Tails From Provence

The Perils of Internet Shopping

Last week, I did something I’d never done before – I bid for something on e-bay. It was a Gaston Mercier Marathippo saddle, suitable for endurance and trekking, according to the Gaston Mercier website. The price? These saddles are €1350 new, so the minimum bid of €550 seemed liked reasonable value. I googled them and they seemed to have some pretty good reviews, so why not the minimum bid, I thought – after all, I was unlikely to win the auction, right?

Wrong. Here’s my new saddle :

It’s WEIRD!

The tree extends out in front, thusly :

It extends out behind the saddle, too, presumably to give a greater contact area for weight distribution.

The pommel is well cut back so it won’t press on the withers.

The flap is cut dead straight, with no rolls or padding, so it lies nice and flat, behind the shoulder, leaving loads of room for saddlebags (which is one of the reasons I need a new saddle).

Does is fit Aero? The jury is still out on that one… it’s a bit “banana shaped” at the back, but I think I can fix that using a riser pad with variable shims in it. Without riser pad (excuse the dirty horse!) :

With riser pad & numnah :

The other little niggle is whether it’s wide enough at the withers. Aero is not a wide horse by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not sure :

How did it feel for me?

Actually, not bad at all, despite its weirdness. The seat is really nicely padded and I felt I was sitting nice and level, ie not tipping to the back and not pitched forward on my fork either.

I did miss the knee-roll of the dressage saddle, mind you, and looking at the pictures, I’m wondering if I could place the saddle slightly more forward – I think that because of the funny extended tree, it’s designed to sit a little further forward than normal.

It rocks a little on him in trot, but then, so does every saddle he’s ever had… he is not an easy horse to fit. Alexandrine had a look as well and had the same concerns as me, but the osteopath is coming on Monday, so she suggested that we ask her opinion, too. Sounds like a plan.

But the weirdness continues…
when I got home, I looked more closely at the sticky-out bits at the front. Hmm, I thought, why are these straps here? I undid them, wiggled a few bits, and Hey Presto!

This saddle comes in instalments!

You can see its super-lightweight fibreglass tree :

and the quality of the leather in the panels :

I like this saddle. I hope I can make it work. (And yes, I was able to reassemble it)

And there’s more…

A couple of weeks ago, Kayti over at What Kayti did Next posted on Facebook about a few bits and pieces she was selling. After some back & forth with her, I decided to splash out on a lightweight vented helmet. My second ever Impulse Internet Purchase arrived today. This one came with a cute puppy card, though – thanks Kayti!

This one fits for sure! (The hat, not the card) but again it feels a bit “different” – it sits on my head like a cycling helmet, not a riding helmet. Here’s to not being a hot-head in the summer!

Finally, speaking of summer, the summer scourge has begun. No, I’m not talking about visitors, I’m looking forward to them. I’m talking about flies. Poor Aero has two problems :

1) He’s allergic to pretty much every kind of fly bite going

2) He’s absolutely delicious and is therefore a magnet for every fly within a 5km radius

He had a couple of lumps on his belly yesterday. Today he has them all over his body. It’s time to break out the fly rug and face into the scourge of rubbed shoulders and slipped rugs. It’s better than a lumpy horse…

I thought Flurry was laughing at Aero first…

but then I realised that he was actually jealous as he stood there twitching flies off his body.

Hard luck, Flurry, you’re not getting one unless you develop an allergy too.

Les Muguets and Le Fête du Travail

(Don’t worry, translation will follow…)

We’ve had an old friend staying with us for a few days – some of my (very) old friends who glance at this blog from time to time will no doubt recognise the name JP. JP is French, he lives in Nice and drove up to see us. We wore him out – despite the torrential rain that’s been falling all week, we did lots of walking and touristy stuff with him. He left this morning to go home and sleep.

JP enjoying the ochre cliffs at Roussillon

Today is May 1st – Le Fête du Travail – I suppose you’d translate it as “Labour Day.” It’s a public holiday all over Europe, greatly associated with unions and the good they have done over the years, and there are parades and marches in most big cities to mark the occasion.

I already knew about May Day/Labour Day because it is a holiday in Ireland, but today, I learned about Muguets. It all started back in the 16th century when King Charles XI was given a bouquet of muguets and was told it was a “Porte Bonheur” – a bringer of good luck. The following year, he decreed that all the ladies of the court should be given muguets… to bring good luck to them and, by association, their menfolk I guess! The tradition has lasted throughout the centuries and is still observed, with French men presenting muguets to all the women in their lives on this day. Muguets are produced in vast quantities for the occasion in a city called Nantes, where, by a strange twist of coincidence, The ED spent an unhappy three-months on a college exchange. I bet she never heard of muguets while she was there.

Yesterday we dropped into a super-market for a few essentials (no, wine was not one of them) and I wondered why everyone was buying little sprigs of Lily-of-the-Valley. This morning, JP surprised me with this :

Ever the gentleman (like most Frenchmen, it must be said) he spotted that the LSH didn’t know about Les Muguets so, when he went out for his morning cigarette, he popped into the flower-seller next door and bought me my very first muguets.

Thanks JP!

(information about the origin of the muguet tradition from these clever people)

Tags: Fete du Travail, France, muguets

The Yellow Army meets the Red Army

Saturday… what a day.

The weather was just awful as we loaded our Munster flags and our Munster-jersey clad bodies unto the jeep. It remained steadfastly awful as we drove to Montpellier, just over two hours away, and the awfulness continued as we parked the car and splashed through the streets of Montpellier to meet up with our niece (a Leinster lass, it must be pointed out) and her hubby (a staunch Munster man). We sat and bemoaned the rain under an umbrella in front of a café, and compared every weather forecast going – France Meteo was the most optimistic, but was also the most wrong, seeing as it kept insisting that the sun was shining in Montpellier at that very moment.

Finally, the rain stopped just as we made our way to the tram that would take us to the stadium, and when we arrived at the Stade Mosson and met The Yellow Army, the party atmosphere took over and banished all thoughts about the weather.

I’ll say one thing for the Clermont fans, they know how to enjoy themselves. They even have their own brass band and a tram to put them on…

I’ll say another thing, too – they made all the Munster people feel really welcome, too, albeit in an over-confident, smug, sympathetic sort of way…

Over-confident? Moi?

Here Vitalstatistix is waving a Munster flag and a Clermont-Auvergne flag to be fair and equable.

whereas Asterix was clearly partisan :

The Yellow Army outnumbered the Red Army by at least four to one I would say. There were blue and yellow wigs everywhere, blue and yellow face paint everywhere and of course blue and yellow shirts everywhere…

although this guy seemed a little confused – a Munster jersey with Clermont shorts and socks?

Once we were in the grounds and settling down for the match, the crowd really got going.

The noise was phenomenal, especially down at pitch-side, but the Red Army fought back valiantly and refused to be outsung.

(It’s a miracle I can still talk)

Anyway, to the most important part of the day – the game. Munster came into the game as out-and-out underdogs. Clermont scored an easy try within the first ten minutes and we were thinking “Oh crap, this is going to be embarrassing…” but Munster rose to the occasion and were unlucky, in the end, to lose.

Our Hero and Captain Paul O Connell winning a line out

Brilliant day, brilliant game, brilliant atmosphere…

Something tells me this is Clermont-Auvergne’s year to be European Champions – we’ll know in just under three weeks time when they take on Toulon in Dublin. One thing’s for sure, Dublin won’t know what hit it when the Yellow Army arrives.

I’ll leave you with a video of the party atmosphere before the game :

Oh, and FINALLY, I did something I’ve never done before – I bought a saddle on e-bay. It arrived on Saturday but I haven’t had a chance yet to try it on Aero. Gulp. Hope it fits!

Tags: #muncler, rugby