Slightly Stupid

Being a bit of a muppet this evening I managed to lock my house & yard keys into my tack locker. Luckily I had my car keys, which for once I brought with me to the stable this evening as we've been having thunder & lightning storms here at night with heavy rainfall. Not wanting to find myself caught out in that I went by car to see the horses/prepare their hay for the field that grass no longer seems to be growing on...
I am also lucky that my parents live just down the hill from the stable & had a spare set of keys to my flat so at least I could get home 😅😶

My tack locker however will be remaining closed till PL comes back on Sunday. She very kindly offered to come out of her way tomorrow afternoon to open it up for me but I've told her not to worry about it. The stupidity was mine and I need to learn from my mistake - plus it's a funny story and anyway it is due to rain all day tomorrow with more thunder and lightning so horse riding options were going to be limited at best.

Quite the QT
#faceofinnocence

In other news I had an arena spin on Nancy yesterday evening in what felt like a sauna, so I kept the spin short and sweet. Bless little Nancy, we were walking around warming up slowly gathering ourselves into better carriage when little miss stopped for a wee 😖
Fairly close to the entrance is where she decided she absolutely had to go...not in the field where she had been all day, not even in the cross ties (where she & Kika have both gone on me before and been fun to clean up #amoniasmells) - but in the arena where she felt a large puddle that I tried to fill in with sand after our spin. Hopefully it didn't reek today - i forgot to go check when I was there locking my keys in my locker...what a weird end to my working week!

Nancy was (as always) a good girl, in spite of the heat and small dressage court marked out dividing up the arena & making things a little awkward. She handled it all in stride and with her usual zen attitude - this girl is such a cool head 😍
She has been suffering a little with sweet itch (i think) again this summer, so hopefully in the coming days I can hammer out a post with all the fun stuff I've been doing & buying to help a girl out

Trickling Time

How has it already been over a month since my last post?! I do not know where the time keeps sneaking off too - rest assured readers...if there is even any of you left *gasp* That all is well with the girls and myself. We are plugging along doing the same old same old.

PL comes three times a week to ride Nancy, I hop on a couple of times in between...usually for a stroll in the woods to change the scenery from manége monotony. Sometimes i do hop up in the arena to check steering/responses if Miss Nancy decides she'd rather squirm and/or plant her feet and remind us she is part stubborn Friesian. However she is mostly still the great girl she has always been and any "issues" are teething problems typically surrounding heat or monthly female discomforts. Nothing seriously head-scratching or comment worthy.

Kika has mostly been coming along on a lead for the strolls in the woods when I ride Nancy. She has had a spin or two on the pessoa & I randomly hauled her in one Sunday morning for a delightful spin in an arena when she hadn't been sat on in prob two weeks again (i really don't know where the time keep running away to). Last weekend I lunged her outdoors in the pessoa then got a mad notion to grab my helmet and hop up bareback, well without the pessoa garb but I kept the saddle pad as she was sweaty after lunging, to cool her out while PL finished up indoors on Nancy. I got a lovely leg yield in each direction at the walk - funny how much easier that was when I didn't have the saddle in my way - i say my way as I get in my own way in the tack and K is adept at ignoring me/pitching a hissy fit if "harassed" (her opinion not mine obvs) . We also got some hilarious kangaroo canter on what I thought was our good rein and some lovely canter on what is typically my bad rein - more interesting however is the sweat marks on her back under the pad showed me just how bloody crooked I was sitting so it really was no wonder she was squiggly in the canter on that one rein. I really need to get myself some lessons to sort it out!

I will try to be better at posting updates, but I worry about them getting too wordy and/or repetitive seeing as we aren't really doing much these days. I haven't had a lesson in ages and rarely have any media to share - so i tend to forget to post updates as we haven't done anything to write home about. #sameoldsameold
Which I am not complaining about as that means no shenanigans 😆

Friday (F)otos

The same generous friend that provided accompaniment & photos from last week also snapped some sneaky awesome shots as i rode the monsters yesterday. She caught me as i finished with Kika & then started with Nancy.
Her phone takes much better photos than mine...or maybe it's more to do with the person taking the  pictures lolz!

She's too BTV & awkward mouth breathing moment happening but I love how she is almost stepping into her tracks! This rarely happens with "I-prefer-not-to-exert-myself" Kika

I started with K as Nancy spun on the walker. Kika initially surprised me by being a very good girl and not freaking out about new lighter sand that had been added to random spots in the arena (you can see it's much lighter in the background of above photo). I figured she'd freak about it & actually think she might have done had an adorable rehabbing pony not joined us in the arena for lunging.

Erugh i look like a giant on her &
my stirrups look miles too short!

However the different sand was deeper/softer than the "old" sand and as such kind of upset princess prissy pants and she tried to toss the toys out of the pram a couple times but we managed to keep things together somewhat. I stuck to walk/trot work as she has struggled recently with canter work under saddle and lunging, although she did work really smoothly on the lunge on Tuesday so am playing it by ear on that front for the moment and taking each day as it comes.

We still have our #awks moments

Our trot work was quite ropey on our collective bad rein (what came first the chicken or the egg), but we chipped away at it and with lots of transitions and changes of rein we got some nicer balanced work than i thought we would at the start of the spin.

My poor attempt at a little lateral work.
Note to self: shorten your damn reins!
Help the horse Aoife!!!

Nancy was a little looky when she came off the walker - well looky for her lolz. A horse was being led past her field of vision and then "disappeared" to graze and she was antsy to see where they'd gone ;-)
Yet when I got on it was like she was stuck in the sand to get her walking! Admittedly she had spent some time walking on the walker already so I wasn't overly worried and after my friend left we popped straight into trot and it was suddenly like she was on springs which made me smile as i had already ridden one horse I didn't want to get into a slog ☺

Sadly the light was awkward & N was
sluggish so this is the best "moving"
photo from yesterday. She got better - promise

I kept things short and sweet & literally only put her through her paces. Shifting gears between w/t/c & looping around the place changing reins. I also tried a bit of lateral work. She often works on it with PL, but I've always been wary of asking either girl for lateral work as I've never been taught how to do it myself & I know I sit all sorts of crooked so don't want to end up confusing everyone by not asking correctly. However I bit he bullet last night and tried to find the right buttons/cues on both girls. I won't pretend I did so correctly but there was enough of a shift at times that I could feel the back ends engaging and moving in the general direction of my haphazard cues.

She is built a bit like a tank
#thatchesttho

WW - Friday Fun Trail Trip

All photos taken by yard friend who was riding Nancy

Kika being a big brave girl & leading

Friend being fancy & framing K + me
 between Nancy's ears

Please ignore my horrific eq

A little blurry but I was so happy with Miss Kika.
 Sadly we haven't had another nice dry day since

Kween Kika

Where and why does time continuously get away from me?! It's been weeks and I've barely posted or ridden for that matter despite my hoping otherwise. There is little point in my trying to remember why I've been such a bad blogger & rider - because I've no doubt the excuses are flimsy. TG for PL keeping Nancy going 3 times a week & sometimes I hop up in between and let's be honest Kika is pretty happy with her lackadaisical lifestyle. Puddin' landed on her feet with me ;-)

Let's see...I think I had a few enjoyable spins on Nancy while PL was away for a weekend training clinic in Germany. PL & Nancy have been getting on great together, I was just glad that I didn't undo all their bonding & partnership building with my spins. We ride quite differently.

Apologies for lonely fuzzy photo
amidst all the verbal vomit

As the title and gross mispelling of the word Queen for alliteration purposes suggests this post is to praise my ould doll Kika; who has turned 12 since my last post. As per usual I had her birthday in mind in the lead up to her special day & then promptly forgot all about it on the day itself.
Such is my memory, sorry Keeks - maybe next year!
K has been an absolute legend of epic proportions considering the lack of work I have been giving her. She has had a couple sessions in the pessoa and I've ridden her in the arena myself a couple of times too. But the majority of the praise for this post comes from her epic big girl panties bad ass handling of my last minute suggestion one Saturday that PL & I take advantage of the good weather (it has been predominantly crappy in mainland Europe this month...not sure if anyone has seen what was going on in France & Germany but we were having similar wet weather) and head for an impromptu stroll in the woods. She hadn't done a tap of work since I'd lunged or ridden (see bad memory strikes again) since the weekend before yet she strode around the trails like a BOSS & BAMF leaving Nancy dawdling in her dust. The only other time she has been so good on the trails was when Beka visited last September and that was such a wonderful surprise for me that day but she had been in the woods the day before that expedition.

She truly is a champion & a completely different girl when she gets to live outside 24/7. Here's hoping I haven't jinxed the good behaviour with this post now as I make my way to the stable to climb back aboard. I did lunge her yesterday the plan had been to rig up the pessoa, but like the last time I rode her in the arena she was struggling with her canter work. Under saddle she had felt disjointed, discombobulated initially and like her 4 legs weren't communicating. However under saddle & on the lunge yesterday she did work out of of it after a few wobbly transitions. I think the osteo may be coming back to check her out as she may have tweaked something getting up funnily from lying down or rolling in the soppy field. I might go for a stroll in the woods this evening if PL has time, otherwise I'll concentrate on walk/trot work with K in an arena and then try her again on the lunge tomorrow or over the weekend to see where her legs be at.

Mostly Mute Monday

Quiet moment with Kika

Nancy being a good girl for a bareback stroll
to the field with Part Leasee for the first time

Cropped the photo as PL is on the other side
 of Nancy and I don't like to post people on
 the blog without their ok when photos are
 closeups/recognisable

Very gently getting up

Fun Friday - Welcome Home

A yard friend captured these sweet moments as the girls mugged me on my return to Lux/the stables after 10 days in Ireland.

Have I mentioned enough how much I love these munchkins ♡♡♡♡♡

They were tickling my palms

I'm pulling such an awkward face

Nancy chats - she's so gentle and
snuffles your face

Jealous/bored Kika

"Talk to me" - Kika / while
Nancy shows off her stretches

Needy-Love-Me Ladies

So many delightful dapples ☺