She wasn't too nice to the chickens and ducks either, or the dog......

Had a quick look at some of the book and I'm afraid that,  apart from being fairly unimaginative, given that it's basically a Disney Princess version of what actually happened (without any of the nasty tiresome, real life, dealing with a pony who needed to know that yes, humans can be some use at looking after you and no, you don't need to try and take over, and yes they can be trusted.......), it's also badly written with some truly dreadful twee illustrations so I won't be rushing out to buy it any time soon for my kids, even if it is about my horse!

I shall probably invest in this instead, a far more favourable review.....

Kinna goes for a little outing....

Took Kinns up to the club yesterday as Polo was going anyway and there was a space in the trailer. She was pretty good really, had a look at a lot of things but wasn't spooked or silly

 - apart from when she decided she'd rather eat the grass than ride over it (as per usual) and had a Tigger moment

Ali took her into the sand school after the lesson and again there was another boing as she didn't fancy going round in there when there was grass to be had outside, but eventually she got the message, did a bit of nice canter and we left it at that.

She liked Carole's Arab, Idaa.....

and the new foalie, Crack

Then during the second hour of lessons we had to leave her in a stable next to Idaa who was objecting to being left in on his own, she didn't turn a hair :-)

Don't think we'll have to many problems if Ali wants to have  the odd lesson on her up there.....

Visiting the girl....

Went to visit Seraphina on Thursday, as it's the school holidays and Ali wanted to go and see her. Tess and Caitlin came along for the ride and we had a nice fun day with lots of laughing and gossiping....

When we got there the girls were calmly grazing together. This is a good thing since when I was there a couple of weeks ago to pick my trailer up, the new girl, Tayenne, was systematically breaking out through the fence and disappearing into the woods. Probably "encouraged" by Fina who has decided she is once again in charge. Tayenne is a seven year old Camargue mare who has spent her life so far in a herd and hasn't really seen much of the world. Easy victim for little miss bossy, really.....

Sheila's older mare, Lucie, has gone to the stallion and Tayenne has come to keep Fina company whilst she's away. Lucie is definitely in charge of Fina, so it will all change again when she comes back. And next year there will be a foalie for her to contend with!

We went for a nice walk, Ali rode Fina and we walked Tayenne the spook monster who did a lot of snorting at stuff, but is starting to get the idea that the whole world is not out to get her.

Great hacking round there.......

Sunny Saturday

Lovely afternoon, rode to the river, splashed about.....

...jumped some stuff.....

......Ali read the map.....

......Kinna had a bit in for the first time and was  a good girl......

......very successful day :-)

Cross country!

So yesterday it was cross country day, Carole is in the process of building a course so we had a few fences to play with. Again, Nahiade was a star and really seemed to enjoy doing something other than going round in circles in the sand school.

As she still hasn't got a bitless bridle for her, we tried Gandalf's new Micklem and she really seemed to appreciate it, maybe it was the bridle, maybe the Myler comfort snaffle, maybe the two, and maybe Ali's soft hands but there was far less head-in-the-air-taking-off......

She was the only one who was prepared to go in the water at first, Ali soon had her cantering through it, but all the others went in eventually, some more readily than others!

Caitlin was riding Sun, a big trotter who is very enthusiastic but is a big baby about things sometimes. Think he enjoyed the jumping too though :-)

Very pleasant day out, although I ended up doing 6kms on foot following them around the course, so no need to do any cycling for the 5x50! Chox enjoyed it too, I reckon......

Little bit of video here:

 

 Really fancy a go at some XC myself now, wonder if Gandalf would mind?