“You gave me a forever within the numbered days…”

 

"So this is where we part, My Friend,
 and you’ll run on, around the bend,
 gone from sight, but not from mind,
 new pleasures there you’ll surely find.
 
 I will go on, I’ll find the strength, 
 life measures quality, not its length.
 One long embrace before you leave,
 share one last look, before I grieve. 
 
 There are others, that much is true,
 but they be they, and they aren’t you. 
 And I, fair, impartial, or so I thought, 
 will remember well all you’ve taught. 
 
 Your place I’ll hold, you will be missed,
 the fur I stroked, the nose I kissed. 
 And as you journey to your final rest, 
 take with you this… I loved you best." 

 

I tried everything to fix you, but our time was up. I wish heaven had visiting hours, and I would ask them if I could take you home 🕊️ The only thing that I could not protect you from was time. 

I love you always and forever my angel horse, thank you for letting me be yours.

'Til we meet again my love 🤍

A bit of a bang

Ever since last Wednesday I've been a mess trying to wrap my head around the fact that both my horses are injured, and safe to say it's not been an easy few days. Over the weekend I was in Finland attending my grandfather's funeral after he passed away after losing the fight against cancer, yet at the same time all I could think about was that one of the vets was coming to see Erik on Monday afternoon.

On Wednesday morning when we went to turn out the horses, I noticed a new rather large area of swelling on the inside of Erik's front leg and with a more prodding I also found quite hard smaller lump in the middle of swelling. Thinking that he'd just banged himself overnight (clumsy horse) I turned him out and tried to think nothing of it - whilst at the same time going into a total melt down in my brain - and decided to give him days off over the weekend whilst we were away and hopefully it would have gone down and away on it's own. However seeing the leg on Thursday morning before our flight, I decided that there was no way I would be able to cope mentally unless a vet confirmed to me that there was nothing more serious going on. I had nightmares of broken bones and torn ligaments!

Luckily Monday afternoon came round quickly and we had the lovely Manuela from Wessex Equine come have a look at his leg. After hearing about what we thought had happened and my explanation of the swelling have gone down incrementally each day, but also that it is more swollen in the morning after a night in his stable and that the swelling goes down when he's been turned out, so after a quick examination of the leg, the vet wanted to see Erik moving. We did the usual walk and trot in a straight line on a hard surface, and then lunged in the arena - during which Erik was on his best behaviour and the vet agreed that he wasn't lame and was actually moving quite well! I'm REALLY pleased that he's not in any pain and is moving so well, he's not been on any painkillers so that the vet could see exactly how he's doing.

#rootd: orchid mauve

It's been a while since my last #rootd blog post, but I thought now that the AW19 collections are on their way, I should really get back into these posts especially since my own unicorn set arrived last week 🦄 Eskadron orchid mauve is one of those colours that I've been on the hunt for ever since FOMO (fear of missing out) started after being silly and deciding to not purchase this colour in 2017! And as much as I love my bright colours, I simply adore my pastel colours which is why a orchid mauve has been one of those sets that I've constantly been on the look out for.

 Saddle pad: Eskadron orchid mauve big square cotton

Bandages: Eskadron orchid mauve

Over reach boots: Anky white sparkly

Top:  Pikeur Hope

Breeches: Aztec Diamond Equestrian grey leggings

Mental Health Awareness Week 2019

It's Mental Health Awareness Week 2019 this week and I've been inspired by lots of posts about it on Facebook & Instagram to write my own post, because I think people sometimes need a reminder that it is OK to talk about things like this (sharing is caring guys! 💕) Today I’m feeling 100%, but last week for several days I did not feel anything close to that. And I’m OK with that. I feel like people need to realise it’s okay to have bad days, as it’s human nature. What we should try to avoid is staying there on that bad day for the rest of the week! Last week I was in the midst of a troublesome bout of anxiety, I’ve felt like I’ve had butterflies in my stomach that are all consuming, and I’ve felt twitchy and totally on edge. I've ridden my horses less than I normally do as I don't want to spread this feeling to them, but then at the same time not riding them makes me feeling guilty and like a terrible horse mum... 

On a day where it feels like anything in the world must be less stressful than living your life. The sort of day when you have constant bad butterflies in your belly, where you’re either sobbing but you don't know why or you’re staring in silence at the wall, because you can’t quite bring yourself to do anything else. You’d like to switch off and take some time out to have the chance to recharge, recoup and hibernate and go back to your life when it’s all just a bit easier. I think that the main problem for me when I start to feel like this is that I feel entirely overwhelmed by the little things, that I am out of control and that that there simply is no way to gain back control again. Then there's also this irritating pressure that I put on myself to simply snap out of it, and it fills me up with anger at myself that I can’t snap out of it – I can’t have a productive day, feel and act normal. A lot of my feeling out of control last week has come from this blog and from my Instagram, as I had a few days away because I didn't have anything to write or talk about. But seeing my traffic and engagement dip down is very scary, it makes me feel like maybe no one wants to read my blog anymore and as if my Instagram account is boring everyone! Like it’s time to give up, pack away my Blogger account and go back to my normal everyday work life.

When success is achieving relaxation

Isn't it funny how some people consider success only to be winning competitions and titles, whereas for some it's moments and events that go well which can be successful or not? For my, it's the those moments where you achieve something that you've work so hard towards for so long, that's what I call success. And the arena hire on Monday was a resounding one! 💙

 Although it may sometimes look it, my horses have never been easy. My pony was so quick and hot that in the beginning I fell off him every week, if not more often.  Basse was only a 4 year old when I got him and I had to learn how to ride a young horse and go up the levels with him, but his heart of gold and willingness to work with me made him entirely worth the time it took. Vallu was a "ready made" school master who I technically could have competed the advanced levels with, but his spooky/hot temperament and his injuries meant that I never quite got to go in the white boards with him. Erik is a wonderful combination of the two others before him, the talent of Vallu with the temperament of Basse - but on some days he needs that extra bit of hand holding and understanding. He's very weather sensitive (if it's raining AND windy I need to wear my best sticky breeches, that type of sensitive!) which makes him just that little bit harder to work with. But yesterday it finally felt like I'd cracked him and learnt at least a little bit of how to help him deal with anything different, like going to an arena hire, where there a million and one things to spook at.

Arena hire & first trip out in the new trailer

With the arrival of our new trailer last week, on Saturday we went on our first trip in it to our local indoor arena. Getting there was a bit of an ordeal, as although we'd practised loading and unloading the night before, for some reason Erik decided that he didn't want to go on the trailer with Rama already being inside. After several attempts, we decided to try again so that Erik would go on first, and this time he loaded on the second attempt! Such a relief, I hate the struggle of loading an unhappy horse so it was good that we found out that he prefers to load on first. Luckily the place is less than 5 minutes away, so Erik and Rama didn't have to be in the trailer for a long time which meant that it was a nice first trip for them!

 All I wanted to work on was something easy for us both, so that we could have a nice and easy time on our first outing. I didn't want to work on anything difficult or frustrating, so transitions it was! I believe transitions are a key part of the horse's education - no matter how experienced your horse is. So I focused on getting good transitions both within and between paces. Riding forwards down the long sides of the arena and collecting at the short sides. The more I did this the more I could feel Erik becoming more supple in his body, but also more responsive and reactive to my aids 👏🏻 But then he has started to think it would be fun if he didn't slow down for the short sides as going forwards and fast is much more exciting, so I started varying where I asked for transitions and what I asked for (not just collected canter to medium canter, added in canter to trot and a few canter to walks), as this kept him focused on me and what is going to happen next, rather just doing a medium canter around the arena!

First arena hire

"You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." Although an arena hire may not seem like a big event for many, for me to go to a different arena that wasn't ours with Erik was a huge achievement. Don't get me wrong, I love riding him at home in my own arena. On most days he's perfect and on the rare bad day he just does a few small spooks that I just sit to, and then carry on as if nothing had happened. But the thought of taking us out of that arena which is my comfort place, to another arena where I couldn't be in control of the surroundings and what might happen whilst we were there gave me the chills of panic! 😨

So on Thursday I finally got my act together. I was already full of worry at 6am as I knew we were going to the neighbours' arena in the afternoon - just to ride, nothing more exciting than that. But, not only would it be my first outing of this year, it would also be my first ride not at home with Erik ever and my first time 'hacking' him on the road to the neighbours'! Rama had already done a massive spook before we'd even left our home, I panicked about leaving Vallu in the barn as he was shouting for Erik as we hacked to our neighbour's arena but guess what.... I did it! 🙌🏻 And I had a great time too (after about fifteen minutes of not breathing and my anxiety filling me up full of ideas of everything that could go wrong). We dealt with a barking dog, automatic gates, fallen over fences in the arena as well as horses turned out near the arena and Erik took it all in his stride.

Snow weekend

 "When it snows, you have two choices: shovel, or make snow angels." ❄️☃️❄️ Or, if you have horses at home, do a sun and rain dance and pray to everything out there that the snow will melt away as quickly as possible!! So the current weather is certainly feeling wintery... A blizzard arrived on Thursday night, and I woke up on Friday morning to feed the horses to what can only be described as horror as I realised we'd had about 7cm of snow, and it looked like it was going to stay.

 After having kept the horses in for most of Friday (there's only so much hand walking a girl can do!) by Saturday midday it was time to let the horses blow off steam. So with every single horse booted and rugged up, we could only hope that their shoes would stay on and that no one would injure themselves. After a few minutes of the horses deciding to increase my heart rate dramatically - thanks Erik!! - they all settled down and spent three hours sunbathing, eating hay and rolling around in the snow whilst my boyfriend and I sat on hay bales with a beverage in hand enjoying the sunshine! 😎

#ROOTD: sparkles

Sparkles ahoy! 💫 If there's something that can cheer me up on a grey and cloudy winter Monday, then it's definitely sparkles! It's been a while since my last #rootd blog post, but I thought now that the SS19 collections are on their way, I should really get back into these posts and hopefully inspire others to go and sparkle with their horses into the arena. As much as I love my bright colours, in winter I find myself really digging darker colours that won't show up mud and dust so easily, which is why I absolutely adore this soft sweatshirt from Kingsland with glitter threads pulled through it to give a subtle sparkle. I got it as a Christmas present and then realised how well it would go with Anky's blue water drop pad (which I promptly purchased, haha!) 🌠🌌 The black boots make it into such a lovely smart outfit that you can chuck on fast when you're pushed for time and need to get ready quickly. I'm also wearing my trusty Roeckl Lara gloves which also have a tiny bit of glitter on, just to complete the look.

 Saddle pad: Anky blue waterdrop

Boots: Le Mieux Fleece Brushing Boots black croc effect

Over reach boots: Eskadron Platinum black 

Top:  Kingsland navy sweater

Breeches: Pikeur Gia leggings

New boy!

In case you don't remember, in October last year my mum bought a new horse for herself when we all thought that Rama (who is 20 years old this year) would have to start his work being slowly reduced to get him to a semi-retired state... Well it's not exactly gone to plan 😅 as Rama is fresh AF and acting like as if he's ten years old rather than twenty and clearly not ready to be retired yet.

So, meet my new super early "well done for getting your Master's degree and 25th birthday present"... Erkki! He's a 14 year old Danish WB gelding (Blue Hors Don Schufro x Racot). Because of his ridiculous show name, he is known as Erkki but I know he'll become Eric once we move back to the UK since I don't think anyone will be able to pronounce it. I AM SO BLESSED that my parents have agreed to keep him for me to ride rather than selling him on, they really the best parents ever! 💖

A new family member!

I'm so excited to finally be doing a blog introduction of this guy! Just under two weeks ago this cute little fella turned up at our yard having spent 6 months at my brother's stables in Germany as a sales livery which is where mum spotted him and fell in love with him. When we lost Nelli in 2016 the entire family was devastated, and it's taken mum a very long time to even be interested in buying another horse to join our gang but finally this summer she started looking for a new one and now we have another bay gelding 🐴

He's a 13 year old Danish WB gelding (Blue Hors Don Schufro x Racot). Because of his ridiculous show name, his stable name is now Erkki, although I think he'll become Eric once we move back to the UK since I don't think anyone will be able to pronounce that!! He's a funny little creature, he's only 16.2 hh but he doesn't feel that small when you're riding him and good god when he does extended trot you can see how he is directly from Don Schufro - those of you who know dressage breeding lines will know why I'm so excited to have him join our family 😍