Tails From Provence
What happens when a horsemad Ould Wagon moves from Cork to Provence with 2 horses, 2 dogs and a Long Suffering Husband? Why, she gets a third dog, discovers Natural Horsemanship à la Française, starts writing short stories and then discovers a long-buried talent for art, of course…
The Best Anniversary Present Ever
(or, Why I’m Glad the Eldest Daughter Lost her Job)
The Eldest Daughter (aka the ED) has been working for a prominent London publishing house for just over nine months now, as PA to the editorial director. Her boss resigned just after Christmas, giving three months notice, but the ED was assured that there was still a role for her within the company. Fast forward to the day after her boss left, and the ED was called in to Human Resources and told she was being made redundant.
Yeah. She was not a happy bunny, but there’s nothing to be done in a situation like that. Verbal assurances aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, after all. I briefly thought about asking her to visit us, but I knew she would be job-hunting frantically and needed to be available for interviews.
Tansy (aka the Youngest Daughter, aka the YD) was booked to visit us last week. Our wedding anniversary was last Sunday, but that wasn’t why she picked that particular week. No, she picked the second last week in May because she thought it would suit her college work, bar work, gigging and rehearsal schedule. It suited all four very well – that is, until the date for the repeat performance of their David Bowie tribute show was announced : May 31st. She would be missing for the second week before the show, when she should have been starting rehearsals, organising posters, inviting the press to the show, making sure the set was suitable etc etc… but she is learning to delegate and delegate she did. Then the band that she plays with, Nothing New Under the Sun, agreed to play an extra gig – while she was away. Oh well, that was unavoidable, they would just have to cope without her. And they’d also have to manage without her while they started rehearsing for the EP that they plan on releasing soon! Plus she had some extra college work to do, but hey, she could do that while she was here.
So, in fact, her trip only suited her bar work schedule, and that was because she made sure she wouldn’t be rostered on during the week of May 18th to the 23rd! But we were delighted that she was coming, and we planned on celebrating our anniversary a few days early so that we could celebrate while she was here.
The LSH offered go to Nice to collect Tansy from her late night flight on the 18th. He would arrange meetings with a couple of colleagues while he was there, too, so he would leave in the early afternoon. I planned to ride both horses in the morning and then do some yoga, make up the spare room and do some general tidying up in the afternoon.
Gratuitous picture of me & Flurry. In case you’ve forgotten what he looks like.
By noon, I had finished riding and I was hot, sweaty, hungry and tired. I was just turning Flurry out when I got a phone call from the LSH :
“Workmate A has invited us for dinner. He’d really like you to come along too so I said you’d be there. We need to leave about 1.30.”
I was not too happy, but I said ok. As I walked back to my Jeep (going very well, thank you for wondering) I became less and less happy. By the time I got home, I would have less than an hour to shower, change, eat and make up the spare room. I would have to spend at least five hours sitting in the car when I could be doing something more useful. The dogs would have to come with us, too, so we would have to go in the Jeep, so the trip would end up costing us about three times the amount it would cost to do it in the Fiat 500. I was also not at all impressed that he had told Workmate A that I would be there without asking me first…
I arrived home hot, sweaty, hungry, tired, grumpy and determined not to go. As soon as I walked in the door, I said “I’m sorry, I’m not going.” Then I played my trump card, “If I spend five hours in the car, my back will be knackered and I won’t be able to move tomorrow.” Haha, argue with that point, LSH!
He seemed disappointed but said ok. He left an hour later and I promised that I’d wait up for them to arrive. I was really looking forward to seeing Tansy!
What I hadn’t realised was that he was planning on giving me my anniversary surprise – the ED! As soon as he heard she had lost her job, he bought tickets for her to come and visit us the same week as Tansy. Her flight was due to arrive in Nice at about 5pm and he had cooked up a scheme with her whereby he would take me to a bar on the Promenade des Anglais and she would just stroll in! I’m sorry I ruined your plan, guys, but I think it worked out as a better surprise the way it happened.
Some time around 1am, Tansy phoned to say that they were about twenty minutes away. As soon as I heard the car, I went outside into the street to hug my youngest daughter.
“Now we’ll give you your surprise, Mum,” she said.
“Oh, did you bring me crisps?” I asked (yes. I love crisps. O Donnell’s crisps are one of the things I really miss about Ireland).
They opened the boot of the Fiat 500 and waited expectantly. I looked into the boot. I couldn’t see anything that looked like either crisps or a surprise. All I could see was Tansy’s rucksack. What I didn’t see was the Eldest Daughter’s face peering over the back of the seat. Well, I was looking in the boot, not inside the car!!
“I don’t see it,” I said.
“Mum, there’s two of us!” came from the back seat and, finally, I spotted the ED’s face. I had two daughters to hug!
Snuggled up with Cinnamon
We had a lovely week with our girls. I did yoga with them a couple of mornings, we walked a little, visited friends, swam (it was cold), did a little sight-seeing, had lots of lovely meals and the girls went hacking together one day – it is a long, long time since they last rode together.
Riding through a lavender field
So thanks, LSH, for what was absolutely, definitely the Best Anniversary Present Ever.
On Sunday, Flurry gave me what was absolutely, definitely the Worst Anniversary Present Ever… stay tuned.
Hacking and Hooves
I had two particularly pleasant hacks last week. The weather has been lovely (up to this week. Tansy is visiting, so it decided to rain a bit to make her feel at home) and I’ve started going up to ride as early as possible, to avoid flies and heat. On Wednesday, I took Aero out for a short trek. Cinnamon looked sad when she saw me leaving, so I took her along. She turned out to be good company, and Aero happily accepted her as a hacking buddy.
It’s the prettiest time of year here. There are flowers everywhere, and when I saw our shadow passing over some blue flowers, I got all creative. This is going to be my new Facebook profile pic!
Aero had just had his feet trimmed, so I used his front Renegades in case he was a little tender but I honestly think he would have been fine without them. Next time for sure – although I won’t do much more than an hour with him barefoot for a while, yet. I’ve started him on a really good Kelp supplement to try to improve his skin and hooves another bit – he is very scurfy and I feel his frogs could beef up another bit. He’s been on it just over a month now and I’m seeing an improvement in his coat for sure. I won’t know about the feet until they’ve grown some more!
Then on Friday, MC and I went for a long ride, following the markers that had been set out for the cyclists the previous Sunday. It started off along one of my favourite routes, with a beautiful view out across the valley.
Farther on, it proved to be quite exciting in places – veloists look for a little more drama in their rides than two mature ladies! We had to lead the horses down a couple of slopes which were almost sheer and offered ample opportunity for slipping, but the horses were fantastic – attentive and cautious. They stopped when asked and inched forward when asked, always careful not to jump down on top of us and we negotiated everything with no hiccups. Due to the need for hanging onto our horses, however, there are no photos of the dodgy bits!
You never know what you’re going to pass when you ride through new country.
We were out for just over three hours, with Flurry barefoot for all but the last thirty minutes. I felt he was just beginning to become a little tender, so I hopped off and put his Cavallo Sport boots on. I had misgivings about these boots initially, but I’m very happy with them now. They rarely come off, unlike Renegades, and they have never rubbed his heels, despite being a very snug fit.
Between the ride to Reillanne on the Sunday and this ride, Flurry covered a good 25km barefoot last week, on the very worst of stony surfaces imaginable. That was just with me on his back – I’m sure he covers a lot more in the paddock by himself. Anyway, I’m happy to say he has done a great job trimming his hooves :
I did run the rasp around the edges just to smooth off the walls the next day, but I suspect it wasn’t necessary. I’m well pleased with his progress! Fingers crossed that Aero’s will be as good as these by the end of the summer!
Joucas Equifeel Part 2
After all of the Club level competitors have finished, the organisers set up everything for the Elite level. We wait, while the horses nibble at hay, grass and each other.
Flurry and Quieto, the best of friends
Finally, the course is ready. I’m judging part of it, having just had a crash course in the marking system from Alexandrine, and I’m as curious about the course as any of the competitors.
First, there’s the embûche. Only it’s a lot more interesting now :
Pass between the two blocks
Go forwards and backwards between the poles
The narrow jump. I think the embellishments actually made this easier, as there is no longer the possibility to squeeze between the jump and the fence
Having inspected the round pen, we enter the arena, where we are met with this:
A landing site for the MotherShip? No, a test of lateral movement. The handler must stay within the inner circle. The horse’s front legs must be inside the outer circle and his hind legs outside. He then moves sideways around the circle, so that each little blue thing passes under his belly.
It reminds me of the old joke “How do you get an elephant into a SafeWay bag? You take the “F” out of Safe and the “F” out of Way.” To which the listener replies, “There’s no “F” in Way.” Most of the Elite competitors seem to feel the same, but things are just about to get even more interesting…
Hopscotch? Um, no. The horse and handler start in the top box. The handler must stay within the inner rectangle while the horse describes a serpentine down through the six cones, making a figure 8 shape with every pair. Hopscotch might be easier…
The next test has a single circle drawn on the ground. Ah – a pirouette. This time, the hind legs must stay within the circle while the front legs move around outside. Only, Florence, the boss, felt that a straightforward pirouette was too easy. This needs a percussion section, she decided…
The next test was the slalom. How can one make a slalom more difficult? Why, by adding jumps, of course…
Finally, we found ourselves looking at another set of weird circles on the ground.
This was a test of paces and control. The handler must stay within the white circle. The horse must trot two circles and then stop with his front feet in the further hoop. Then he must turn and trot two circles in the other direction, stopping with his hind feet in the nearer hoop. SafeWay bags and elephants come to mind again…
Because I’m judging, I can’t really take photos, but I manage to snap a sneaky one of MC and Quieto doing the slalom on my iPhone. They are really good at this, and he goes over the big red blocks on the second attempt :
Despite their misgivings, all of the four Elite competitors make a fair attempt at everything. The spooky stuff at the embûche causes no trouble, but the advance and reverse through the poles causes a few hiccups.
One of the horses (the lovely Friesan mare on the tarpaulin in the last post) kicks the blue things all over the place while attempting the lateral movement on the circle and the slalom proves difficult for all but Alexandrine and Max, who pops the red blocks first time.
Surprisingly, none of the horses are at all bothered by the drum or by the young man who turned up to play it and they all pirouette very well. That’s something I need to work on with both of my guys!
None of them manage to achieve a halt with the correct number of legs in the hoops in the last test, but they are all very close – it’s definitely possible.
We all leave with food for thought. I really must improve Aero and Flurry’s remote halt…
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Tails From Provence 