Spring has sprung

Finally looks like spring has arrived with some decent weather. Haven't been doing an awful lot with the horses recently, been busy with the 5x50 Challenge. I got a nice fundraiser's t-shirt from World Horse Welfare in the post today so I had to get out there with it on for a picture.....

Gandalf is still off ridden work so gets taken along for a drag most days. If he's really lucky he gets the SNO on the end of his lead rope, as he knows he can easily drag her across to the nearest patch of grass. She doesn't half tell him off for it though :-)

He can't be feeling as bad as he was though since this morning, when we put Sky and Kinna in the neighbour's field for a bit of grass before we went out, he ran off up the field bucking in protest at being left behind........the girls were very happy to see some green stuff.

 Not sure if I should let G have too much of it though, so he's restricted to a couple of hours a day to start with.

Also got a new fleece today with the forum logo on it, it's navy blue so those white horse hairs show up a treat!

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.