Technicus interruptus

We apologise for the interruption in service. This was due to a technical fault with the brain of the author. The fault has not been rectified since the brain could not be found, but it has since been discovered that the brain is not crucial to the writing of a blog. Hence service resumes:

Since my riding skills are improving in leaps and bounds (well, lumps and falls, although not all my own) I have decided to open a dressage school for shire horses and middle aged couch-potatoes. (Why not sofa-potatoes - I've never called a sofa a couch in my life!). It will be a slow and graceful show whose audience will be composed mainly of small blonde giggling girls and bored sheepdogs. The advantage of using shire horses is that they are difficult to fall off. You could lie sideways on one and your feet wouldn't even hang over the edge. This makes acrobatics much easier. In fact I'm thinking of including a section of elastics. Two (small) couch potatoes, standing on the specially tailored saddle will stretch a large rubber band around their knees while a third jumps over it reciting 'Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, All dressed in
black, black, black... etc'. That should show those snootily-blonde pony-mad chits (see how carefully I formed that word?).

Cantering

This was written last week...

I cantered last night. Not on my own, I mean, on a horse. And last night was only my third lesson ever. It was so cool. Quite scary, but such fun. We were in the paddocky bit outside because it's bigger than the indoor school bit, It was only me and Emma and the teacher, Kirsten, who is very down to earth and nice. She made us chase each other at a fast trot for a while which was great. We were both cheating horribly and I was getting quite competitive. Ollie seemed to understand that we needed to go fast and it was a lot less work than normal. Man and horse in perfect harmony? Hardly, but it felt right (some of the time). Towards the end of the hour
Kirsten told us how to canter and Emma set off. Her horse Kaiser wasn't really interested for a while, but eventually decided to join in, however Emma chose that instant to momentarily lose control and fall off. She landed with a bit of a thump, as you do when you fall off a cantering horse, but didn't seem to be hurt - more shock than pain. And I was so impressed when she climbed straight back on! My heroine! Then it was my turn and Ollie had seen what was required so needed less encouragement and managed a canter quite quickly. How exhilarating! I could almost feel the sand under Ollie's hooves and the waves gently lapping on the shore as I cantered towards the sunset... Of course it only lasted about five seconds, but even
as he slowed down it felt right. Just right. Riding really rocks. Best of all, Kirsten let us have a go on the cantering machine. It's like a Bucking Bronco, but horsey. You sit on it like a real horse and kick the sides and it gets faster or slower depending on your kicking or rein-pulling. Pretty cool and it meant we could learn where our feet should be, how to sit etc without having to concentrate on so many things at once. Most excellent.

Certainly helped take my mind off the horror and humiliation that awaits me at speed dating tonight. Arrgghh!