4 posts tagged “horses”
This could be a new addiction. I have never been a very confident rider. Well, confident on horses that are sweet natured and don't generally put a foot wrong. Unfortunately, I don't have a horse like that. My horse is a cheeky bastard, who will test his rider again and again, and sometimes shows us his box of tricks still isn't nearing it's bottom.
So for me to sign up for something like the XC/cross country course was a big thing. A bit of a challenge to myself. Recently I have decided to do a few more things I've "always wanted to do" and this is one of them. Solon has been an absolute star, feeling very steady and confident. Even so, I'm somewhat relieved to find myself still alive when I get of the horse.
All in all though, pretty cool. And I just love his ears being pricked forward. He seems to be really enjoying himself.
Solon and me were being adventurous yesterday. First time ever doing XC. He was such a good boy, feeling very steady and more or less doing his thing, saying in his non speaking way "Never mind, I know what needs to be done, just go along for the ride". Except of course when there was water involved, at which point he threw a temper tantrum :-]
And to continue the horsey news... I added another beastie to the family. Barones. She's a 2 year old Dutch Warmblood. Still needs to grow up a little, but she's lovely and sweet (and has beautiful paces for a showjumper)
The sleepless nights and mozzie trouble has passed, thank god and even the sun has come out to play a little, which instantly revived me.
For some strange reason getting back into the swing at things in work took some time, and I seemed a little lost at what I was doing before my holiday. All is well now though.
There's some movement on the horsey front. I have been fed up with the yard I am in for a while now, and have been looking around. All the stables in the area I know are not really what I wanted though, so I moved on. The biggest problem is that this area has clay soil and property prices are high. This means few yards are able to afford keeping a huge grazing field, and even if they have it, it's unusable in winter.
The other day however, I saw a little ad on Marktplaats for a stable nearby. So I decided to go have a look and it looked really, really good. The one snag is that there's no indoor school, so I'll be facing the elements this winter. They do however have huge stables, a great surface in the school, which should be rideable all year around. They muck out, feed, put the horses in and out and generally look after him really well, which means they take a lot of load off my shoulders. Aside from that, it'll cost me an average of EUR100/month less! Final conclusion... Solon and me will be moving house soon. I'm pretty excited about it, and it'll be great to get some more free time. I may even be able to follow a course, or go do some sports... Wee.
I did some more spraying in the middle of the living room last night which was a Bad Idea in that now my very cool looking smooth hardboard flooring is now covered in a silvery grey dusting, which left me on hands and knees last night trying to scrub it clean. Emphasis on trying. I always do stupid shit like this...
The upside is that the final result looks absolutely stunning. I should have some time tonight to finalise the whole thing, so hopefully everything will come together the way I imagined it and the Hungarians won't start World War III while I'm there :-]
Someone posted this link from an icelandic paper
on a Nick Cave forum. It mentions Nick trying to ride Icelandic horses,
which (being a rider myself) just cracks me up. Icelandics are
typically very small, strong little horses, which are often made to
look even smaller when ridden by tall, thin men. I'd love to see a
picture of that!
