Happy Golden Anniversary!!

A couple of weeks ago Mum, Dad, my sister Claire and her husband Paul and my neice Megan flew over to celebrate Mum and Dads' Golden Wedding Anniversary. They stayed in a lovely gite down the road which is run by Mags and Keith (see the link on the right)and we went out for a lovely meal in Limoges to celebrate and cooked a bit of our home produced pork as a Sunday lunch.

We also took Megan to a wonderful zoo park just outside of Limoges which I would recommend if anyone is in the area and likes wildlife.

Neils Workshop

At last the workshop is up and running (and needing some more equipment apparently?!!!) it looks fantastic don't you think?

The Musical Ride

Even a few days before the show the practice sessions for the musical ride were a bit of a shambles to say the least - school holidays, changes of riding patterns and more than a few senior moments were making me wish that we had had a lot more practice. The final rehearsal was a complete disaster - with our 13 year old rider being spectacularly dumped. It was a long time before she could be persuaded to get back in (a different) saddle and even then mistake after mistake led me to think we were heading for a complete disaster.

I kept telling myself that it was only a small show and that it didn't matter, but months of preparation (for a handful of us) made me want to do it and do it well, but I did have somewhat of a sinking "it's going to be a disaster" feeling as the day dawned.

The weather forcast wasn't good, and we were pleasantly suprised when the morning dawned clear and sunny, so that at least made us feel a bit more positive. The Fresians that Jane and I were riding had scrubbed up well and we loaded them up, drove to the showground and managed to get all the horses in a handful of stables by doubling up the social Fresians.
We were then treated to a free lunch and some wine (which was very well appreciated). I had heard dreadful reports of the lunch, but apart from some extremely fatty pork accompanied by some beans that had had the life boiled out of them it wasn't too bad

After the lunch we realised that rather than the three oclock that we thought we were going to be riding, we were supposed to be on at four and then as the events got further and further delayed it was going to be more like five. Few of the horses are used to standing idle in a stable and were getting a bit bored. Just as it was our turn to get ready the original weather forcast kicked in and it started to rain as we were getting on.
Most of the spectators headed off and the remaining stragglers started putting up their umbrellas. I don't know what it is with horses and umbrellas, but unaccustomed to them, as well as audiences plus some riders nerves made our normally calm horses start to panic slightly, and as we rode down towards the arena a few of them started playing up.

I managed to get a woman, her umbrella and two small kids to move away from the fenceline as my horse was going to go nowhere near them and in a bit of a panic we tried to get on with the ride.

I can laugh about it now, but there were several points during the ride that I turned a corner and faced horses that weren't supposed to be in front of me - but Jane and I just doggedly carried on and our supportive families said that to the untrained eye not much of it was too noticeable. During the ride the sun came out again, so in the photos it just looks like a bright sunny day with no spectators!!!!!

It's a shame but it just felt like a bit of a relief when it was all over with no casualties!!!

Plastered!!!

I've got a horrible feeling that anyone of you who reads this blog must be feeling like they have personally built this workshop, such is the amount that I have gone on and on about it.

Yesterday we got plastered with the help of Helen and Richard, a couple of friends who are looking at moving over here, who foolishly offered to help with plastering.

I think we got more on us and the floor than the walls, but with these two working like absolute trojans we got the whole place done in one day. The electrician is coming to connect the electrics tomorrow and then all that is left is to build a temporary door until Neil is in the workshop and can make the proper one, and fit it out - yay!!

This will leave the current workshop, our barn, empty and ready to be converted into our lounge. Neil and I have just had a lighting discussion upon which we had a minor disagreement.

Neil seems to think that it is not necessary to base the entire lighting plan around where I want the Christmas Tree to go. I think he'll find he's wrong. The debate goes on.........

Help!!

A strange plant has appeared in my field. I actually quite like it, and bouyed by some success on finding birds on an RSPB bird identifier website I decided to try a similar tactic to find the name of this plant.

I like flowers and growing a bit of veg, but would never describe myself as a gardener as such, but I never dreamed that the plant world would be so complicated. The site started off quite simply with colour of flower, evergreen or deciduous then, it went off into the realms of, and I quote..
mat forming
cycad
narrowly colmnar
narrowly conical
rounded to broadly columnar
rounded to broadly spreading
suckering
prostrate
pendulous etc etc

Now don't get me wrong, I know what the majority of these mean but really - look at the photos and tell me what do you reckon?!!!

So I have done the only thing I normally do in such circumstances and I have enlisted the help of the "Oracle" aka my Mother in Law Beryl to help me identify this strange plant, but I would be interested to know if anyone out in blog world has ever seen this anywhere. It has white flowers on it, and the spikey fruit like things are absolutely rock hard.

Bon chance!!!!!xx

The other day I was chatting with some friends and we were talking about how the longer you live here the more you get used to living without many of the supermarket items we are used to in the UK.

A lot of them can be purchased in the British aisle of the local Intermarche, albeit at a hugely inflated price, but we choose to live without them or take advantage of the kind offers from friends returning with space in their cars or suitcases.

Sometimes though, you really fancy a taste from home. The other day someone was talking about Cornish pasties. Oh! how I fancied one. So not to miss out I found a recipe and voila!! what do you think? They tasted great and didn't last very long!!!

Keith has finished the stonework today - doesn't it look great?!! Give that man a pastie!!!

Here are some more workshop pictures that I have just taken - it is really coming on.
Everyone thinks it is far too good to be a workshop, but for us this holds the key to the rest of the house being done, and with the value of hindsight is what we should have done first right from the word go - apart from the stable for my beloved horse Amber of course!!

Talking of stable, the computer seems to have (touch wood) become a lot more stable. I am not sure if it is the programs I have been downloading - but I have a sneaky suspicion that foul play may have been an issue. It suddenly occurred to me that at the time I was having such problems with the internet our phone and internet provider had been trying to flog us extra internet security options. I'm not sure if I am being a tad paranoid but it does seem strange that now we have told them finally that we won't be purchasing the extra cover that the problem seems to have sorted itself out.....

Our musical ride practice went ok this week, although it was no less dramatic. Dutch Bird decided to try the two mares who have foals in the ride, so as I and my boss Sam rode the two mares, the two foals were doing flat out loops of the school as we were riding. They looked magnificent and it seemed the mares were glad to have a bit of a break from their offspring!! I did manage to stay on board this time which was a bit of a result.

Please work!!!

I'm writing this on the word processor part of the computer - as every time I go online the computer goes completely haywire and starts playing up before crashing completely. That's something else we are going to have to find the money for then. Bummer.

So I have to apologise to those who have been trying to contact us, not least Jase who has been doing some online research on 'how to get rid of bastard foxes' (I added the bastard bit) because our local fox is still on the prowl and managed to get an escapee chicken the other day. The run looks like Colditz at the moment with the electric fence around, but it's that or get rid of the poultry altogether.

Also apologies to Diane, a fellow blogger who came over to meet us and the animals last week, who very kindly provided us with some home grown vegetables and preserves and wrote a lovely blog about her visit. You can find her post at


http://lifeincharente.blogspot.com/2011/08/meeting-another-blogger-and-winner-is.html

I have no idea how to do one of those neat little links, but I hope you can copy and paste the above and read about her day - she also kindly omitted to mention that whilst we were practicing our musical ride I was rather unspectacularly dumped off my horse when it spooked at something, particularly embarrassing as I had been going on and on about how brilliant and calm and unshakable the fresian breed is!!!!!!
Still, apart from finding sand in parts of my anatomy that should remain sandless I was practically unscathed.

Every time I tried to go online and thank Diane for her lovely emails after her visit my computer had a spaz and I was unable to send anything.

The boys are progressing well with the workshop, and several people are stopping to congratulate them on their work which is nice. By way of a bit of a treat we went out with Keith and Mags last night to try a "Food of the world" restaurant in Limoges.
I was so looking forward to a nice spicy indian or thai. It seems though, that the food was distinctly mellowed down for the French palate, and as a consequence was rather bland. They did serve Kangaroo though rather bizarrely which was ok but a bit strange.

Right I am going to try and upload this and a photo of the workshop. If you have read this it will have been successful and frankly a bit of a miracle, so if I don't blog or reply to any comments please don't think I am ignoring you or can't be bothered!!!!

Musical ride training

I know it doesn't look like much is going on in this picture but last night we had another practice for the musical ride with the four lead horses. For the first time we included a three year old stallion, Bart on the ride and considering all the other horses were mares, he behaved himself very well.
Thursday night there will be two more of the riders joining us - so I hope itcontinues to go well - especially as we only have a month of training left and we are far, far from ready!!!