The way to heaven is on horseback

It's been a while since I have posted guys but things have been pretty hectic here. Jack is now home again and I think it's taking him a bit longer to settle in than he thought that it was going to. But it's good to have him back. Uni is going okay, I've got two of my final prints to do this week and then thats part of one module done. I'm in uni now and we are talking a portraits but as per usual the teacher is wandering off the subject and now talking about something completely different.  On to the horse riding it's going okay, I've done some canter work with Gatsby recently and we did some canter poles which was fun. We did it during my lesson with Elaine but there was a bad end to the lesson. Elaine was riding Tubby and he tripped over a pole and he fell, he ended up landing on top of Elaine's leg. Luckily nothing is broken just lots of ligament damage so she's been told that she needs plenty of rest. I get Tubby on loan starting from this ...

Another eventful day has been had today but it ended in wicked horse time at the stables! What more could a girl ask for right?  Mondays means its a full day at uni followed by rushing to the stables and then chilling out. This afternoon I had my lesson on Gatsby where we worked on cantering and oh my god it was amazing. The transitions were not always the best but we are working on that, we cantered a lot, managing to go from one point to the next point without breaking from the canter. We did lots of circles and long side combinations and it felt so good! After the canter work that we did on saturday I was really really expecting my canter to be shocking today but I just managed to get on with it put saturday behind me and do what I do best, enjoy my time with a wonderful horse. We are also now getting to the point where I can work Gatsby in to an outline in-between the moments of canter that we are getting.  Then it was time for Pony Club, we started off the evenin...

I've had a good few days. Monday I had my night out with the uni girls, it was a good night and we had a proper giggle, yes it was a knackering night and I felt shattered the next morning but it was so fun and I enjoyed it for a change. I also had pony club monday night and it went really well. We worked on grooming horses properly and how to look after a horse in cold weather and snow as we have had snow again. The uni girls :D Tuesday (yesterday) I went to uni in the morning and then spent the day in bed, other than going to the doctors where it was confirmed I do have tonsillitis, I basically slept for twenty four hours.  Wednesday (today), I went to work this morning, I've really been struggling with my throat but decided to ignore that and just get on with it and enjoy myself. I mucked out four stables and helped to fill hay nets, I was there for two hours and it was so cold! Gatsby was glad to be bought in by the end of the morning, he's not enjoying the sn...

well this is just a quick post from me! I've not done anything interesting today but I am back at uni tomorrow, and then after I have finished at uni, I am off to the stables for pony club. Mondays are going to be really hectic days from me but I'm going to try and do lots more posts that include pictures of all the silly things i get up to. I might not post tomorrow night though as the girls from university and I are having a girly night out. So that's going to be really really cool. Well that is as long as I am feeling better, I'm not sure but I have a feeling I've got tonsillitis coming back AGAIN! For those of you that have been following my blog for a while you will know that I have had this on and off quite a lot recently, so I'm now keeping a record of it so I can show my doctors and then maybe they'll get rid of the stupid things.  Anyway it's getting late so i'm going to head to bed, I just thought I'd give you a quick update on...

Today has been a good day but a long day at the stables, I got there for 9.30 this morning to help Fiona out and Suzanne came up to help out too. We had all the horses to muck out and the weather was horrible, it was chucking it down. I mucked out Little Rocky, Percy, Gatsby, Soly and Sam's stable. I then put in their stables Gatsby (the trouble maker), Sam, Vettie, Chloe, Fussy, Rosie and then Fiona did the others. We then started debating bedding, for the past few months the stables have had straw pellet bedding in, but it looks dirty all the time. Yes it's easier to muck out but it doesn't look good. Thursday Fiona decided to put in Bliss bedding, this looks amazing, and smells clean and fresh BUT is a nightmare to muck out, it takes forever, it clumps together and you end up taking to much of the bedding out. So we're going back to using Aqua max bedding at the minute. That looks clean and fresh and is easy to muck out but it's expensive!  After I'd f...

I'm feeling tired today it has been a long day and I haven't slept much last night so it is safe to say that I am pretty tired right about now so this blog post might not be very long. This morning I was at my stables, I got there for 9.30. I then mucked out Sam's, solys and Gatsby stable and little rocky's stable, I almost forgot that little man. I then helped fiona to fill all the hay nets so there is now two days worth of hay nets filled and bring the horses in and turn the two remaining horses out.  I then took my mum and dad to cosmo for lunch, and got my nails done :D. Before going back to my stables. Pony Club is now back on. So tonight we covered an important topic, the little kids wanted to go outside and run around so they did that and then the older ones stayed inside so two of us and Fiona and we discussed the steps you'd go through to buying your own horse. It was really interesting and I learnt a lot, I know that i am definitely going to be asking...

I had another good morning at the stables this week it's been a busy week for my this week. So here's what I've been upto.  Monday - Day at my stables, I went up to my stables in the morning and helped out I spent about 3 hours there, then I went home and chilled out for a bit before going back for my jumping lesson. It was so good we did this really cool dog leg exercise that I have never done before and thought that I was going to really struggle with, to start with I wasn't being decisive enough. However once I decided that I wanted to do it, it went really well. We jumped small jumps all in canter though and landing on the right lead for the canter after the jump. It felt really nice and I was so happy with the work we did. Unfortunately it was dark so there is no videos' of this. It was then time for pony club, where we were riding again and I got to ride Vettie for 30 minutes. As you guys will know I've rode Vettie lots last winter and the beginning o...

Yesterday I rode Gatsby again, it's getting to the time of year where my monday rides mean it's already going dark when I get on Gatsby so unfortunately I have no video's from my lesson. My dad also came to watch my lesson with Gatsby which was really nice, as he hasn't been in a while although after he told me that he was quite apprehensive watching me jumping Gatsby as compared to last time we have got a lot faster jumping and the whole process is going a lot smoother.  Above you can see a diagram of the jumping that Gatsby and I did, while it was only two jumps and neither of them were that big it was important for me to do as it made me focus more on my striding, turning, getting the correct lead after the jump or if i didn't being able to change the lead and set myself up for the next jumping. We started off by picking the canter up by K (doing walk to canter transitions), I then cantered around past A, turning to jump the jump that is on 'X',...

Well it's been a long and tiring few days but I have had a good couple of rides too. I rode Gatsby on Sunday and we worked on the Canter. We did this really cool exercise that was really tiring but it was so much fun to do. We warmed up briefly (as Gatsby had already been rode and I was feeling fairly well stretched and warmed up). I got Gatsby working nicely but very very forward in the walk and trot then we moved on to canter the idea was that we did two 20m circles with three poles at three points of the circle. At the fourth point and over 'x' there was a box. The idea was that we would canter over the poles on the 20m circle at 'a' when we got to the box we would come back to trot or walk, and then change the bend picking up the opposite canter lead (because you're going around the circle the opposite way) to go around the circle at 'c'. We were basically doing a canter figure of 8 with a simple change over 'x' building up to doing a flying...

Well today was my first day back at uni and I am now officially knackered. It's been a long day but we haven't really done a lot to be honest but I feel so tired think I just need to get back in to the swing of things again. We've had five months off so that's quite a long time to then just be thrown straight back in to things if that makes sense?  Tonight was also Pony Club and BHS. At pony Club we did long reining. Which was really fun it's something that I have never done before but something that I would definitely like to do again. I got a go with Taz who is one of the newest horses at our stables and he was great. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed it. Would love to do more of it and learn more about how effective it is. I then got to spend some time giving both Mac (another new horse, who is for sale) and Gatsby some love and attention. I found that I really like Mac but Gatsby will always be my favourite. There will always be a special place in my ...

Well Monday was BHS and Pony Club night, I can see when I go back to Uni that Mondays will be my busiest day of the week but we will have to wait and see for that. At Pony Club we did about bandaging horses if they'd got a wound, we used bright coloured vet wrap and practiced on a horses leg. I got Gatsby and vet wrapped his leg in a turquoise/green colour. It looked quite cool and I think that the colour really suited him. We also looked at Tubby who did need his leg bandaging because he got in a fight with Alfie. I got the job of fetching Stan in, then when him and Tubby were in, I held Tubby while we cold hosed his leg, used Hibi scrub on it and then bandaged it up and I have to say that he was a very good patient he stood still and waited for it to be finished. He had a rather nice bright green bandage on by the time we were done.  At BHS we talked about several things the main topic of conversation was different types of bedding, e.g. sawdust, shavings, straw and pellets....

hiya guys well it's been a few days and I was planning on updating you all today. Unfortunately I won't be able to go in to as much detail as I want to because I am having problems typing because it looks like for the third time I have broken my hand again!  In the exact same place, how rubbish is that? But they can't tell me because it will not show up for another two weeks on an X-ray so at the minute it's back in a splint and I've got to go back to hospital in two weeks.  Well Saturday I got to ride Gatsby again. We have been working on getting him in to an outline more consistantly but it took me seeing Fiona riding Pumpkin Pie for me to know what it was that I needed to do for Gatsby to work properly in to an outline. We got some really good work in the walk and trot (I have got pictures) and slowly we are starting to get it in the canter as well but by the time we move on to canter I tend to feel quite tired and weak on my left side. We did an exercise th...

Hiya Guys,  So today I didn't do much up until pony club (other than get myself some new water proof trousers). Then at Pony Club we got told because of all the bad weather (thunder and lightening) that riding was definitely off the cards. So we got told at the last minute that we would be doing a competition, grooming and turn out. I got to work with Betsy and we worked on getting Vettie ready which was really nice. We plaited his mane and tail. Brushed him all over, added hoof oil and came out with a lovely looking shining horse! (Pictures to follow). Then it was time for the judging, done by Fiona and Elaine. We had to wait to find out who had one and while we were waiting we mucked out the horse that we had done, made sure it had food and water and that it had got it's rugs in. When we got the results I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we had got 4th place!!! So I got a new rosette to put on my wall.  Then I had an eventful evening but I am saving that on...

Sorry guys it's safe to say that I have been slacking for the past few days. Things have just been really busy so I will start with Last monday and go through til today (Tuesday). Last Monday was pony club evening. It was also a badge evening. Which was really exciting as we haven't done a badge in a while. This time it was the perfect paddock badge that we had to do.We had to be able to set a 'paddock' up in the school using poles to show where the fences would be. Jumping blocks represented the shelter, hay net obviously was hey and the water bucket was water. We also had to answer questions saying what shouldn't be in the field, what should be, if there's three horses in the field how many piles of hay should there be. Then we had to do the more obvious question which was list a load of poisonous plants.  Tuesday I spent the day with George. We didn't do much. I had tried to go with my mum to visit Dean and Sue in hospital but when we tried to go the...

so here's some more photographs that you guys have missed out on of me and Gatsby. These are the most recent lesson photographs I have got and in this lesson we were focusing on the canter and keeping it up hill and bouncing. Gatsby was great, I can't say that my riding was perfect but we are getting there slowly but surely.  Tonight was a pony club evening and we were doing the perfect paddock badge. Which I passed so I have now got another new badge to sew on to my pony club hoody which is great! I got everything right and then got half an hour of fussing and cuddling mr Gatsby. I love this horse to pieces! He lost another shoe on Sunday on his way to a dressage competition and it can't be put back on for another week and a half. Which will limit the amount of work that we do. However it is Own A Pony Day on Friday 9 until 2pm. Then Saturday is my weekly lesson and the day that I help out. On Wednesday Morning from 8 until 10 I am also helpi...

First off I'd like to say Hi Maddie (one of the girls from Pony Club who's managed to find my blog) and that I will put the Pumpkin pictures up soon!  At University today we had a workshop on how to print and enlarge negatives. This was really interesting and something that I would like to do more of in the future. I also developed my own film for the first time in my life and I'm surprised by how well it turned out! I won't bore you with the details of how I did it.  Then this evening I had pony club. The first half of the night we did a quiz (which my team one!!!) it was just a general horse knowledge quiz and the majority of things I knew. Then for the other half we spent time grooming the horses and putting them to bed. I helped Ella who is knew to pony club put Pumpkin to bed, and I showed her where things were. It was really good and I got to practice my plaiting on a shorter mane which was nice! That's pretty much all I've done today and now ...

Today has been a long and at some points extremely tiring day. This morning we had got a lecture where we looked at different sculptures it wasn't the most helpful thing for me (photographer) but it was still interesting to see!  We then went to Hobby Craft Where I put a new white paint and a new water brush thing, I wanted to get some guilding (not sure how you spell it) flakes but they hadn't got only multicoloured ones so I didn't get any. Then we went to McDonalds for our lunch which was nice the funny thing was I bumped in to Evie while I was there so Charmaine and Evie got to meet.  When we had had our lunch we went back to the campus and did some work in the print rooms, I really enjoyed doing this (we used blue and red ink and made purple). I've never done until now Lino Printing so I'm enjoying playing around with that. They'll come in use for my Silk Screen workshop too, then we had an induction in to the Dark room, we didn't know we neede...

Yesterday I had Pony Club and it was an evening based around natural horsemanship, Parelli. Now this is something that I have done once before when it was snowing and we couldn't ride and I really enjoyed doing it. This time I got to use Tom to do it, I've never really worked with Tom so it was interesting to do. I got to do two sessions of it instead of one as some people didn't want to do it. We looked at the seven games and got to see Fiona working with Tom. He was a bit stiff because last year in the snow he severed his archery in his leg, so he's not done as much this year I also got to find out more about Tom but that's a story for another day!  When we had finished with the Parelli, we skipped out the horses, gave them water, put their hay nets up and we also got to give Tom a bit of a groom and some fuss and attention which was nice. This also meant that I got to see Vettie as the two of them are in the same area so of course he got to have some fuss an...

On Monday was the start of my second proper week at University. In the morning we had a lecture on colour. It was things that were quite simple to understand but at the same time could advance the way that we think about doing our particular work, whether it be art, fashion or photography. It was looking at things like advancing and receding colours, cool and warm colours and complementary.  In the afternoon there was a fair bit of sitting around as this week there was only one teacher when normally there would be two teachers. During this session Rodger came around every person in the group and talked to them about their work. Asking what their ideas were and where they would like to head with their final piece. Part of my work is photographs with drawings on the top of them so he suggested an artist that I could look at.  In the evening I had Pony Club, as the weather was still Sunny (although it did drop Chilly) we all sat outside and Fiona and Elaine showed us the...

I got up earlier than I would normally do on a Sunday so that I could get some work done for a couple of my university modules. Some of them are just sticking in photographs and others take a bit longer as they are looking at other peoples work seeing what I like or don't like and then seeing how I can apply it to my own work. Then I also have to do a fair bit of drawing for my course because its a foundation year in Art and Design. My favourite module so far is my Thursday all day because this is where we look more in detail at photography and photoshop.  That's pretty much all that I've done today. I still can't really take in that I got to ride Vettie yesterday he was lovely to ride and he really highlights in my position where I need to work on more. I'm looking forward to riding him again, I also can't wait for pony club on Monday and for some Gatsby time!  Until Next Time  A Girl With A Dream