August 6, 2013

*Please note that I normally stink at spelling, but typing all these on my phone is not helping! Hope you can understand. :0)

Today we did a lot of touristy stuff. But first we had to pick up a mini bus. And feeling daring, I went with Rob to pick it up. Yep, drove on the wrong side of the road for the first time. The scary part was that I drove the 6 speed horse van (mom you would have loved to have this back in the pony club days, in automatic) with a trailer attached. It actually drove smoothly, but since the roads are so narrow… lets just say I was liberally on the edge… And over on occasion. But I arrived with everything intact.

We all loaded up, Julia and Leah riding in the other, horse-van-to-be with Colin, and headed out. After dropping the van off to have some work done we traveled though small towns to the legendary Stonehenge.

It was roped off so you couldn’t get close, but still cost 8£ to do the loop. Interestingly there was a guy with a mega phone inviting people to walk through the sheep field and look from there for free. “I am a Druid and I do not agree with the English Heritage and that they will be exhibiting the dead in the new museum.”

Since there seemed to be plenty of other people returning from the field we did that. The catch was that there was a fence up between us and the path around the stones. But we could see the stones and boosted Sammi up to the top to take photos over the fence. Awesome!

Next we drove through Salisbury and stopped at the Salisbury Cathedral. Lets just say, amazing. Really, it was amazing. So much to look at, lots of details everywhere and everything was super old.

Then we headed to Corfe Castle. Which was also amazing. We hiked up and paid the 8£ to explore the whole thing. There was so much to explore and so hard to get photos to justify it. The story behind the castle is also amazing, google it if you are interested.

We slipped over to the Rising Sun pub just down the road from our home for dinner. Again, yummmm. Sitting by the most amazing New Zealander I have ever met, Jazzy. But note, she is my first New Zealand friend.

August 6, 2013

We slept in today. Which was much needed. Then we went over to Rob’s house and him and Colin made us up a real English breakfast. Yummmm.

After breakfast it was unpack and clean time. The loris were unpacked and cleaned out and the ponies were all sorted into their appropriate fields.

The rain rolled in just as we were finishing and we settled down to watch a movie, which I slept through.

We had figured out our 4th pony earlier that morning, Magoo, and were thrilled that Steph Steel offered us Jack to give us a team of five. I think Julia might have cried for joy a little. People are so kind.

Later we went for a trip to the harbor with Juliet, her mom and Elizabeth. It was really relaxing and neat. We got a cup of mixed seafood to share which was really neat. And tasted great. Then we walked on the beach for a while.

On the way back Megan, Sammi and I rode with Juliet with the task of picking up pizza for everyone. We were passing through the neat town of Cristchurch and ended up going for a little stroll. We found a tower ruins. We also saw this big stone structure that has an amazing and creepy story to go with it. Too long to relay here.

We picked up pizza then headed to Rob’s house where we ate and relaxed in the hot tub.

It was a fantastic relaxing day.

August 4, 2013

To start the day off I picked up 9 sets of sword rings and one set of flags. Yea! Then it was time to ride.

Session 3 was not too bad, just a few stupid mistakes. All in all I would say season 2 was the best out of the three.

Sammi, Julia and Megan are particularly well matched with their ponies. Leah had a slow pony so she switched to Annie’s pony for a few races which is also a fantastic pony. The handoffs were on, it was mostly being out legged combined with the few mistakes being a few too many.

It started to rain pretty heavy towards the end of the six race heat and I stuck around to work assistant ref for the next heat. Everyone was pretty much soaked and we spent some time warming up and drying off and watching the video of some of the riding.

Of course there was some more socializing. And we did get to watch Mackenzie’s final. I also stuck around for the A final while the team mucked stalls and packed up for the trip home later. I really enjoyed the A final. Fantastic riding.

We ended in the E final, slipping over the F one. And ended in 4th in the session. It was on grass unlike the previous sessions and the ground was a bit rough. They took it easy on turns and played very cleanly. I was really happy with their ride and think it was the best one for them of the weekend.

Then it was pack up, load up and head out. Colin drove Juliet’s Lory and I rode shotgun with Leah and Host Megan in the back. The rest if the team piled into Rob’s Lory. And juliet and Sean took the horse van.

On the way home we stopped for fuel and food and a guy was being arrested in the parking lot. There was a helicopter and everything.

We all got back safe and sound and crashed into bed as quickly as possible.

Welsh champs was awesome.

We had a long break after the ride

August 2, 2013 Friday (not sure if it is really the 2nd)

Today we were up early, finished loading the Lorys and horse van and headed out of the New Forest for Wales.

I gave the girls a break from me and hopped into the horse van with Mark for the ride and the girls all piled into the Lory with Rob and his family.

There was a lot of traffic but we arrived in the early afternoon and set up the ponies and ourselves. We were lucky and Juliet had reserved us one of the “chalets”, which were all booked with a waiting list. It is very much like our accommodations in the New Forest and we moved right in.

We ran into Makenzie right after we arrived and she showed us around the grounds. It was really nice to catch up with her.

We met our 5th pony, Bling, and took him and Jack out for a brief ride. And everything seems pretty good there. He seems like a pretty easy straight forward pony for the most part.

The rest of the evening was spent socializing and eating. There were a lot old faces to catch up with and a lot of new ones and everyone was smiling. I was happy to see Alestar, who lent me ponies when I used to ride over here, and was honored that he remembered me. I also saw his daughter Leigh Ann, who had children riding in minis and who will be riding in the veterans special session Saturday night.

Juliet and I went to the briefing at 10pm (wow that seems late but it worked out perfectly) and we found out our races for the weekend and our jobs. They told us there are 115 total teams here this weekend. Crazy. There are 6 heats and 7 lanes in the open divisions alone!

By the time I got back to the caravan the girls were all asleep so we will have to go over some stuff in the morning.