Muddy played the joker this April first, she set out with the dogsbody and his brother to look at a job, boiler installation or something thrilling. So Mud's entertained herself in the van by barking at the trees, jumping on the dash and nashing her teeth at the window, unfortunately during her frenzied car guarding activity she managed to jump on the central locking. And no, the keys hadn't been removed so a frantic rescue operation ensued. Not of mud's, of the keys. The dogsbody obviously h...
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It seems to me that the vast sprawling forests that surround Fontainebleau just to the south of Paris are destination to  a wide variety of adrenalin junkies all seeking their particular thrill fix, as you too will soon discover.

First up we had to get there, you may remember that I had foreseen such a long trailer trip being a particular problem for Turnip travelling alone. It seems like I know my root veg. Turnip said,"Two hours fine, a minute longer, no way, hold on guys, I'm busting out of...
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Please, no more snow
So although this is what it looked like last week from tuesday til friday we did finally get a snow plough round which coupled with a day of rain allowed us to get out. Everywhere was back to a delightful wet bog by then and the spring looked ever so far away.
Thankfully that meant an end to lugging round hay on foot and amusing ourselves watching the little birds feeding

which has been quite amusing since the big fat finches have learnt to ride the carousel,

giving the litt...
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My blogs are getting back to be intermittent affairs and far from meaning there is little to report it's the opposite, we've been busy bees and to be frank by the time I get  in each night I'm far too bolloxed to have brain cells ready to produce text of any description, let alone worth reading.
I notice my last blog is written from the snow, so too is this, obviously snow means less horse stuff and  more time.

Anyway this blog is dedicated to Turnip as his progress hasn't really featured for a...

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Turnip has another name, (Mr. Potato Head) due to his rather lumpy head with rather a shortage of brain cells. or that's how it seemed to be the first year we had him. He has a rather elegant head now, it never grew with his body and it even look  like some of the cogs in his brain have begun to turn.
   He jumped his first clear at the Renarderie on thursday and he wasn't mad either. I expected him to have a paddy as the Renarderie is practically home turf to him. I expected all  the new jump...
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I had bit of a confidence failure the weekend before last,took Neddy down to Avranches to do 1m05 preparatoire. Had one look at the jumps under lights on slippy ground with a water jumpa and lost my bottle. I swear my shoulder was throbbing in anticipation of another tumble.
Being too scared to ride is not a good place to be but it obviously shouldn't have been as I'd only jumped once since my crash and Ned has never seen a water jump.
I needn't have worried; as luck would have it when I took N...
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Since I've still been hurting from my crash it seemed a good reason to get some dressage practice in, I can't imagine another scenario where I would willingly forfeit an event or even showjumping to spend an entire weekend doing dressage.( I'm not knocking dressage? I'm sure I'd be hooked if I could pull off all the fancy moves.°

So a fortnight ago we set off early saturday to Brittany with Turnip and Charlie for a premier annee dressage class. I had rather high hopes for Turnip as he was so ...
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No, the stag's not real, but he works pretty well from a distance. I'm sure he would more than do the job of spooking the horses on the cross country course which I suppose is the aim of him as he is positioned in the thick of it, amidst the very beautiful undulating parkland of the Haras du Pin.
Poor old Muddy was fooled even close up but then she hasn't the sharpest eyes, poor love. There is a distinct lack of Mini in the picture, our black and tan Jack Russell as she, little cow had disappe...
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It's not all bad being poor, sometimes it makes you a little more creative.
As we came to the end of our haylage it seemed an awful shame and waste to be throwing away all that plastic wrap,so with a few bits of black and green wrap, some Alfa-A bags, old rubble sacks, salvaged pallets and a stapler we got into Blue Peter mode;Turnip and Neddy really appreciated 'these ones we made earlier'!

It all paid off, Ned and Turnip went showjumping at Gavray last weekend and I was very pleased with both...
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 I write this post, even though it was over a week ago that Neddy let me down, quite literally. 
Last sunday Neddy went to Brix with Turnip. Brix never was my place for pot hunting and I really shouldn't go, but since it hardly ever has any competitiors being stuck way up the Cherbourg peninsula and they put in such a lot of effort to host the competition it seems a shame not to put in my bit of effort and go. I should have known better last week though, nothing was going to plan, I think my b...
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Why is Neddy looking all flashy and dressed up on the beach?
Aahh uurrr Well............... Neddy was supposed to be competing again on sunday but it errh didn't turn out to much, just past Avranches Mick put the address in his sat nav (on the new all singing all dancing phone to replace the one Doughnut chewed up) and discovered a second 'La Fleche'.
All my niggles fell into place and the bizarre disjointed conversation I'd had with Mr. Fagnen regarding the competition. Yes, we were headed out...
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So although we got to spend a luxury night in a fancy Chateau last weekend I was feeling a bit depressed come sunday morning after the dressage with Ned.To be fair I was still a bit pooped even after such a comfy night, it had taken quite a lot of preparation to get all the horses ready here to leave for 36 hours even thiugh we did have friends coming in to check and feed them,' Thank you Ian' (x2) and 'Thank you Bob and Leslie' even if you didn't make it, sorry for causing such a fiasco for ...
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Weyhey, we won the lottery and this is our new house!

JOKE!

Unfortunately we didn't win the lottery and this isn't our new house but we were lucky enough to spend a night in the beautiful Chateau de Bezonnais by trading in this:

Yes we have managed to find homes for all these cutesy (and pooey people) and as a little reward to ourselves for all our hard work we decided to treat ourselves to a luxury night at Neddy's first competition.
Ned's competition was at St. Mars D'outille just outside Le ma...
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 At the weekend I decided to show my dedication by driving 65miles to Rennes to take part in a dressage 'entrainement' competition. Along the lines of a local unaffiliated dressage comp you'd have to drive twenty minutes down the road for in England. BUT this is France and training competitions are not come by easily.
We really went for Ned as I was rather hoping he would go to his first trial in a fortnight and I thought he could practice his fancy new moves in an actual arena.I showed him th...
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