So I have been sloppy and idle and off the ball in not posting in a very long time. Infact all the time I've had good stuff to talk about I haven't bothered!
It has been a long year in many parts, I feel exhausted from being here there and back here again, over and over.
BUT NOW I'M BACK HOME, HOSED AND VERY HAPPY.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to take a little while to catch up on the blogs, a little bit for you, if you are so kind as to be reading it- THANK YOU. A little bit for me, so I c...
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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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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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I know it's a little late, but this is just to thank you Marie for coming to the beach with Neddy, Rog and me.
AND also thank you for bringing along tea and yummy cake and biscuits it was a welcome surprise!
Sometime towards the end of last week Marie agreed to come down to the beach with us braving a chilly March evening to give Neddy a feel of speed in deep sand. It was Neddy's first visit to the beach so I rode him a little bit to start giving him a canter round the sand gallop in the dunes....
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At least some of us round here are enjoying the snow, most of us have well and truly had enough and want to get on with it. Thankfully we did get a passage from the snow plough so today I bravely wrapped up Rog and Ned and took them for a totter round the lanes. On the whole the roads were free of ice and slush which was lucky as Neddy was leaping about like  a spring lamb after his few days of unplanned holiday.
We've had a rather up and down week. I've lost my favourite schooling spot at Vi...

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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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