hellison | (no subject)

So, since thursday, things have been better ;p Weekend mostly dominated by impending Beach Riding Trip of Potential Doom planned with J. from the stables and her lovely horse Mary.

Took friday morning of work and sleeeeeept; after work went off to the stables to ride, more forward seat practice (main problem seems to be when I go forward, lower leg comes off. One to work on), and jumping! Quite a bit of jumping, getting more and more confidence there. In fact enough to play a game with ziggy I haven't done in aaaaages - trot round on a totally loose rein and let her go where ever she likes as long as she keeps going. Invariably, she goes for the jumps - I had actually forgotten she did that! Was much fun.
Then home, and kaaaaty. nom nom nom.

Saturday was a day of Doing Very Little. lazy lazy lazy. Went to b&q to buy steps to make getting on horse at beach easier ;p Then *back* to b&Q to buy more scary yellow hazard tape as horse was apparently jumping out of small field into the bigger one again.
Went to stables, chatted to a couple of people who said they'd put her back in the small field earlier but she just jumped out again, so they shut the gates and left her to it. Went down anticipating prolonged chase around bigger field, only to find her in the small field - obviously got fed up on her own and jumped *back* in. Crazy animal.
The rest of sat. evening mostly involved a struggle with technology so I could watch Dr Who on telly via the Wii - great episode, am liking Matt Smith increasingly (tho, still miss DT. and still hate the new music). Then early (relatively) night as Sunday was early start for BEACH RIDING TRIP OF POTENTIAL DOOM.
Worry over BRTOPD not at all reflected by a night of crazy dreams about zombies...

Sunday, up at 6. SIX AM. Shambled round house like zombie myself, assembled packed lunch and headed off to stables. Not at all panicking now. Tho distractions of getting horse box hooked up and everything packed into jeep kindly loaned by J's work helped. Eventually got horses on too and there was no more excuses, so off we set. Slowly - even the big borrowed 4wd had a bit of trouble pulling a ton of horse box loaded with nearly 2 tons of horses. On winding hilly roads. We may have caused tail backs ;p

Got to beach (eventually) and unloaded horses, who, contrary to expectations were pretty chilled out about the whole thing (I know when she goes hunting, ziggy gets v. worked up when she arrives). Got tacked up and could delay no longer... so on we got and headed down the beach. Tide was out, v. few people about and horses were, surprisingly, calm and relaxed. Pottered about a bit, in and out of the water, did a few circles, then it was GALLOP TIME. WHEEEEEEEEEE.
Forward seat much easier to maintain when horse is actually going forward. Forward FAST. May have had death grip on the mane as well to help ;p The main problem came with stopping the gallop - Ziggy was running to chase Mary and Mary was running because Ziggy was chasing and neither of them wanted to stop. So it was more OHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT STOPSTOPSTOP ....Eventually managed to steer Z away and they slowed down.
So next time, we steered them slightly away from each other from the start and it was all much more controlled. WHEEEEEEE slooooow WHEEEEEE slooooow.
Did lots of splashing throgh the water too, and had an Interesting Moment when what looked like a patch of seaweed turned out to be a pretty deep random pool and nearly went right over her head...
All in all were we on the beach for about an hour with a mix of CHAAARGE and more controlled stuff, it was GREAT. And *nothing* went wrong. Which given when J first suggest it I nearly panicked just thinking about it, is pretty encouraging.

Also managed to co-ordinate with my sister to bring the kids along and they loved seeing the horses, they were even brave enough to pet them and help feed them, which is a good start! Finished the morning with a lovely picnic filled with tasty treats (mainly chocolate based) while horses had theirs
Then loaded back up, drove back to stables, causing yet more tailbacks, then eventually got home and collapsed ;p Good times!

So today's plan is go have a bath, go to stables to check if yellow tape has kept crazy horse in field, then down to see family. Hurrah for bank holidays!