This week they have mainly been messing about at the stables with a 3 day pony camp at a local riding stables. This is a different one to that which we all go to on a Saturday which felt a bit traitorous but we have a summer to fill and all's fair in love, war and summer activities to fill the days. They have absolutely loved it - 6 hours of cleaning tack, washing ponies, learning about all thing equine and a bit of riding thrown in. This culminated in a gymkhana where Abi won a 1st in the show jumping and Izzy a 3rd. You can only imagine how chuffed they were! The instructor unhelpfully suggested Abi should be thinking about competitions, which she took to mean she will need a horse in order to take part. Agh! I found her afterwards putting into my web browser 'child desperately seeks horse' - poor deprived girl! On the plus side this is still the only threat I have in my arsenal which has any impact on Abi so it does have some value. Still not getting a pony though.
Izzy is no less keen on the riding, but I think if you made her choose between the TV and a box set of Call the Midwife and a horse, she'd probably opt for the former. She loves nothing more than lying in a strange position on the sitting room floor watching endless TV, broken up by a quick run round the garden a bounce on the trampoline and back to the floor. It's not all laze laze laze - she spends her time with her legs in the air, practising the splits and so on and as a result has amazing core strength and great flexibility. I'm not sure it's quite what a gym instructor would call a routine but it clearly works for her!
Amongst all of this I'm desperately trying to close out work so that I can have 2 weeks off. The original plan was that I would be all done by now and have the next 2 weeks. Best laid plans and so I decided to push back by a week to make things a bit easier. Trouble is I forget that Glenn had planned a track day on Tuesday, safe in the knowledge that I was off and therefore the parent in charge. Typically the one day I really can't move around is Tuesday and so now I'm madly pulling in favours to work out a solution. This has been one of the aspects of practice that I'd conveniently forgotten - just how hard it is to get out the door with everything safely sorted. That's why everyone spends a silly amount of money on holidays to travel to places without wifi. It's a strange state of affairs when the extra you earn is spent on expensive holidays to get away from the job that you strive to do because it pays well.
At least it's only 4 more days and we do have Glenn's Christmas present to look forward to on Wednesday. We are off to the Hand and Flowers - Tom Kerridge's pub at Marlow for lunch. When I booked last October this was the first date they had free so I'm expecting it to be very nice. I'm trying not to have too high expectations, but I am excited. Glenn is looking at the menu - he thinks 'Crispy pigs head with rhubarb, pancetta and chickweed' as a starter - not sure that's for me! One thing I won't be having is any booze, being that I'm now into week 8 of zero alcohol thanks to the antibiotics I'm on to treat my Rosacea. It's definitely working, my skin is almost clear now, but reading up on it you'd think I need to give up pretty much everything nice to eat and drink. I'm sure it's not that bad, but a bit of trial and error will be in order to work out what's good and not - could be fun!
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