11 posts tagged “solon”
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.
In a way, it felt like I had won the lottery, but with a massive BUT to it.
I've had my horse for 6 years now. In that time, he's grown to be my buddy, my master in crime, most irritating beast ever and superduperbeastie. We've had wars and make ups, ups and downs, great rides and big falls.
And then someone came along last sunday, after seeing him jump an almost all clear with the words "Are you interested in selling him?". My initial instant response was "no way!". My friend told me not to say no right away, so I said we'd discuss it and get back to them. She's more savvy in the wheeling and dealing of horse business, so she caught up with the people later.
The situations was... a huge, HUGE sum of money to sell him to an international rider. I mean, we're talking brand-ne- middle-class-car-amount here. A lot of money for a 9 year old horse, who has never done anything in his life and can be very stroppy to boot.
So I had to consider it, and it was terrible. I didn't sleep most of the night, and was completely absent at work. Every hour my decision would change from "yes" to "no".
Now, all my more commercially inclined friends are calling me crazy, but I don't care, 'cause I'm still quite happy with my little pony Solon and he's going to stay with me for a little while yet.
But what a difficult decision to make...
Anyway, pictures. The view from my balcony this morning.
More horsie pics! I know everybody is just dying to see them, but I'm really proud of my boy, so there's more. Funny how one moment you don't have any, and the next moment, you have 2 sets within 3 weeks. Last weekend I took Solon out to a concours hippique in Lisse. A two day event, and I was one of the lucky ones that had to ride at the very start, so I got up at 5:30 saturday as well as sunday. A bit much, but I had a great weekend! Solon did really well, and we ended up 12th and 10th out of 22 on Saturday and 21st and 6th out of 24 on Sunday. I'm very happy with the result. Sure, the 21st spot was a glitch, but at these sort of events competition is fierce and there's a lot of people that are basically unbeatable. So ending up in the mid field and upper mid field is something to be proud off :-]
There's some real problems in the above pictures that I need to adress. One of the most sucky ones though, is that I noticed that I have really gained weight over the past few months. I blame it on the new company which has sugary snacks up for grabs everywhere. I have decided it's time to try and do something about it too, so I will be trying to pay more attention to my food intake and pick up a bit more excercise, namely cycling and swimming. Let's see how that works out.
I just got a phonecall from the phoneshop to say that my new phone has arrived. I'll be going for the N95 after all. Hopefully the size won't bother me too much.
I'm digging this picture.
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 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 :-]
Last night I once again trudged to the Paradiso to go see Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan who made an excellent idea called Ballad of Broken Seas. Mark Lanegan has been somewhat of an interest of mine for a while, but I've somehow managed to miss him every time he played here. Isobell Campbell is probably better known for her work in Belle & Sebastian (a band I admittedly never really got into or even gave a chance) and Mark Lanegan has done guest appearances with a number of bands, including Queens of the Stone Age and more recently, the Twilight Singers.
Earlier in the week, I went to see Jarvis who was in one word delightful. Here's the anti hero putting up a flawless appearance. Playing the crowd like a pro, delivering a mix between rock solid Jarvis-esque music (which deserves a class of it's own) full of cynicism and dark humour and stand up comedy. His conversation and songs seem lightweight and and entertaining, yet carry out a message without the overbearing preaching like techniques some performers like to use to get their point across. One downside was the poor advertising, which resulted in this show being very undersold and me having to eat two of my tickets :( Oh, and, Jarvis stole my joke! That bastard! It was funny though, so he's forgiven. I wished I could have seen more of his show, but it seemed to be fairly impossible to go do that. A real bummer, but c'est ca.
Yesterday when I came home from the Lanegan concert, Storm was just too cute. He more or less pounced me as soon as I came in through the door, then went completely hyper for the next two hours and kept pogoing around the flat while I was trying to sleep. He doesn't really know it, but I he'll be going to the doctor this coming Thursday to lose his mandhood. Poor little chappie. He has proven to be an absolute delight to be around, almost doglike in his mannerisms. I suspect I'll be spending a bit more money on him to get him completely sorted out though, but he'll be worth it :)
On a less happy note, Solon his leg is slightly swollen. While he isn't sore or lame, I'd rather take things a little easy for now. Hopefully it won't be anything serious, but for now all I can do is wait and see. Fingers crossed!
Like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth...
So I've been out of commission for a while, suffering from this slipped disc thing. Something that happens far too often to my liking. It had me very very very restricted for a good while, and frankly, it hurt like hell, despite so called painkillers, that didn't work at all. What is it with doctors these days, and being unwilling to actually help you? My monthly insurance fees are enormous, which I never use, because I never actually go see a doctor, and then when I do, he goes "Just take a couple of aspirins, and you'll be fine". Twat. I wasn't fine. I could barely get out of bed in the morning or put on my socks or anything. People were really forthcoming in helping me out with Solon, help which I grudgily accepted. I really have to learn to accept people's help more easily, but at least this was a start. I even managed to get him clipped last friday. First time for him (and me), but I must say Himself is looking very smart in his short coat. Almost like a real horse :) I did feel a little down about everything though, as everyone seems to be having fun with my horse lately, except for me. And they all keep telling me how great a horse he is. Pfft, like I didn't know that!
The back pains caused me to miss seeing Kashmir last wednesday. Then I was faced with the Nick gig last Saturday. An 85 euro ticket, I bought ages ago, thinking, Hey, it's a Saturday, so I can take my time driving into Germany and Mainz (about 4 hours), bimble around a bit and then go see this gig, not knowing that a few months later, I'd hardly be able to walk. I ended up doing what every other sensible person would do, overdose on painkillers, and drove down to Mainz. Getting in and out of the car was interesting, and frankly, I was in pain during the entire gig, but... it was still worth it! Nick was in great form, joking around, really drawing in his audience, taking the piss out of everything, first and foremost, himself. As a little extra, the new Grinderman single was played. A little side project? Or maybe just the follow up of the Bad Seeds? Who knows... The song "No Pussy Blues" is brilliant. I like the heavy guitars and the more throbby feel of the song, which seems a little more like "old" Nick Cave. The lyrics describe exactly how Nick has come across on stage lately. Loose, and taking the piss out of being a so called aging rock star.
The good news is I didn't feel nearly as bad as I thought I would the day after. Some strength seems to be seeping back in my leg, and I actually seem to be able to stand upright and walk in a straight line. I even sinned and managed to climb onto my horse's (bare) back, which actually helped to loosen the muscle. Something to do about the movement of the horse, or whatever. Climbing down was a different matter... So glad Solon is such a superhorse though, cause he stood stock still as I clamped onto him for dear life, slowly letting myself slip from his back onto the ground.
Just before my back broke down, I did go to see Nina Nastasia one night, and Cat Power a few days after that, but didn't have time to put them up yet. Nina was gorgeous, but still remains oddly underappreciated. She played the small Paradiso upstairs place, and that was maybe only half filled. They even put tables down. Very very strange setting, but it didn't matter, the gig was great either way. I'd love to see what Nina does with a somewhat more involved audience, as opposed to a very quiet, but attentive audience. She tried to reach out, but got very little back, which was a shame.
Then Chan Marshall, or Cat Powerrrrrr! Her sound has changed a little, I thought. Not surprising, really, considering where she came from. The last few times I saw her, she was on stage, bottle in hand, and she'd actually finish that bottle during the gig. Fidgety, flightt and nervous, she'd start and restart a song three times, and then break it off completely during the fourth. She's still fidgety and insecure on stage, unsatisfied with the way she sounded, and letting that overrule her performance, but not like she once was. She's just Cat Power and her little insecurities make her who she is and it's what makes her charming. I really enjoyed the gig and hope to see both again at some later date.
I took pictures at both of the girls' gigs, but not at Nick's gig. They're up on my flickr page, for anyone interested.
