Went to phone shop on my lunch break yesterday, hoping they could help revive my trusty Samsung SIII, which had taken to being rather inconsiderate in its attempts to continually try to turn itself on - yet never fully managing. #sadtimes
Sadly due to water damage, which was in no way related to the soaking, it & I got at a fantastically fun music festival last month; phone revival was not meant to be.
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| Nancy's too cool for school & Kika is Queen Derp |
With my contract up for renewal in November, the shop suggested I buy out of my current contract for €60odd and sign a new one to nab the shiny new Samsung S5 for a sweet €9 (+subscription for 2 years...but that totally doesn't count as its not an upfront payment! See how my logic works? ;-) )
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| Derp-face |
Thankfully I had managed to backup all my old phone photos on the last good moment which included all my Canada trip photos - so no major collateral damage -phew.
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| Showing they can look normal - sometimes |
Anyways all of this to provide an excuse for more fat-horsey-photos snapped post-pampering the girls yesterday evening. Hope you don't mind my over share...
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| Her Royal Kika-ness |
I did also ride Nancy attempting to focus on transitions while working on halt, walk and trot as it has been super warm here. Still 28°C @ 7.30pm last night. As we are both still far from fit & we need to work on her listening to me when I ask for something. Upward transitions are all pretty good, compared to the reverse - that is not to say they would be winning any dressage prizes any time soon. Our walk/halt transitions are woeful, my fault completely as I don't think I have her active enough in the walk which makes our halt stuttered. We do not practice these transitions anywhere near enough - I hope to remedy this as we start getting back into shape. Building up to square halts where her head doesn't pop up to give my nostrils some horse ears - nor allow her lean on my hands. I am so need to better sink my weight into the saddle so that she knows what I am asking for rather than relying on my hands - Terrible Habit!
Walk/trot transitions upwards & downwards are better than our w/h transitions as we have rehearsed them better having done the majority of our under saddle work in trot.
Time for me to change things up!
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I love N in this photo be she totally hogged
the spotlight by stepping forward just as I snapped |
I also need to improve the walk, so that she is striding forward and carrying herself from back to front rather than heffalumping along without aim/connection from back to front - this among many other areas is where I hope lessons can help us.
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| Kika showing her mahoosive fatness |
We did lots of changes of rein, serpentines, circles and diagonals - anything to keep changing stuff up and not get repetitive.
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| More derptasticness |
It was by no means our best spin, but it was also not our worst - highlighted plenty of things to work on & we haven't even touched upon my dump-truck of bad habits, which is an ongoing battle in itself & well documented on this blog.
Fingers crossed for lessons being a possibility in our very near future.
Farrier tomorrow so both girls feet can get tidied up & so I can camber back aboard the ginormousness that is currently Kika! I haven't felt right about riding her with her feet in their current state - she needs front shoes to stop her feet disappearing in their tiniest - it has been super unfortunate that my need & the farrier's busy show shoeing days have overlapped.
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| Think i annoyed N with photo-snapping? |
Yikes, as always this has gotten so much longer than I had intended to write! Hopefully the photos help counter balance the word-vomit *blush*
Someone has to be queen...
ReplyDeleteOh she deff tries to lay down the law to poor Nancy
DeleteYour new phone takes wicked pics!! :) I have been putting off an upgrade forever because I'm trying to pinch pennies.
ReplyDeleteThanks KR, I have to play with it some more and learn how to use it properly - practice makes perfect right? ;-)
DeleteMaybe you can get a deal like I did on an upgrade :-D
You can never share too many photos! :) They look good.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much lady!
DeleteThey are mahoosive blobs at the moment - but new shoes this evening so nose the grindstone after that! :-D
Wow those photos are so awesome!!!! I can't believe they are from a cell phone!!! Your girls look great. They are so gorgeous! I'm so looking forward to you being able to take lessons. I have my fingers crossed I can take lessons this fall too. For the walk/halt transitions have you tried taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly while freezing your seat so your body doesn't follow her walk? Chrome stops as soon as I stop following him. Works great! Oh by the way there aren't too many words or pictures in this post!
ReplyDeleteAw *snugs*
DeleteI shall try the breathing thing for the halt, i really need to make myself much heavier - she is strong as an ox...i very much doubt she feels much of me on her :p
I'll try to pay more attention to what i do, i think i am naughty and tense my arms while letting her pull against me and end up out of the saddle rather than sinking into it...*scratch-head*
I really need to really pay attention to what i am doing!
I do that too!!! Letting the horse pull me out of the saddle. I really need to start working on strengthening my core again. My trainer told me when they pull to tuck my elbows under my ribs and engage my core then just sit there without pulling back. They eventually learn they can't pull you out of the saddle anymore. I really need a stronger core though!
DeleteAh yes the great core strength requirement - all tips to doing so greatly appreciated :D
DeleteGreat pics! I have the S3 and it's on it's last legs I think. I'm trying to hold out as long as I can, but the S5 is in my sites! Especially seeing how great the camera is!
ReplyDeleteThis phone has grown on me, i wasn't super happy about its size originally. But as it is slimmer than the S3 it isn't as cumbersome as I'd feared.
DeleteHope you can get a sweet deal on it!