40 Things for 40

Well, today was fun. If sitting astride a horse who likes pretending to be a human and walks on their back legs can be classed as fun. Once I got on, Sue followed behind with the rope and apart from one stop, Mia walked striaght out and across the stream. Got to her 'sticky spot' and she just went up. No warning, just stright up (and f*****g high). Landed and up again. And again, then tried to whip round for home. I turned her back round, but other than keeping her facing forwards I sat still. Went backwards a bit, then up again, then forward. Up. Sideways. Up. Backwards. Up. Up. You get the idea. Just when I thought she'd given in, she went up again (very f*****g high), turned 180 on her back legs, landed and bronced. How exactly I satayed on I have no idea, especially as at one point there was definalty nothng between me and the ground. Ended up around her neck like some kind of monkey while she cantered back to the yard. Safe to say at this point I wanted to get off an...

Just as I was hoping that things were getting better, we had a very difficult hack today. Mia was fine to tack up and I got on fine. As we got to the end of the barn she started to play up. As well as the stopping, reversing and spinning, we had quite a bit of rearing. I pushed her on a bit more today, rather than just sitting it out. We managed to get out eventually thanks to Sue, who was able to swing a long rope behind Mia to encourage her forwards. Once she went out, she was striding out nicely until about 30 yards away when she planted and did a few rears. I managed to get her going again until the crossroads when she had another 'moment'. I was just starting to get through to her, when a quad appeared with at least 3 teenagers on board and they were heading stright for us. I dedcided to turn Mia to the left and we made a fast exit away from the quad. They turned the opposite way to us, so I realised that we would be likely to meet them again further on. Got Mia back t...

Echo decided that dragging the fleece rug off of the wall would be great fun. Apparently the rug is more comfy than straw too :) I love her "what?" face

Sorry Simon! My Grandad Ray On the 8th February, my Grandad celebrated his 80th birthday. He decided that he wanted a party, which my mum, aunt and uncles organised for him. Many friends and relatives turned up - I think about 90 people in all were there. It was a lovely day and so nice to be there to celebrate the life of a wonderful man, and the best Grandad in the world. Grandad with his children (l-r) Eugene, Teresa, Catherine and Raymond Grandad with his grandchildren - Brendon, me and Johnathan The cake

Well, after a weekend off, today Mia decided that she did not want to even leave the yard, she planted, reversed and tried to spin round. She has a couple of rears, but not too bad. Jackie was raking the school so come over to help by walking next to Mia. This helped and once we were out in the forest she was fairly good. I say fairly as we did have a bit of an argument at the crossroads - I wanted to go straight across and she wanted to go in any direction other than straight on. We did have to stop to wait for one of the Forest Commissary cars to go past us. I was a little worried about how she might react, but she stood nicely and turned round when I asked so that I could show my tag to the driver. We did make it the whole way round, and in one piece, so I think it was a success. Next time she should be better as she is getting used to the route and I am not letting her get away with being naughty.

After the fun from yeasterday, I decided that I would try the hack again on Mia - hopefully this time without any napping, rearing or rogue deer sent to attack us. There was a small amount of napping, but no rearing or rogue deer. Mia did try to do all in a fast trot again, but this time I was able to get her to walk nicely and ask her for trot when I wanted to trot. She did stop at the place where the deer appeared yesterday, but after a few seconds, she walked on again. She got lots of fuss while she was being good, and I probably bored both of us senseless with my inane chatter, which was simply to keep the pair of us calm. Well, ok, mainly me! As I will be away for much of the weekend, I probably will not be able to ride again until Monday, but by then she may have realised that hacking on her own is not that scary and I will get her to do it, not matter what she throws at me.

So... I had the genis idea to take Mia for a hack on her own. In the piddling rain. And there was a *slight* breeze. Taking up was fine. Getting on was fine. Heading out accross the stream was fine. Got about 30m up the track and she stopped. And reversed. Then reared. And did some more reversing. And reared again. She felt like she was looking for a fight, so I decided not to give her one. I just sat quietly but would not let her turn back to the yard. After a few minutes she walked on. She did the stop/ reverse a few more times, but thankfully no more rearing. Once she got going, she decided that storming off in trot was the best course of action. I decided to push her on as at least she was going forward, until we started cantering. Got her settled and was on the last turn to home when about 15 deer suddenly appeared in front of us. They shot off and Mia decided to do a 180 degree turn. I followed about 3 seconds later. I'm still not sure how i ended up back in the saddl...

Seriously, where has the month gone? Talk about blink and you miss it! Anyway, just a little update on my goals so far this month. 1. Be a better me I don't feel like I have done much with this one. I have been getting more organised, or at least as organised as I can get while living/ working with the most un-organised person on the planet! Being mobile has certainly helped with this, I've also set a routine for the week now too, rather than having to rely on Simon/ public transport/ kind friends to get me places. I have managed to save some money - not a huge amount, granted, but having some money left in my account at the end of the money is a big plus for me. Other than that, I haven't done much else on my bullet list, so new goal is to try harder next month! 2/3/4 Amber/ Matti/ Projects Thought I'd just group these together, as they are all quite similar. Generally, I've not got anywhere near as much riding done as I would have liked. I have been workin...