Slacking!

Oh my goodness, when was the last time I blogged   ...  September!?!  What's that all about?    Well, goodness me, I swear time passes quicker the older I get.   Actually, having said that, I shall be glad when this year is over.  I think its been one of the worst years ever for me, starting with my Dad's death  in March (may God rest his soul) and the very near break up of my marriage in October.  We are hanging on and trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy.  A serious lack of funds is hampering our efforts and I'm not sure how we're going to get through Christmas.  Everything is considerably down-sized so I hope people don't think we're just being stingy with presents.  Hopefully in the new year my other half will get off his backside and get himself a proper job earning proper money (and pigs might fly, but we can only hope!).

I will not give up mine and my daughter's horses unless we are completely destitute!  At least Jasmine has got herself a job to pay for her livery - she works for two hours after school every day for the cleaners at the school.  It means she's not home until after 5.30 but it leaves her weekends free.

Talking of horses, Santana is still looking fab.  I've never seen him looking so good.  Everyone at the yard says how great he looks - it makes me swell with pride. 

In an attempt to combat my confidence issues I had a lesson with Caroline at our yard in October.  She was great - making me think of all sorts of things at the same time (multi-tasking, gah!) and by the end of the hour I had completely forgotten my worries about Santana.  He was feeling the difference and was so relaxed and chilled out - just like he used to be.   This gave me something to work on and I rode on each of the next two weekends. 

Then we had another mishap.  Santana had started forcing his way through the rather flimsy fence around our field and I had to get it repaired several times already.  One morning we had to bring the horses in because there was a "shoot" on the farm.  No horses anywhere in our field and we finally found them a couple of fields down  having destroyed several lengths of fencing, electric and other sorts.  We brought them back through the gaps they had made when Rambo, Jasmine's pony, took a dislike to one of the gaps and suddenly freaked out knocking us both over in his panic.  Of course me, being the one who always gets injured in any incidents, was the one who got trodden on.  I had a perfect hoofprint on the inside of my thigh and, boy, did it hurt!   That was about six weeks ago and its only now starting to get better. 

I have managed to ride the last couple of weekends and I'm pleased to say it has been good.  I am concentrating very hard on relaxing and all the things Caroline taught me which seems to be working. 

Next problem:  Jasmine had a very bad fall from Rambo about a month ago.  Fortunately she escaped unharmed but it really shocked her.  It has left her with a lot of distrust in Rambo which she's got to build back up again.  She is such a confident rider, and with good reason - she's got great natural ability - I've never seen her nervous like this.  I'm really hoping she can get back to where she was.

What a pair!  We're as bad as each other now!

Anyway - now for some pics:-

Riding in the menage

                                                                                          

Alex, my son having a lesson

Early October - chilling by the "lake" in his field

Where did the summer go !?

Exactly that ...where did the summer go?  It seems like only a few weeks ago that we moved to our new yard and here we are nearly at the end of the summer already.   We have definitely enjoyed the last three months at our new yard, organising our grazing and our stables, etc.  We've had lots of time to ride, either hacking out or schooling in the menage. 

Santana seems to be really happy and is looking great at the moment, although he's slightly fat having managed to sabotage my electric fence energiser while I was on holiday and make his escape into the hay field.  He was put back every day but by then he'd realised that the electric was off so as soon as no-one was looking off he went again!  Cheeky monkey!

Anyway, we've now negotiated a field move to a field much closer to the yard, like literally 2 minutes away - how good is that!?  We made the move on Wednesday and all ponies have settled in well together like they were old mates all the time. 

Santana, Rambo, Ned and Robin (in that order)

This was after Santana had pranced around the field stargazing and with his tail stuck straight up in the air like he was an arab stallion.  I didn't have the heart to remind him his carefree colt days were long gone!

Happy in his new field

Busy Days

It seems I've had another long break from blogging - I seem to have been so busy, I hardly even get a lunchbreak at work sometimes. 

We've been busy with non-horsey stuff such as, my family thinking it would be an excellent idea to sell our folding camper six weeks before we are due to go on holiday in it.  The idea was to buy a caravan with the money from selling the camper.  Good idea in principle but not so easy in practice because caravans tend to be more expensive than folding campers.  Still, we managed to find one in our price range (just) and brought it home to store at mum's house (thanks mum!).  Of course, on closer inspection when we got it home we find out all its little faults and foibles.  Its a good job my other half is very handy and knows lots of other handy people.  Work has started to get the caravan in shape for our holiday in Cornwall in August.  Next we had to buy an awning so another search of Ebay ensued.  Awning is now bought - check. 

Of course in the process of inspecting and buying these things a fair bit of mileage was clocked up on the old Pajero which drinks diesel like its going out of fashion.  This has had an adverse effect on my bank balance and the decision has been made that I can no longer afford to run the Paj.  Its costing me over £50 a week just to get to work and back and I could halve that with a more economical car (and pay another livery fee instead!).  I'm gutted about selling it but its just too thirsty.

The question now was what to buy.  As far as I'm concerned I'm not too bothered, my only stipulation is air conditioning - the climate control in the Paj is so good I would really miss it now.  I don't know if any of you have children but my two (15 and 20 yrs respectively) are very particular about what wheels they are seen in.  No mere Vauxhall Astra or Ford Focus will do for them, oh no - buy an Audi A3 mum!  Yeah, right, like that's going to happen! 

Having trawled Ebay and Autotrader I think we've reached a compromise with a Peugeot 206 - around year 1999-2000.  It's a little smaller than I would have liked but it seems to have great fuel economy and it looks cool enough for the kids.  Now I just have to find one thats cheap enough for me to afford to buy and sell the Paj.  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

The Lovely Pajero

Update on the horsey situation next time.