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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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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Yeah, yeah we had the snow too!  Unlike some of you we actually had polar bears 'dans le coin' .
 To think some of you poor buggars still have snow now! Our snow only stopped us riding for four days (touch wood, there could well be more on the way) but while it was here I thought I should do something useful, so it seemed a cunning plan to break Peggy in, even if she is only two. There are some ponies in Peggy's background, we won't mention names, who weren't that cute to break so it seemed a...
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Before the year is done( and the clock's ticking now) I wanted to catch up with a few of our fearsome and fairsome adventures from this particularly pretty Autumn.
Boy, that seems a long time ago now after weeks of greyness, mist, cloud and rain. How can you have Christmas in a soggy mizzle? It's depressing enough anyhow, at least with a sunny day of crispy snow it feels right!

So anyhow this Autumn we got up to a few tricks outside of the usual pony stuff like breaking Visa;



with spotty dogs, t...
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we survived the apocalypse! And everyone partook of a little jubilation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9FTcsOycCk

Even Turnip wanted to do dancing, but since he does dancing nearly every time he goes out for a ride he had to   ' make do' with dressing up in the tutu;



It was rather optimistic of the Mayans to predict an armageddon so far into their future I feel, since to the best of my knowledge the Mayan civilization died out rather a long time ago.
Anyhow I'm pleased along with you all that ...
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and welcome  to some new recruits!
As I said in my last post most of the things I spoke about there are the same topics I planned to speak of here. Unfortunately a lot of them are from a very different angle.

By far the hardest thing I had to do this year was part with my dear friend Rog, to say I was heartbroken doesn't really cover it. He has been such a mate to me through thick and thin, well never thin for him! (He was on a constant battle of the bulge regime).
Dear old fat Rog, he loved th...
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So bye bye Blighty........



I'm back in France,back in business, with all the cobs and their jobs..........



(lots of cheesy feet to trim!!).

 We're also finally back with an internet connection courtesy of a flash new satellite dish and very expensive new satellite broadband connection. It's been ever such a long break from the blog spot,but I feel I should catch up my news even if it hasn't been such a good year it's definitely been far more successful than the year before, even if the weather w...
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I had planned to boast to you of the wonderful weekend I had jumping Turnip and Red at Brecey. However as I frequently find it's best not to make predictions of success.

Last Monday Red and Turnip visited Gavray and jumped very well, I arrived home glowing not just because of their perfomances but because Mr Gavray had invited me to use his holiday gite and stabling in exchange for working some hours once I have relocated back to England.
By Wednesday morning I  had truly lost that glow as I c...
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Okay so now I'm going to do a little bit of the catching up as promised..........
Firstly Le Haras du Pin, after several hundred phonecalls the dogsbody finally managed to discover that every tuesday  throughout February and March a young horse clear round showjumping day is held, from 4yo's in the morning to 6yo's in the afternoon. But noone checks the age or passport of your horse, so it basically means the jumps go from smaller to bigger. They informed us on entering that  the height of the...
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Don't know what's been happening round your parts but “Oh my!” the sun has brought out everyone's loving round these parts. Turnip is always your man for a lick if you're after affection, trouble being his licks lead to nips, lead to bites,lead to full on head lock grabs. This bullock is soon to experience this delight but I left the photos here, it just gets ugly. Turnip tries to drag him through our very safe and sturdy garden boundary fence so we'll finish here, all sweetness and ligh...
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It may be necessary for you to refer to last week's post to really get this photo and realise I haven't lost my marbles just yet. You may recall on my first day of breaking Monty I introduced him to being ridden by a bear, it just happened the bear was to hand. I have a decent selection of large fluffy toys used for breaking and jumping and lots else besides. Most purchased for a pound a piece, well a euro actually at the local junk shop.
Since Monty was accustomed to bears it only seemed ...

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About a week, ten days ago I was busy minding my own business mucking out the stables in the dark, about nine at night.(The horses are all living out at night in an effort to maintain all round sanity, sense for them, less work for me). Suddenly there was an almighty crash that made the very rafters shiver and had me running for the door, scanning the skies for evidence of the burning inferno from the bomb just dropped. But no, nothing to be seen.

We are informed by those that know, if inde...

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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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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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 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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