Thursday 11 June 2015

People



People are what makes the world go around. We are surrounded by them. We are ourselves one of them. We speak to them every day, work with them, see them everywhere. What would the world be like without them? Especially those that mean a lot to us and are special. Have you ever stopped to think about how much the people in your life enrich it? For me, today was when that thought came. Everyone I encounter enriches my life in some way or another. And I am extremely lucky that most of them enrich it in a positive way. Of course I am not short of those people you could happily punch but they are few and far between! As I start my day I wake up with a lovely person (not a randomer, don’t worry he is my boyfriend ;) ) who is kind and gentle and generous. I get ready for work and quite often have emails, texts and tweets to read as I start my day. Some of these are from my beautiful friends, some are from a group of fellow early birds who share the pain of the 5.30am alarm, and some are from intellectuals sharing their intelligence on blogs and articles. More enrichment and it’s still only 6am. As I arrive at work around 7.30am I have a chat with the always cheery security guard, he quite often tells me what the weather is forecasted to do for the day – this in itself is surprisingly useful, as someone that enjoys being outside it is quite good to know if it’s going to pour all day! He asks how I am, what I have been up to and tells me his plans for the next few days. He ensures my day starts with a friendly face and some familiar words. Once I am upstairs in the office I go to make a cup of tea (of course), whilst I am brewing said cup there is a lady who comes to make her coffee. She always asks how I am, and always remembers what I have told her I have been doing. She may not care that much, but to remember what I have told her the previous day or before the weekend is thoughtful – and it makes me smile. My day continues very much this way, with people adding their two penneth of smiles, laughter and kindness to my day. And these are just the people I see every day!

There are then those who I see less often, but are still rather special. My beautiful family, who are all wonderful in their own way. They have taught me what I know today, kept me safe and loved me. Enrichment doesn’t get much richer than that right? There have people who have come into my life quite unannounced or unplanned but have definitely been welcome. The lady I write for; she owns an equestrian magazine and asked if I’d like to give writing a go after she saw me post a message online. She’s such good fun, very kind and an inspiration to busy, young, equestrian women trying to juggle careers and horses. Through writing for her magazine I have encountered more enriching people. People who ride still despite having had life changing injuries or accidents, people who are incredible artists, people who follow their dream no matter what and people who have stayed at the top of the sport for longer than I have been alive! There are friends who I awkwardly spoke to on my first day of University who I would now never be without. They have become a huge part of my life, my rock and the people who will never fail to make me laugh when its needed. The friends who have stayed around since we were knee high and in primary school. They are still in my life, still putting up with my ramblings and being as lovely as ever. There are people I have met trying to help them, when in actual fact it’s likely they have helped me more. People who have very little themselves yet still give to others, both in time and resources whenever they can. There are people I know through having horses, the girls at the stables who I ride with, friends who help look after Fleur when I am busy working, friends I have met through working with horses who taught me a lot of what I know today and still support me with encouragement when I go to competitions.

This is just a snippet of the people I encounter, and have encountered over my life time. It’s only the one’s I can think of right now and that have touched my life recently. What about all the others, and there are others out there – lots of them. I am a very lucky person, and next time one of those who I would quite like to punch winds me up, or I am feeling fed up or having a bad day I will endeavour to remind myself of just how lucky I am and of all these ridiculously wonderful people that surround me.

Friday 1 May 2015

Hormonal Mares

So Fleur and I have been going to some local unaffiliated dressage competitions as of late. We are really lucky to have such a wonderful yard manager who kindly takes us out in her lorry - Sir Lady Thomas (that is what the lorry is called ;) ). Fleur has improved loads since we bought her, she has muscled up and become a lot stronger in trot and canter. She seems to really enjoy going out, and isn't spooky or naughty at all which is great for my confidence. I think sometimes she enjoys it a little too much and we get comments around her being tense and inconsistent in the outline, just where she is so excited to be out and about. Her favourite is when we go somewhere with mirrors and she gets a good look at herself! Recently we have been schooling a fair bit and working on a more consistent outline. So last weekend we headed over to Rectory Farm to do a prelim test. One of our friends Melissa was going from the yard also so she gave us a lift. Mavis (Melissa's horse) and Fleur go out together in the same field and are best buds. They are both usually well behaved girls when out together but not today, oh no!! As soon as I took Fleur to warm up Mavis got a little distressed. We had forgotten that the girls are currently in season and therefore rather clingy! Melissa decided to call it a day when Mavis was napping to Fleur. I sort of calmed Fleur down in the warm up and thought we might be able to do a half decent test when she saw Mavis and started neighing again. They both resembled the sound of pigs if I am honest. The test was rather comical - jumping out of the arena, canter half pass (not intended), flying changes (not intended) giraffe impressions, you name it Fleur did it! Safe to say it wasn't our best mark but you live and learn. The girls won't be going to parties together again any time soon ;) We have a good three weeks til our next planned outing and then 3 weeks again until the champs we qualified for so hopefully we can improve our marks.

Wednesday 4 March 2015

It's been a while...



So I realised I haven’t blogged in a reallllly really long time! I am not really sure why to be honest, I think life just gets in the way from time to time and we can forget to make those important moments to do things we love. But here I am, I am back – no need to worry! So I guess there are a lot of updates that need to be done as it has been a rather busy few months I have to say. October saw a new addition to my life. She is beautiful and cheery and rather hairy – everyone meet the wonderful Fleur! I saw her up for sale on the off chance really as I wasn’t planning on looking for a new horse until mid 2015. She took my fancy and when I went to see her I fell in love! She didn’t seem anything special until I rode her and the deal was sealed so to speak. She came to us the following weekend and I must admit it is one of the best spontaneous decisions I have made. I hadn’t really realised just how much I had missed having my own horse. Because I need to go and sort her out every day it gets me out in the fresh air when I may make excuses and stay indoors. Through the winter I had been riding after work with a head torch and then at weekends. It isn’t always easy buying a horse going into winter but the spring and lighter nights are definitely on the way. I have had some lessons on her with my lovely instructor, Laura and she is coming on in leaps and bounds. She was quite under muscled when I got her so we have been working on getting her stronger and fitter. She is now working much better on the flat and hopefully soon we can start a few small fences J We recently started taking her out to dressage competitions locally just to get her out and about really – she was a star, we couldn’t have faulted her. She took such good care of me and although gets a bit excited at cantering is very well behaved. On top of all that, she never fails to put a smile on my face on a daily basis, I am a very lucky lady to have her.

Second big update is that we are in the process of buying a house! Which is also very exciting. Its an old converted coach house in Cheltenham. We had looked at a fair few and wanted to be a little more rural but discovered that our budget just didn’t get us the size we liked. John has many bikes, and I have many clothes of Fleurs and my own – so we needed something of a decent size really. We really enjoy having people over for dinner and to stay and our kitchen in the current flat is postage stamp sized, so a big must was a nice large kitchen with room for a table. After lots of disappointing viewings and some stressy and emotional weeks we found our house! We are going through the process at the moment and hoping to be in by end of April, fingers crossed. Just in time for summer evenings and BBQ weather which will be lovely.

Apart from that life is the same old really! I have developed a new found love for crocheting so doing much more of that and less sewing. Hopefully when we move and I can actually get to my machine (lots of bikes in the way currently) I will pick it back up again. I PROMISE to write again soon J