My Christmas began when I went home for my cousin's funeral. That might seem rather odd but it was an unexpected trip home and all of my family were there with an added sense of the importance of spending time together whilst we can. I must say though... everything did not quite go to plan.
The night before my flight home I stayed at Laura's house. Laura was taking me to the airport in Tours the next morning. WE set off at 7am and arrived at the small quiet little airport. There were no announcments of delays or cancellations so we had a hot chocolate together as the queue at the gate went down. Finally, just before the gate was due to close, we said goodbye. I sat in the departure lounge and started to read "A Year in the Merde" when I heard an announcement that froze me completely. Our flight was cancelled! Everyone started to leave out of the departure lounge back through the gate we had just come in through. Iwas panicking that my entire trip home would be ruined. I phoned Laura to find out if she was still in the area or already back home. Luckily she had decided to visit the nearby city of Tours for a spot of shopping so we agreed i would get more information and call her when i needed her to get me. I queued with the masses at the information desk and finally I was able to ask what was going on. Apparantly there was snow at Stansted Airport, where I was heading, and the plane that we were meant to be on had not even left Stanstead. I asked if there were any other flights and they said I could move my flight over to the next day from the Airport of La Rochelle. I agreed to do so and called home to update my mum and Dave and told them to send Will a message. Laura came and got me and we went back into the city together where we looked for a place for me to stay the night and booked a train ticket to La Rochelle for first thing the next morning. We killed time drinking hot orange juice with honey (well i did, Laura had hot red wine with spices) at the Christmas market, and waffles. We had a nice lunch together and then Laura headed home. I spent more time walking around the various Christmas markets, looking at the lights, listening to music, and enjoying being immersed in festivities. It would have been nice to have been able to share it with someone but since life at the Plessis is so remote from the outside world Christmas had still not arrived there so it was nice to be back in the outside world. The hotel I stayed at was small but had a warm atmosphere and very friendly welcoming hosts. I would definately go there again.
In the morning I was up at 5am to catch my train. Four hours later I was in the seaside town of La Rochelle. Everything was closed except for the hairdressers and the gamboling/sports bars. I bought a hotchocolate in one and was amused observing the patroness surrepticiously drinking wine at 10 in the morning and flirting with her washed up clientelle. Eventually I had killed enough time and the air had warmed enough that I went for a pleasant stroll around the harbour. I then worked out the bus system and caught a bus to the airport where I found a bench to fall asleep on until my flight was called. I was the last person on the plane but my bag had to be squeezed into a space halfway down the plane. As we landed I bolted down the aisle and managed to get my bag so I was among the first half of the people off the plane. I was so excited to be home, I sped through the terminal and was walking along the road when my mum's car came into sight and stopped for me. As I jumped in a passing car bibbed us for stopping but as we drove on we saw the same car had done the exact same thing. We had a lot of satisfaction bibbing them! Mum took me straight home and shortly after we arrived Will turned up. Me, Mum, Dave and Will all went out for a chinese. We had a laugh and then I went with Will to his rehearsals for his Spring Show. It was funny to see him with his Sidcup Society friends. I was even asked if I wanted to join in but I said as I was back to France in a week there was no point.
On the Friday I helped Mum muck out the stables and we went to a local tack shop and watched a fil together. Thne I drove Will's "Bertie" car (IT's a 50 year old Austin 1100 and I love it!) and picked him up from his work and then we went to pick up Summer from her mum. This meant waiting in the carpark of a pub for over an hour because the woman was late. Summer was so cute though, and happy to see me. We went to my mum's and had shepherds pie and gave Summer lots of presents. I also got my christmas presents early too, lots of thermal underwear and a nice coat!
Saturday I took Will and Summer to the stables. Summer helped me pile muck buckets on top of the muck heap. By help I of course mean slow me down horrendously as we played "king of the castle" on top of a massive teatering pile of poop on a rusty wobbly old trailer, whilst Will was on the ground having palpitations that I was going to allow Summer to fall to her death! Summer wanted to meet all the horses and get on all of them. She ended up sitting on Havewe, Belle and Gemma (Jane the yard owner's horse). We took Summer home so we could all change into clean clothes before heading up to London to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Oh man it was sooooo busy there. We could hardly move and I was on full maternal drive keeping Summer safe because it would be so easy to lose a little one in that crowd. We managed to go ice skating in the end. It was Summer's first time, she had skates with double blades and was like trying to skate with a drunk squid! When we asked if she wanted to try skating alone she did pretty well and skated about a meter from Will to me and then we went round holding her hands. She fell asleep in her push chair as Will walked me around his favourite places in London. I love seeing London at Christmas time.
Sunday we had to be up early (again) to go on a steam train christmas experience. Will's dad had booked a first class train carriage (apparantly not as expensive as it sounds) for their whole family to meet Santa and have a train ride. Summer was very happy to see Santa and there was a carousel there that we could go on as many times as we liked. I think I went on it four times with Summer. We had burgers for lunch and had our photo's taken with the Snow Queen. The horrible part came when we had to take Summer back to her mum. She was having such fun with her cousins she really did not want to go back yet. And Will was really getting upset too. After dropping Summer off we went back to mum's house where they had put up the decorations and we were having a mini christmas with christmas dinner and everything. Lizzy and Marco were there. Mum was so happy to have all her daughters together.
Monday was the funeral so I helped mum do the horses in the morning before we had to change and head to the crematorium. There were over 300 people trying to pay their resects to my cousin, only half could get into the building to hear the service. My aunt was crying a lot but kept trying to pull herself together by making jokes. I love aunt Lou, she's a crazy loud rude version of my mum! Then all 300 of us headed to the yacht club house where my cousin used to be (he lived on a boat for many years). Again there was not enough room for everyone but the atmosphere was incredible and a lot of money was raised for Paul's favourite charity - the life boats! Will met us there once he'd finished work and we dropped Tammy home and then I went with him to his pantomime rehearsals. I met a few more of his friends and had a laugh and a joke.Iit was entertaining watching him practice his dances and songs, funnier watching some of his friends!
Tuesday morning both mum and Will were working so I did the stables with Tammy and then Lizzy met us and dragged us to the shops to look at wedding dresses. I tried three on. I'm very bad at buying wedding dresses, I think they are very samey and overpriced. not that I'm buying anything yet, Lizzy just wanted us to go so I could get some ideas and I figured it's a nice thing to do with my sisters. Lizzy took Tammy to the train station as Tammy was heading back to college and I went to Will's school to watch the nativity play that the children in his class were doing. it was so cute and funny. I hung out in the staff room whilst I waited for Will to finish work then dragged him back to my mum's so I could spend one last evening with my family.
Wednesday morning I was up at 3 am checking if the flight was ok. It was. By 9 am I was in Tours and spent the morning with Laura looking for a thank you present to get Karen for looking after Paris.
Apparantly Jana's horse, Idylle, had been integrated into our herd whilst I was away and Paris had been chasing her around horribly. He was getting drops of rescue remedy 3 times a day to calm him down. I took Paris into the arena just to have some fun at liberty and he really wanted to play but he didn't seem to be moving right. I didn't panick too much as the arena was pretty hard with the cold and he didn't have hoof boots on. He had a coupe more days off as I settled back into Plessis life and then we went for a nice quiet trail ride. Unfortunately he was very spooky so I decided to take him back to his comfot zone and we went in the arena and picked up on the excercises we had been doing before I left. He was running on a bit and on his forehand. Occasionally he made a false step which Gabi and Marie-Claire also saw. The next day Paris had a warm fetlock. I hosed him and took him for a walk in hand and it got better. For the next week his leg would get warm then cold, with fluctuating degrees of puffiness. One day there was a lot of hunting and Karen told me she saw Paris flying around the firld like a crazy thing. The next day his leg was very swollen, all the way from fetlock to hock. I brought him in and showed Marie-Claire and Gabi. They called the vet and had Paris on some anti-inflammatories. I bandaged his back legs and committed him to the same programme that Casper, who was also on box rest with poorly legs, of walking several times a day. We had to wait for the vet to return from her holidays and so I read about what could be wrong. It seemed his symptoms fitted with a minor injury to his tendon. Rather than take risks I put Paris on full lockdown until the vet came. Fortunately her prognosis was much more positive. She said his fetlock is fine, perhaps he had hurt it a little by slipping in the mud. She did find he has pain in his knee. I think this has been the case for sometime and is a logical reason for why he struggles to get his hind legs underneath himself for downward transitions and lead changes.
I am now allowed to ride and play with Paris again but mostly straight lines, nothing crazy. I am not sure what this is going to mean for our freestyle audition but at least there is hope that I can do it with him now.
I have been preparing Riva for the freestyle audition too. Her steering and impulsion have gotten so good but she is behind on her education in the patterns. She is showing fast progress though and I am everyday impressed by her attitude and ability to learn. I will keep progressing with her because having a purpose to our principles is certainly no bad thing! Everyday I fall more and more in love with her. I really am not looking forward to having to say goodbye to her and keep finding myself day dreaming about buying her. We only have 15 more weeks together.
I have been riding Touria again too. One day I even cantered both Touria and Riva bareback. For anyone who recalls the ups and downs I've had with Touria, you will know what an acheivement that is! She is also learning the clover leaf pattern now. I hope that she will also be level 3 freestyle before I leave. Her online and liberty is level three so it would be cool to have her evenly developed in her savvys.
Life in the student house has changed. I have moved upstairs into Joke's room, which used to be Anna de Winter's room when she was here. Our newest working student, Irina, is now sharing the downstairs room with Jana. Karen is enjoying having a room to herself. We had a pleasant Christmas and New Year together with delicious meals, fun Raqulettes and cosy movie nights.
I am going home for 10 days at the end of January, my last holiday home before the final leg of my journey here. I will leave the Plessis around 22nd April in order to prepare for the externship and my journey to Wyoming to meet Boaz, my lease horse.
Two years ago I made the first steps on my journey to change my life and make my dreams come true. The path I have mapped out for myself is still just as exciting, but as the externship ends in August I am curious to see how the road will be.
