Latest French update.....

Easter holidays are here, which means we could go back to France, sadly this time only for a few days but it was great. We made really good time down the motorway on Saturday so naturally went straight to the stables so Ali could have a quick lesson. When we arrived, the previous group was still in the school, including Diane-Claire riding Kinna.  Kinns turned and watched us walk over from the car, stared for a bit, then sauntered over to the gate to say hello! She had to be reminded that she was supposed to be working, and eventually did some jumping with Diane-Claire, she seems totally at ease with it all, not a Tigger bounce in sight....

Then it was Ali's lesson, and she was really good, none of last year's arguing, she clearly now knows her job and gets on with it. Maybe there's some hope for Sky after all.....?

Ali seemed pretty pleased anyway

Then a couple of days later, Ali and I went down to Sheila's to see Fina. She was on form, jumping her trademark huge jump, and not being too worried by the big green ball

Went for a nice walk/hack with Sheila and Lucie in the sun. Ali says Fina felt marvellously relaxed. So nice to see the ponies looking happy and fluffy in the sun. Miss them........

Clever babies.......

Sky and Kinna have been at home for a few days so we have had time to do something with them, like wash all the poo out of Sky's tail and take them for walks......

So then yesterday, we decided to try an experiment, which went rather well........

and today, the same with Sky, no problem :-)

Noty going to do this regularly as they are only 3 but it's a good start.......although Ali's legs look a bit long on them, they are both 14.1hh now, let's hope they get a bit bigger!

A Rallye in the rain

It hasn't rained here for weeks, so of course because we were off to do a rallye today (an organised ride followed by a slap up meal) the heavens opened, naturally....

Team Horsetales wasn't too bothered at the start....

....but it rained and rained, and the girls were cold and miserable by the time we got to the casse croute.

Think they've gone native, no Stiff Upper Lip in sight. I quite liked it, reminded me of my childhood, riding in the rain......
Anyway, with some food and drink on board, they perked up. We got overtaken by a vintage car rally

and rode up some great (if somewhat muddy) tracks

Choccy rolled in (and ate) some choice brown stuff, and ran through lots of puddles.....

in fact by the end of the ride, you couldn't really see her hi viz vest. Then it was back to base for the meal, which was fabulous

and a spot of line dancing, the SNO was quite keen on this.....!

So a great day out, thanks to our friends Jo and Stewart and the Association PINCE who organised it.

I've lost my ride....

The SNO declared that she didn't want to ride up front of me today (and it hurts my back at the moment to have her there) so guess who got to walk?

And not just walk, oh no, "mummy can we trot?" started as soon as we'd left the drive.......

After the first attempt, when she nearly ran down an unfortunate passerby (and his dog!) I had to do a fair bit of running alongside her to be ready with the brakes.......

....and when her sister wanted to jump a ditch, yes you guessed it, we had to do that too

I need a sit down now!!!

Skýfaxa's little outing.....

Ali has been having a sit on Sky for a while now so this morning we decided to go for a little tour round the village. Sky was very good but is still a bit confused by stuff going on on top of her!

Ride and run....

My husband ran the Médoc marathon on Saturday. Like you do. It's billed as the longest marathon in the world as you run through 24 chateaux, some of which sell wine for hundreds of euros a bottle, and you can taste the wine at each and every one. And most of the French leapt at the chance to taste the wine.....and to dress up in bizarre outfits.......especially involving posing pouches, apparently!

Mike went dressed as an English marathon runner, I did offer to make him some bunny ears, but he declined.

Anyway, the day after, he wanted to do a "recovery run", so he came out with us and the horsies.

He's the flourescent yellow dot on the horizon.......

Ride n drive

Have had a great horsey day today. Originally we were due to go on a day ride with the people from a local riding school Got all set, Éowyn booked in to the holiday club for the day, trailer ready to take Gandalf and Ches up there the night before, took Seraphina to stay with Maverick.........all sorted until we discover the woman that runs the place wants €50 for me to go along on my OWN horse and bring my OWN lunch

Soddez cela pour un jeu de soldats, as they say.......

So, having gone to all this trouble to get a day off, we go to plan B. Took the horses to Tess's, went out from there this morning, Tess on Organza, me & G and Tanya on Ches with Ali and Caitlin in the buggy with Coquinette and assorted dogs......

And we had a great time! For some reason, Gandalf was really on his toes, he wanted to canter all the time, we did a lot of piaffe and at one point trotted up a hill mostly sideways not like the boy at all! We did manage a few canters, he's great at going from a standstill like the western horses, not so good at the stops yet.......Coquinette was on form too, she can go really fast when she wants to. Only slight problem was Choccy had to be on the lead because Organza doesn't like her and at one point Gandalf stepped on her. From the noise she made, you would have thought she was being murdered!!! Luckily we were in a muddy field at the time so there was no serious damage, I dread to think of the vet bills if it'd been on the road.......After that, she hitched a lift....

We got to Tanya's, put the horses in the paddock, had a spot of lunch. Then we decided to go down to the river......uncharacteristically Gandalf went in the water!!!

So did Tanya, when Ches thought a roll might be a good idea.....

Caitlin went swimming....at one point Coquinette disappeared completely under the water and resurfaced festooned in weed, like something from Pirates of the Caribbean......
Excellent fun, we left the horses to dry out a bit whilst we had tea and cake, then saddled up and went back up to Tess's.

Loads more pics here, and a map of the route here.

Thailand

Just got back from ten days in Thailand. Amazing holiday......

We saw some animals that you don't see in Europe much. Like elephants. And tigers.

The elephants were fantastic. We went for a ride first of all, somewhat slower than the horses, with a swinging stride......

......but that wasn't the best bit.
They took off their saddles and we got back on.....to take them for a bath in the river. Brilliant fun!!

Here's a video. The elephant Ali was on was trained to get rid of its riders!

Then the next day we went to see some tigers. They are kept by the monks in a temple and are raised by hand so are very tame, although you still have to be careful around them and follow the rules! We got to take one for a walk

Then the kids went off to play with the baby tigers and feed them.....

There's a lot of controversy about this place, I have read that the tigers are drugged, not fed properly, left out in the hot sun for hours........I have to say that we saw no evidence of this. Apparently it all started because some abandoned tigers ended up at the monks' temple and they took them in. Now they breed them and hand rear them so people can get close to them. We spoke to a couple of volunteers who work there and they had no concerns about the welfare of the animals. Yes, the tourists pay to see them but the money goes on taking care of them......

In fact I was pleasantly surprised how well animals in Thailand in general were cared for, I was expecting far worse. It's a Buddhist country though, so maybe not surprising. There are lots of cats and dogs around, they all follow the food for scraps, even on the beach but they were never agressive and a couple of times I ended up with a cat on my lap!