Oh my gosh, it really has been a longgg while! =D
Sooo much has happened. Basically, after leaving the Museum, i went off on a road trip for one week to Cornwall with Bryony which was AWESOME, then was very very lucky enough to meet through a friend of a friend a couple (Paul and Violet) who compete event horses internationally living in Dorset.
There is alot to explain, though it all happened rather quickly, 7 weeks altogether. Id come to their farm to meet them breifly before going to Cornwall, and when Bryony and me got back on the Tuesday, i was leaving with them on the Friday 13th June. They own a large horse truck with a living area, so we went in that with a float/trailor on the back as well, as we were taking 4 horses.
Three of the horses we had were for the competitions, and one was a new horses of thiers just going for the experience. So off we left in the wee hours of saturday morning to get an early ferry from Dover to Calais in France, four horses, three labs and three people on board. We thought of ourselves and indeed recieved many looks from locals as though we were a travelling circus!
The reason for them to go was for Paul to compete in European event competitions in order to gain world ranking points so that in his sport so that he can put a good case forward to the Army, for which they both work, that he is worthy of sponsorship, with the ultimate goal of competing in the London 2012 Olympic games. The reason for doing this in Europe and not England is because the competition in England is so feirce and very very competitive, that it is well worth travelling away from here were in Eastern Europe competition is not so strong and therefore he was more like to get better results and more points.
They required someone to travel with them to help out with the horses, particularly on the competition weekends because it got quite hectic competing 3 horses with 1 rider. Also, Violet was only able to be there for 1 of the 3 events we attended, so it was just me and Paul for most of the trip. After the long 4-5day drive across Western Europe, stopping in Belgium, Germany and Czech, our first competition was in Slovakia, near the large town of Trencin in the north west. Im not going to go into too much detail, but we had a great time there and the horses performed really well, Paul was very happy with them.
We were there for a couple of weeks, the event runs for three days, though Paul and Violet are looking for a property in Slovakia, so we spent ALOT of time travelling around a large part of the country looking at various old farms, which was really interesting. They had hired a car to do this with, which i drove most of the time. This was also very interesting, considering it was left hand drive of course, and on the right side of the road. There were only a few occasions Paul in the passenger seat had to point out i was on the wrong side of the road! lol We all survived luckily =D
So after Viloet left to go back to work, me and Paul headed of for Humplec near Prague in the Czech Republic for the second event. It was a great competition there, the Paul did really well with the horses again, the weather was lovely and the set up we had was great. I felt relaxed and in control of looking after the horses, particularly because ive never been involved with event horses before, although ive had a far bit of experience travelling and competing horses. So from that point of view Paul and Violet took a great chance having me there, but i worked quite hard, long hours, but really really enjoyed it and learned a great deal.
It wasn't Paul's original intention, but he decided that it would be worth going to a third event in Estonia, 2 weeks after Humplec. The only thing was it was hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away, or 4 days drive! He admitted later that he didn't realise how far it was, AND we had to cross some Poland and its crappy crappy crappy roads. It was a very interesting journey to Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania were quite flat with very tall pine trees for foresting covering alot of the land. Both me and Paul thought it looked somehow very American. Estonia was lovely, very green, with much more traditional and well kept buildings then the other countries.
Leaving out alot of detail, Paul also did quite well with the horses there, though after all the travelling etc, one in particular didn't do maybe as well as we'd hoped. Not to mention the flies and the horses flies....you simply can't imagine them, they drove the horses insane and indeed the humans as well. I came away with red welts all over me! Didn't help that the event grounds were pretty much surrounded by swampy kind of lakes hehe. My birthday was on the Saturday of the competition, so i didn't get to celebrate really until that night when me and Paul and a whole heap of others at the event, including some lovely lovely Finish people, walked not far up the road to an amusement park with pools and water slides. We all had a great time, particularly watching Paul getting frustrated that he couldn't slide down the water slide because he'd worn pants that were too grippy. I haven't laughed so long in a long time.
The last Sunday was hard, because by that point so was sooooo tired, exhausted even, more than i have ever been. Plus the water there from the taps was shite, brown and stunk alot, and of course we hadn't bought enough bottled water, so i was dehydrated as well...not a good thing. I was drinking alot of coffee as well, which really really didn't help the situation. Indeed, by the time we left on Monday to drive back to England, i was so exhausted, i was looking forward to sleeping for what was the five days to get home.
We got back on Friday, very sticky, very tired, as were the horses, but very satisfied with what we had achieved and glad to be back in the West with fresh running water and regular showers! I hate to admit it, but as there was no shower in thier truck, sometimes we went without a shower if they weren't available because we were too exhausted by the end of the day, or we had a bath in a bucket. I had it worked out quite well, so that you use minimal water most effeciently, and it was certainly better than no shower/bath at all!! And indeed i was properly minging most of the day every day...its rather messy work to say the least hehe.
Basically, say on a competition day, i would wake up around 5:30am, feed and muck out stables, make breakfast for us, prepare the three horses for competition, sometimes including platting manes which takes ages, then Paul would ride one while i took photos, then come back and get one another horse while i washed and took care of the previous horse, then take more photos and do that again with the third horse. This would take up most of the day, and somewhere in there id make us both lunch and we'd have a small break. Then in the afternoon we would have to clean tack, feed the horses, re-organise things for the next day, i make dinner and do general cleaning up of our camp, feed the dogs, etc etc by which time it would be around 10pm or so, then in bed by 11pm and try and get as much sleep before doing the same the next day!
It was as much work as it sounds, but very satisfying and rewarding. Plus, this was just on the event weekends and i had some more time to myself during the week, particularly when we were travelling because i couldn't drive and Paul had to do all of it...during which time i would catch up on some rest! So it was a FANTASTIC, amazing, life changing trip and im so lucky to have been on. I was even more lucky that Paul and Violet are SUCH lovely couple and really really enjoyed spending time with them. I think they were very happy with me as well. Even though i had no experience with event horses, i worked my bum off, and enjoyed other things i had to do as well, such as the cooking.
So im at thier place now in Dorset, not far from the Museum. They have gone back to work and its a shitty rainy day (of course....being back in England), and decided i should probably update this! This week for me is pretty chilled, just bumming around visiting people etc. We had dinner at the Muesum on Sunday night, which was really really lovely, saw loads of people again and had a great night, and the food was amazing as usual.
Tonight i hope to go to Annette and Willy's place for a few days, hopefully ill be able to help them out on the estate where i can and ride with Annette. Then on Saturday 9th August im off to Barcelona to meet up with Stacey, a very old family friend that i haven't seen since i was like 10yrs old, so that should be awesome. She has a week to hang out, so we are going to site see Barcelona then maybe travel to the Andalucia region in the South West, which is a popular and famous region for it culture and amazing towns. Ive been planning to go there for months, so it will be great to have someone to go with as well.
After that, i have no idea! Ill probably head back to England and find another job, something that pays well i hope, with horses again. There alot of horsey jobs here, as there are alot of horses, and no doubt i will very much need the money.
So yeah, there has been ALOT going and ive been the happiest ive been in a very long time. It has been so fantastic to work with horses again, and this was the most perfect opportunity and the most perfect situation that i was hoping for. And i got to see alot more of Europe, as well as countries that i never thought id see, and seeing it from the horsey point of view and meet those kinds of local was pretty special...even though i was too busy and tired to be social alot of the time.
Well i best be off...i have lots and lots of photos that i hope to get up one day, not sure when ill get the chance. AND Ty sent me a new camera for my birthday so im busting to use that in Spain and it will be alot easier for me to upload the photos onto flickr for you all to see.
I hope everyone is well and i very very much apologise for not being in contact with people properly, as it was quite difficult when i was away. And as usual i need to try harder to keep this up to date! =D
Take care all xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
