Early start tomorrow, we're off to watch a Tom and Sarah Widdicombe clinic in West Sussex for the weekend. I've been suffering withdrawl because they've been running all week and I'm mostly out of leave for the rest of the year. It will be nice to see them again and our friends who are riding on it.
If I can remember my camera at 6 a.m. tomorrow, I'll be back with pictures...
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Today I did Natural Horsemanship.
I worked my pony on a line using a flag, then we did some liberty, then I rode him bareback off the halter. It was only a short session but we got some things done.
Actually, the bareback was quite a big deal for me- Zorro tends to buck when you change his tack at all, so switching from our big saddle and regular bridle to a halter and nothing else was a prime "making Zorro buck" opportunity. Consequently I've not dared do it in a long time; certainly not in the last year, probably in longer.
Somehow - probably by taking lots of pauses, giving me a chance to get used to the feel of that big round barrel shifting as we moved about and giving him a chance to feel that I was secure - we avoided any bucking, although I could feel him thinking about it a couple of times. Instead he carefully looked after me, tried napping to the gate of the school, found it didn't work and then was very well behaved. Once I'd got back into the feel of it while mooching about we even did a couple of strides of trot. Compared with what most of my horsey LJ friends do often ( I know ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) buymeaclue regularly hacks out bareback ) it was absolutely nothing, but it broke down a barrier I had built up and in that respect it was a good thing to do.
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So this evening we came home to find the house had been turned over and both laptops and a bunch of other stuff gone. Lucky us.
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Small pony has chosen the worst possible time of year to throw a splint- nothing serious, but he's off work for a few weeks right at the height of summer and long evenings. sleepsy_mouse is gutted, as you might expect.
It also means Zorro and I have pretty much no choice but to work on riding out alone. Today we went a little further again- with me letting him choose paths that look interesting and wander along. I seem to be having a lot of stupidly obvious revelations lately, today's: If you don't let your horse walk slowly, they won't stop so often. Well duh!
The thing about stupidly obvious revelations is that you can be told them any number of times by everyone else, but until you bumble into them of your own account or maybe if you're amazingly lucky someone tells you about them when you're ready to hear it.
We also found ourselves confronted by an ambush. Or at least a gorse bush, which is very similar as anyone who has made an expotition to the North Pole will be aware. At this time of year the gorse is covered in small dry seed pods and as they heat up in the sunshine the burst open to release the seeds with a clear cracking sound a bit like someone popping bubble wrap. This is apparently the sound of doom and as there was a particularly noisy bush at the bottom of a steep bit of hill on the trail, we got stuck half way down. After a while of asking for movement and then offering direction I figured out that we had a good chance of just scaring him if I kept pushing in that direction so rather than damage the confidence we've been building we found a convenient loop off track and went back up the hill where we found some other gorse bushes and worked on being able to approach them and then on being able to eat them. Later we worked on not eating every single plant we walked past. On the ride home I didn't need to use my reins, which made me happy.
In the afternoon we had a riding lesson with Julian where not only were we off the lunge but we did some cantering. Exciting stuff!
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I continued feeling a bit down for most of today. Then I rode my horse.
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This evening finds me much afflicted with the melancholy vapours, so I'll endeavour to cheer everyone up by sharing some pictures that I took over the last couple of weeks.
( The walk to the yard )
Last Sunday I went out to the top of the highest west-facing hill in the area to get some sunset pictures.
( Sunset on the Summer Solstice )
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At the clinic with Steve I asked him about the problem I've been having riding Zorro out and he had a great suggestion- if Zorro needs to come home, we go home, but when we get there it's not as fun as he thought it would be- we go straight to the school and work hard for a while. Then we have the choice to head back out of the gate and wander gently on. Or to go back to the arena and charge about in the sand some more.
We've been working this way a few times over the last couple of weeks and so far it has been very successful. At first we were only going a few metres before Zorro's homing instinct kicked in and we had a few disputes in the gateway coming back as to whether we go towards the arena or towards the field, but soon enough we were going further, making sure that we ended up at a point where I made the decision to come home. We also tried to time it so that if sleepsy_mouse was out on Small we would meet up somewhere on their way home and our way out, so that he could have the idea that riding out might entail meeting his friend.
At some point during this process I had a bit of a light-bulb moment: When he stopped and wasn't concerned but wasn't interested in going forward either I was just asking him on by bumping with my leg and generally making it less comfortable for him to be standing still than it would be for him to be moving. This is fine, but after one particularly long wait followed by a very sluggish walk I got frustrated and pushed him into trot for a few metres. Then I realised that in spite of being stuck and then being very reluctant in walk, he had trotted quite willingly. The next time we got stuck I tried to create the same feel I do when we make a trot transition when I asked him to go forward. Sure enough he struck off into a brisk walk. That moment suddenly gave me an insight into what people mean about putting life into your riding and I've found that I have a lot more available to me in different gaits as I control my life in that way.
By yesterday we had got to the point that we could ride out to the common, do a short loop and come home with only one moment of slight anxiety on the big guy's part and that was nothing we couldn't control.
Zorro looking slightly sceptically at me while we were riding out.
With that under our belt, sleepsy_mouse figured maybe we wouldn't make life too hard for her and Small if we were to ride out together again, which we haven't done for a while because Zorro was being a pest and she was finding she didn't enjoy it, and also because captain stumpylegs can't keep up with Small's enormous trot and brisk walk.
( A few pictures from our ride )
It was a really enjoyable ride and Zorro is a lot braver out with Small for being able to go out on his own. Also, I still love my bashed up old buckaroo saddle, it's awesome.
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A couple of links to share, first up there's "click to choose a charity for a vote" kind of a thing- if you have a moment I think the Ebony Horse Club is worth a vote - check it out and make up your own mind.
Also a really interesting article on how language shapes the way we think which is worth a few minutes of anybody's time.
Look at me posting brief links, anyone would think I was a blogger.
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A couple of weeks ago we went on the first of our regular Steve Halfpenny clinics for this year.
( It was brilliant, we have many pictures )
x-post with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) horsemanship
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We got internet back this afternoon.
After most of the day with one or other of us on the phone to BT.
It seems good until you realise that it only seems good because by this point your expectations have been worn down to almost nothing.
British Telecom may anticipate a strongly worded letter of complaint.
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So we thought our BT woes were over. No such luck. This morning, when I have to work from home because we're moving office and we have no working office computers, I find that they have disconnected the broadband altogether.
Not just disconnected it, but when I phone support it transpires that there is no broadband on our account and there never has been. Except that it was working yesterday you staggeringly incompetent fucktards.
I just don't know what more we can do, we have an account number ( doesn't exist ) they sent us a router modem, and the fucking service worked and then suddenly it doesn't exist and it never did exist.
I never finished Gormenghast because I couldn't find anything appealing in it's strange rites and dusty ritual and suddenly I find myself in just such a tortuous and incomprehensible labyrinth.
It is very difficult to vex me, and yet I am now vexed. In fact I am rapidly approaching incandescant. Curse you, British Telecom, curse you to the black pit of ignorance and despair from whence you came.
First. Against. The. Wall. When. The. Revolution. Comes.
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We're back from the clinic, brilliant and inspiring as ever. Many pictures to share when I have sorted through the thousands on my hard drive...
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Time for our regular spring Silversand clinic with Steve Halfpenny. Really looking forward to seeing Steve and Irena and the other clinic regulars and catching up on what everyone has been up to for the last few months, then riding our ponies for four days. Awesomeness ahoy.
I'll have to get an early night tonight though as I've been knackered all week and I'm sure three hours driving the lorry will only take it out of me more.
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When I said "two weeks until we get broadband back" what I meant was "two weeks until BT can start the process of setting up broadband." It is only now getting towards two weeks until, at the earliest, we may get our connection back.
I bought a USB mobile modem at the weekend, but Vodaphone don't have 3G coverage at our house so it's not actually a lot of use.
Orange and 3 both think they maybe do, so I'm going to take the Vodaphone one back and try for a 3 one first as they do a PAYG deal that looks fairly good, but no matter how hard the people in the call centre are trying on our behalf, I am constantly astounded by BT's endless ineptness and the way they have endlessly told us one thing and then done another the whole way down the line.
Meantimes I can use a bit of interweb in my work breaks and I have a blackberry that lets me write the odd terse one-line email or lj reply.
It's amazing how reliant we are on this technology. There are so many things that I think I know how to do, but actually I only know how to search for information on how to do them.
This is coherent with my idea that the internet is an early part of the strategy from our future robot overlords ( did I say "overlords"? I meant protectors ) to leave us utterly dependent on the network with no expertise of our own and no attention span to devise new original strategies. Seems like they're doing a pretty good job of it too.
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| 2009-05-17 21:13 |
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Turns out bt did disable our internets but they waited until we had been lulled into a false sense of security first. They will connect up back up in about two weeks time . . If we are lucky
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So if an artist ( in the musical sense ) is going to find their way to my heart, one surefire route is by being a truly amazing lyricist. I've always been a words person and if someone has great lyrics I will warm to them very quickly, if they have stunning tunes and passable lyrics I'll take a lot longer to get into their work, if the lyrics are bad then no amount of musical genius will entirely persuade me.
For some time now, since I heard The Easter Parade on the radio, I have been keeping an eye out for an album by Emmy The Great and the other day I noticed it had come out.
The lyrics are good, really good. Better than almost anybody in fact. Right up there with the the finest moments of Billy Bragg, with Dar Williams before she was beaten to mediocrity with the MOR stick. Basically, judging by my first couple of listens it seems to me that she is writing songs as good as anyone ever has.
And i am grateful for the things
That you've tried to show to me dear
But there's no arcadia
No Albion and there's no jerusalem here
And underneath your pastures green
There's earth and there's ash
And there's bone
And there are things that disappear
Into it and then they are gone
And there is light that hits the sky
And then it is midnight again
And there is my mother, my father,
And you and we are all impermanent
- The Easter Parade
I wanted to pick out a couple of select lines, but like Dar Williams, these songs reflect in on themselves and fold from verse to verse, so one can't take a corner and do them justice. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that anyone else driven by a love of the sung word among you could click on any song title here and find yourself shopping for the album without making any conscious decision to do so, such is their intensity. This is of course the first flush of discovering something very special and I don't know how this record will settle with time's regard, but I feel like it is worth the price of entry already.
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