1 post tagged “oi va voi”

I wouldn't have minded seeing Oi Va Voi at the Paradiso last night, but it clashed with my weekly horse training session, so I let it pass. Especially as Solon and me had a reason for celebrating. Last weekend I rode the last over 60% test I needed to be able to advance to the Medium class, which is pretty neat. I had never thought I'd ever even get out of the Beginner class. Solon is 8 next month, and Medium qualified... I think that's pretty well done. The taste of victory is made even more sweet by the fact that I taught him everything I know all by myself, having bought him as a practically unhandled 2.5 year old. Well done Solon... and, well, well done me :D

Monday evening we took it easy to recover from our competition Sunday and hacked around the area. The area we hack out in is called Het Amsterdamse Bos and is a forest/park built up as an unemployment scheme in the 1930s. Considering it's crammed in between Schiphol airport and our capital city of Amsterdam, it's amazing how quiet and tranquil hacking out a horse on a weekday evening can be. I barely saw a living soul last Monday, apart from one well known Dutch singers/celebs Gerard Joling. Spotting him running I had to smile, thinking how he's been enjoying the forest as much as I have over the past 15 years, as that's roughly how many years it's been since I saw him there the first time. While his singing is really not my kind of thing, his flamboyant character makes me laugh. When he spotted me smiling to myself considering all that he spontaneously said hi, which I thought was pretty spontaneous, so I waved and said hi back, before trotting off.

That was silence before the storm as far as Solon was concerned, because last night during my training session we really worked him. He's really picking up on the work and his canter is finally improving. About bloody time too. He still finds it very difficult though, resulting into one lathered up, very sweaty horse (and rider, eg, me) afterwards. Lucky for him, today is a day off for him, as I'm off to see Steve Albini's Shellac at the Paradiso tonight. I'm feeling a bit tired, having started early today and being woken by Storm pouncing on me at about 5:45, so I think I may give the support act (Tall Firs) a miss.

I watched the Scott Walker documentary on BBC1 last night. Very interesting watch, though I was very, very tired and it was hard to focus. Some excellent Jarvis and Gavin snippets though, and David was very entertaining to watch. I was intrigued by the backdrop of his interview, shelves filled with... Books, cds? Tapes? I think I'd have a field day browsing through his music/art/book/movie collection.

It's 9:10 now, so colleague's will start pouring in any minute now. In other words, time to look busy :-]