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........

Kinna goes jumping

Just seen some pics from Mademoiselle's first outing to a proper Showjumping competition at St Seurin sur l'Isle, home of Jappeloup and the sort of place where you're expected to look posh.

Doesn't look like she gave her young rider an easy time judging from these......

....and, er, this!

I'm sure Diane-Claire won't mind me putting these pics on here as they're already on Facebook. But fair play to her for sticking with it and getting Missy to jump round the course (which is more than we're getting Sky to do at the moment)

Seems like she's been for  bit of a haircut too ;-) Looking good though....and full of beans!

Boot camp seems to be going well......

Sky has been going for her lessons as regularly as possible (when I've not been ill, Ali hasn't ben ill, or it hasn't been snowing) and she's been making good progress. I took the camera along the other day, as the sun was out and most of the mud was scraped off, and watched a bit of the lesson. She seems to be a lot happier in the school, the napping has disappeared and the only problem now is her lack of fitness, she was tired by the end....

Some pictures:

Canter transitions on the right rein are still a problem, Ali was having to really concentrate ;-)

Maybe our baby is finally growing up....?

The Great British Summer

When we told people we were moving back to the UK they all said "Why? The weather is terrible...."

But no, not this year. After a very mild winter with no snow at all, and me worrying about being able to fight my way through huge drifts on treacherous country lanes down to the horses in the Kangoo (which has been known to get stuck on nothing more than some wet grass), not a single flake. So much for my argument that we'll NEED a 4 x 4 here in the winter (which would incidentally be able to tow the horse trailer I haven't got yet either)......

And now, well, summer is here. We've had fabulous weather for weeks. Yes, the odd torrential downpour/thunderstorm, but apart from that wall to wall sunshine. And flies, ticks and mosquitoes.....but at least we didn't need to break out the fly masks back in April like we did in the Dordogne.

So the horses are having a bit of a holiday at the moment as it's just too warm to expect them to do much, and unlike in France, it's humid, which is yuk.

They don't seem to mind :-)

Unfortunately for Tari, the downpours mean too much grass, so she has to have a muzzle on most of the time. Doesn't stop her eating though ;-)

So normal service will resume when it's a bit cooler - and we haven't got to wrangle the NO who finished school today *sigh*

One year on......

Can't believe it's been a year already since I brought Tari home. This is what she looked like then

and here she is today

She was being a bit nosey bout Sky's tack, so I thought I'd see how she liked wearing it.....

....didn't seem too bothered!

Sky's extra wide cob saddle seems to be a good fit now so she's definitely going to need the treeless by the time she's old enough to ride!

Lovely day so we took her for a walk and jumped some ditches :-)

Back to France

So, Easter holidays are here and we've just been back to la maison en France for a week. Not exactly a holiday, mind you. Spent most of the week running around catching up with people. And drinking wine. Quite a lot of wine, as you do.......

Had lined up some riding lessons for Ali back at the club in Porte Ste Foy. Of course she wanted to ride Kinna. Pretty much as soon as we arrived, Carole was phoning to see if we wanted to come and see the horses getting fitted for their new hoof boots before their endurance comp at the weekend. So we went up there and got to catch up with Howard as he told me all about these new boots, Floating Boots, that he gets from Spain.

Like the look of them, even the sole is flexible......

Then it was down to see Tess and her horses who are in a new home and seem very happy and relaxed there. The yard owner has a Mérens mare who is fabulous, the SNO certainly thought so!

Back up to the stables for Ali to ride Kinna - and the little darling did her Tigger impression specially for us ;-)

Got actual sunburn up there standing by the school, having arrived looking like a pale English person. And that was just day 1......

Ali had another lesson on the Saturday on the lovely Nanou, who showed some really nice moments during the flatwork lesson

But the highlight of the week was going to Kinna's first endurance competition. After the usual crack of dawn start and endless drive, we arrived, unloaded, and she was like an overexcited kid, those funny-coloured ears were flicking at everything.....

She didn't want to stand still, pulled away from the trailer, stuck her head in the locker to get at the hay in there, reminded me of the SNO when she's on a mission to get into trouble......when we went for the vet check, she couldn't keep her feet still and even tried to eat the pot plant I thought all this excitement would mean a high heart rate......but no, it was only 28 bpm!!

Her winter coat is coming out in handfuls and where her skin fell off last year there's nothing left, she looks like a bit of a welfare case! They'll have to put suncream on her! But she is on good form, once she was saddled and wearing her new floating boots, she was impatient to be off.

John was intending to keep her at the back, but by the time they came back, she was out in front.....

.....and looking like she could go round again!

Then there was an argument about having water poured over her, she didn't seem to think that was necessary, although it was pretty hot by then (and I was well on the way to getting sunburned again) and more fidgeting and trying to go off and visit other horses or otherwise trying to get John's attention whilst he was trying to get his other horse ready for the 20k ride. Kinns seems to like him, she follows him about. The second vet check gave a heart rate of 48, not so good, but still not bad for a first time out. She came joint 7th with Carole and Valerie's horses both of whom have done this before a fair bit.

So a good day out, the two girls from Carole's on their ponies did very well for a first go, one of them came first as her pony had a returning heartbeat of 32. I miss those guys, can't wait to get back out there this summer.....

A gallop round the golf course.....

After some serious hailstorms this morning, the sun came out so we decided to get out for a ride. Good thing about hailstones is they slide right off the horses so they don't stay wet. After our usual grooming session transferring as much white hair as possible from the horses to our clothing and hair, we saddled up and set off.

Decided to go for Stinchcombe Hill today, been up there with the dog many times but never made it up there with the horses until now. After a brief stop along the way so the horses could check out the matches going on at the rugby club which for some reason were very interesting, we tackled the track up the hill.

It's very steep, so I got off the old boy and let him take his time. Well worth the effort for the views at the top though.....

...and there was the perfect mounting block waiting for me up there :-)

There were also some perfect hooley tracks and G decided a gallop was in order....

The bridle path goes round the outside of the golf course up there, apart from one bit which goes across the middle, so you do get a bit close to the golfists at times ;-) All that lovely smooth grass does make you want to gallop right across it though, such a waste! But apparently they get a bit upset if you do stuff like that so we were careful to stick to the marked tracks.

Sky was well on form, Ali did a lot of running about but she had brakes and speed control (most of the time)

Some stunning views up there, and not too windy....

 

 

 

Happy days :-)

Yes, I am still here.....!

Ooops, have been neglecting this blog a bit, partly due to Christmas etc but mainly due to not having internet at home - until today. So time for a bit of an update......

Well les Francais have been in the UK for 3 weeks now and they seem to be taking it all in their stride. They're not spending all their time on their own down the far end of the field any more, they sometimes actually graze alongside others in the herd and when we went out with G and Sky yesterday, Tari didn't even look up and styed with the others, although they called for her when they got back and she came running.

Had to laugh yesterday when the farmer who owns the place was shooting some clays, the main herd came barrelling up the field to investigate what the hell that noise was all about and our 3 didn't even stop grazing, so all that Chasse activity across the channel was good for something ;-)

Sky's leg seems to be well and truly on the mend, she was sound yesterday so Ali rode her out for the first time on English soil and she was pretty good, considering she hasn't hacked out for weeks. It was cold and frosty and  bit slippy in places so she did have a couple of interesting moments but soon figured out that going on the verge was a good thing to do. We have to go past the 2 stallions up the road and I thought there might be some silliness, especially as the younger of the two was racing up and down the fence making a right racket, but she was just a bit looky then she carried on :thumbup:
We also had to go over the M5 bridge, Gandalf I think was expecting the river Dordogne to be under it rather than a load of noisy traffic (and it's SO noisy, you just don't realise when you're in a car!!) but again, apart from a few looks, they were fine with it. We had walked the girls over it a few days ago and Tari was so not bothered she was eating the grass by the edge of the barrier.....

Unfortunately you can't go for a quick ride on anything other than roads (curse those ramblers and their stiles) but so far the drivers seem far more considerate here than in France and there are lots of little roads to ride along. Our horses still seem to think they should be on the right though ;-) When I get a bit more time I can get up into Nibley and go through miles of bridlepaths in the woods where that monument is. There's also a disused quarry where the mountain bikers have made a load of obstacles which look pretty darn good for TREC practise to me!