Skip to main content

Girls weekend, No. 1

 This weekend has been all about Abi and her choice of short trip in lieu of the big Lapland trip that Izzy and I will be going on in a few week's time. Rather than waste time travelling to the frozen wastes, Abi opted to stay closer t home and in a torrential downpour on Friday we headed off to Tollard Royal, a tiny little village beyond Salisbury for 3 days of riding and messing about with horses. The forecast could not have been worse. On Thursday night I looked at a combination of heavy rain and 50mph winds - perfect for a late autumn hack in the countryside... 

The original itinerary was to ride Friday afternoon, all day Sat and then Sunday morning. Friday was a wash out when we got there so instead we got to know the horses and drank tea / ate cake - relaxing if not quite the planned events. we then snuggled down in a lovely warm log cabin to watch rubbish TV and chit chat about nothing much.  On Saturday the weather was even worse so instead of riding we set off in the car to a local hunt meet which Abi absolutely loved. Despite the gale force wind and horizontal rain we stood and watched the hounds come in with riders ready to brave the weather. Abi made the most of the hot sausages and chocolate cake being passed round while picking out the horses she'd like most. We headed back and the rain finally began to subside so we took our chances  and headed out - into blue sky! We then had a lovely if muddy ride before home to more tea and biscuits, and then bedtime for the horses. Abi then snuggled down with Eve, the apprentice groom for SCD and a film, while we headed to the local pub. 

This morning it was windy but dry so once again Abi was up as soon as she saw the lights come on to help with haynets and stables before breakfast and finally a long ride - a 3 hour hack in some of the most wonderfully historic countryside, through the hunting estates of King John in the glorious technicolour of Autumn's glow. Abi has had an absolute ball - she has fallen in love with the horses, the people and the place and has already negotiated 3 weeks next year where she is planning to go back on her own. Very independent when it suits her!

Izzy meanwhile was all set for a sleepover with her friend Aran which didn't go quite to plan. The one thing I said she needs to sleep well is a dark room and the door shut. Not difficult. Instead Glenn got a call at 9pm to say she wanted to come home. Turns out she was trying to go to sleep amongst fairy lights, night lights and goodness knows what else. Must have felt like Blackpool Illuminations to her! I spoke to her about it today and she said she just couldn't possibly sleep like that - nor could I!

So on the plus side, I managed to book somewhere which truly lived up to Abi's expectations and more. Less good is that she wants to be there all the time and poor Izzy is probably not quite ready to go on her own yet and so we have to work out what to do when she goes off for these 3 weeks. At least the first one is not for another 5 months - plenty of time to plan for a little girl who doesn't want to be left on her own without her big sister. Much as they may squabble sometimes, listening to them in the bath tonight squealing with laughter as they played together, they are still the best of friends.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Snow!

After a beautiful day of sunshine yesterday, today it snowed... but more of that in a minute. Yesterday actually felt like a day of much progress. Despite Covid we managed to arrange a visit to Taunton School to have a look around with the girls and to meet the Headmaster. This was a massive relief as I had got to the point of thinking we would have to accept a place without ever stepping foot inside the school. In the end we had a very comprehensive, if a little deserted, tour of the school and the kids loved it, as did we. There may even be a small chance they might squeeze us in if we are there by the summer term - that is of course if the kids are back into school by then. The other news was that I managed to speak to Mr &Mrs Tucker - the people buying our house - and we tentatively agreed that we will try and complete during the Easter holidays which could have us moving in the third week of April. This does require everyone to have got all of what they need done, and that of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Showtime!

It's that time of year again, the Newbury Show, and this year I made a point of not planning on going with anyone else as that always results in dissatisfaction as we don't get to do the things we really wanted to do. The weather forecast was a tale of 2 halves this weekend, with glorious sunshine and summer temperatures on Saturday, followed by torrential rain and lightening for Sunday. Of course this meant that anybody contemplating the show made the decision to go on Saturday, us included. Given we knew the A34 would be a car park we took the back roads and despite the traffic being heavy it wasn't too bad - helped by the fact that we had already resigned ourselves to a queue. On getting there it was clear that the weather had brought out massive crowds and everywhere was packed, with the tents steaming and the poor animals looking like they'd had enough by lunchtime. We went into the pig tent and half the pigs had sensibly knocked their water buckets over to have ...
Post a Comment
Read more