Home Sweet Home

Well after being away for nearly 3 weeks I'm finally home, in my own house, with my own bed!! Oh the excitement!

My cousin Elroy was over for the Rugby World Cup (great idea that turned out to be!) we met up in Belgium with no plans despite my repeated questioning months in advance. After s did the touristy bus thing which was unbelievably crowded – we were lucky to even get on the bus letearching the net for tickets to, well anywhere we settled on taking the train to London for a few days. It was quite fun we alone find a plug for the headphones or a seat. Did the London Eye again with two old ladys and their even older father in a wheelchair that insisted on following us round the capsule and identifying every building they could see with great enthusiasm, Elroy tried to help, suggesting the donut shaped one they were stuck on was a McDonald's, I'm not sure they were convinced however. Had a look at Madame Tussaud's the wax museum which to my extreme disappointment didn't have Hugh Grant but was loads of crazy fun anyway. We also went to a couple of shows, We Will Rock You was amazing and the next night Mamma Mia which wasn't quite as good but probably would have been awesome if we didn't see We Will Rock You first.

The week after I went to Pau 4* with Stefano a friend of Susys as his usual groom was on holiday. So I was back home for one day before flying down to Stefanos in Rome and then driving 20 hours to France. We got about half way there when Stef suddenly started cursing, I looked at him strangely and he goes “I forgot my saddle”... OK, we do have the horse don't we? Seriously though how do you do that, thank god I had nothing to do with the packing! What do you plan on doing, riding it bareback?!? He ended up sharing Andrew Nicholsons, god it was such a pain tearing the saddle of the horse as soon as it comes out of the arena because the other horse is the next one in. It was a great event though, the XC was huge - bigger than Badminton they were saying which caused Stef to turn a little white as it was Toms (18yo) first 4*. But he trucked round, just had one stop at the second water and one rail in the SJ so he was very pleased. As usual the French were tossers, determined not to speak English or move from the middle of the narrow path that your racing down in panic mode trying to find a saddle for the parade. And as usual when I go to France it was absolutely freezing! It was really weird you'd wake up in the morning and think oh its not so bad today but then as the day went on it got colder and colder till I ended up wearing every item of clothing that I took with me and waddling around as I couldn't bend my elbows or knees.

We've now got a 3yo TB mare, just a cheapy to make a bit of money on. Shes very sweet and something fun and different to play with over winter. Her name is Izzy she has one baby tooth left on her bottom jaw and it sticks straight out, its so funny she looks like such a Redneck! Susy has also brought a Grand Prix dressage horse called Dodo. I just watched the video and shes gorgeous! Completely black with a bit of white on her off fore. She arrives next week so that's quite exciting will be very fun to play on.

I think that's about all the news I have, the other three eventers are all on holiday now so they're all fat and happy. I'm hoping to go back to NZ for a couple of weeks at the end of Jan start of Feb so I can catch up with everyone... must start saving!

And then...

Isn’t it great how the day after I send you the worlds most boring email about nothing in particular I find myself in some rather interesting situations…

We took Caro and Ava to Highclere one day and after finally finding the place promptly got into a fight with the parking attendant (to be fair he did have some lovely straight rows going on) but we really needed to park somewhere kind of flat so we can put the pop out out (when its in you can barely move in the living and if its not flat it’ll get jammed and not go back in at all – could make driving down those narrow streets a bit interesting…) so we finally settled on a spot at the bottom of the hill and all was fine until the end of the day when were all packed up and ready to leave and find that were stuck. Now this isn’t usually a problem we just go find the guy on the tractor and get pulled out, its happened at most of the events we’ve been to this year. So he comes over and gets hooked up and I go into the back to finish a couple of things that I was doing and I'm kinda thinking man its taking a long time to get going, I poke my head out and see the tractor wheels spinning like never before flinging mud all over the cab (great I'm going to have to wash that when we get home…) but the truck didn’t even budge!! Mr Tractor driver then decides to get some rather interesting bounce thing going, I'm guessing he thought it would help? I dunno it was bloody hilarious though and didn’t do a thing. By this time we’ve got a bit of a crowd watching and we’ve dug the back wheels about 10cm into the ground. Mr Tractor starts saying he's pulled a truck that big out before and it took 5 tractors - right…. Nevertheless the keeps trying and we find ourselves 20cm deep. And thus it goes for 90min before some bright sparks suggests going to get the other tractor – well duh!!! So along he comes and starts pulling away and SNAP breaks the chain (do we have another chain? No. Oh super) Anyway 2hrs later, after they’ve dug enough dirt to fill the grand canyon from around the wheels, filled it up with sandy/stony stuff, hooked up both the tractors with a belt thing they found and had Clayton Fredricks and some other dude at the back pushing WE’RE FREE!!!! Just in time to make it home before midnight.

Were now back in Italy (alas the days of speaking English are over) and it’s HOT HOT HOT!!! We had a very dramatic time unpacking. I was in my room and I hear this scream from the lounge so I poke my head out and Laura’s white as a ghost pointing at her bag and shaking stuttering spider. Me here things oh you big wimp and goes for a closer look and see out of the corner of my eye the biggest spider in the world (ok maybe not quite but it was about 5cm across!) skittering down deeper into her bag. OMG!! It’s the same spider from Waresley. We were sitting in the living room one day and it kept crawling out from under the couch and then going back and coming out again but when we got brave (armed with a can of fly spray) it was no where to be found (now we know where it was hanging out!) OK OK OK its fine we can cope with this we have a stick with a hook on the end and a can of flying insect spray (surely it’ll be just as effective). Plan of action is Ill hook out the clothes and Laura will spray it as soon as it surfaces. Slowly one by one standing as far away as possible from the bag the clothes come out when Laura starts screaming and runs out the door! OK that does wonders for my nerves cheers - she could have at least left the bug spray! After retrieving the spray and making my way to the bottom of the bag the spider decides to do a runner! With my pulse having increased to twice its normal rate I promptly empty half a can of spray until the spider (plus half of Lauras bag…) is covered in white foam and not moving. Feeling quite proud of myself I turn around and when I look back he's running straight towards me - eek! On goes the other half of the bug spray and he plays dead for another 10sec before continuing his run for freedom. As I'm in bare feet I quickly rule out the standing on it option and reach for the nearest solid thing which happened to be Mauris shoe and start beating it until there’s nothing left (photo of the remains on my webshots) The moral of the story: flying insect spray will not kill insects that don’t fly (it’s doubtful about the flying ones too).

Bon Voyage

Six weeks in England and we have achieved squat!!!

Tucker came all the way up to do one dressage test and one SJ round where he had 4 rails (very unlike him!) turns out he has some weird abscess thing in his hoof so isn't going to Burghley anymore.

Ava and Caro went to a few more events but lots were canceled due to the flooding so I think in the whole time they've completed 1 each. One more chance tomorrow when we go to Highclere before leaving for Italy on Wednesday.

In saying that I have been to Gatcome (home of the Princess Royal and her family) and Thirlestane Castle in Scotland which were both quite fun but no spectacular results to boast about.

I spent a bit of time with Mum while she was over went down to Italy at the end of July (just get to somewhere that speaks English and end up back in Italy!!) we had a bit of a nosy at my house in Milan and then went down to Florence before heading up to Belgium for their birthdays. Also went to Ireland a couple of weeks ago, flew into Dublin and hired a car and drove through Limerick, Tipperary (wasn't such a long way), did the ring of Kerry and down to Cork where we flew home from.

So rather a boring update for you all. Ill try get in more trouble for the next time.

Engrish

They speak English, they drive on the left hand side and the grass is green... The world is as it should be =)

It took 2 days to get here (the 2^nd day taking 16hours!) so was a rather long journey. We stopped for the night at Dijon and I got stung by a wasp! Youchies! After the ponies were settled Laura and I got very brave and took the bus into town, this was quite an achievement given that neither me nor Laura speak French and I have to admit that given my track record with public transport I wasn’t too hopeful but much to my shock it was terribly uneventful so I'm sorry I cant make this paragraph too interesting. We did find a lovely steak for dinner though.

The next day we were up at 3am (poor, poor Amelia) to catch the ferry from Calais to the white cliffs of Dover we were lucky with the weather and didn’t have to wait too long to get on. The crossing was quite rough and I spent most of my time wondering how long it would take me to run to the toilet if the situation aroused. We got to eat in the “truckers lounge” and were surrounded by lots of huge, fat, balding guys (sorry Frank ) who were giving us some strange WTF looks – eeek…

Wow Waresley is AMAZING!! It just screams money at you, as you drive in there are huge automatic gates that lead onto a long tarseal driveway surrounded by huge trees – talk about lifestyles of the rich and the famous! The place is massive (hopefully I’ll build up some fitness with all the walking I’ll have to do – our fields are like 3km away!) It has 2 walkers one takes 10 horses the other 15 despite the fact they only have 7 horses there!! There's a horse treadmill, 2 tracks (One 2km long the other a hill track) a horse spa, they have a sweeper!! And about a million boxes!! just my luck the year I come over Susy decides to spend most of it in Italy!!

Oh and there are alarms for Africa! In the tack room, the house, the washing room etc. etc. And all the keypads are way too high!! Like at roof level so I find myself jumping up and down poking aimlessly at the key pad preying to god that I hit the right numbers frantically trying to remember the code as its screaming beeping at me. Ah good times.

First night there we went down to the “The Duncombe Arms” (the local pub down at Waresley that I've heard oh so much about) we had dinner there – well it was either that or starve, we had no food in the house! And coincidentally it was “quiz night”, and the questions were in English!! Yay!!

Also had 'party in the park' at the cricket club the other night too (Eddy also owns the cricket club - who owns a cricket club?!?) God talk about a Jilly Cooper novel!!! Was good to get to know everyone though.

I have an accent! I'm very excited although the novelty is already wearing off when people struggle to understand me, but hey at least they speak English!

Our house is fantastic. Its about 5 times the size of our one in Vairano and is about 20m away from our horses. If only we could take it with us back home!

Did I mention that they speak English here?? Not that I'm excited or anything but they do, they speak English!!! I keep having these weird like OMG I understand what they're saying I should probably concentrate rather than doze off into my own little word! Or I start saying what I think to Laura or Susy and then turn around and see all these people looking at me thinking what did she just say! I forget that other people understand me over here.

He he the funniest thing just happened. We were getting the horses ready to make the 100km trek to put them out into the field and a wasp was flying around, Laura and I were kinda flapping and running away in panic mode when it flew under Tuckers half on rug. We were like eek he's really sensitive and it wouldn’t be all that good if he got stung so we went in investigating and found it chilling out on his Willy!!! OMG what do you do?!? I wasn’t too keen to play the hero having just been stung myself and I didn’t particularly fancy being underneath Tucker when he got stung there! But it started crawling up! (looking to find somewhere to nest?? Poor Tuckeroo L) So we got the broom and sort of shooed it away. The funny thing was that Tucker didn’t seem to mind it there at all!

Venezia

Its official! I'm the worst traveler in the world!

Yes that's right I got lost - AGAIN!! This time it was quite a drama though cause it meant I had no where to stay!!

I guess I should start at the beginning cause your probably wondering what the heck I'm on about at the mo. Well I had 2 days off so randomly decided at about 9 the night before that I would go to Venice.

So off I tootle to the train station (when I finally wake up - come on be fair it was my day off, your not meant to get up early) and lucky for me, no wait great planning - yes that's right great planning ensured that I was right on time for the train so I arrived in Venice about 2pm. And WOW its really breathtaking!! You walk right out of the train station and there's this huge canal. Totally not what I expected, not that I'm sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that!

The accommodation drama started around 4. I had my trusty lonely planet with me (aka my Bible) and rang up the Hostels that it suggested and got an answering machine that said the office is open from 6-8, perfect more sight seeing time. 6 rolls around and I ring back, yes they had a bed for the night but you have to get here before 8 to pay for it and get the key. "Take the Vaporetta (water bus thingy) number 82, get of at Rialto and then ring back for more directions" super how hard can this be I got the bus and got off and the correct stop and tried to ring back but kept getting some message in Italian - I have no idea what the problem was but I tried for about 10min before giving up and trying the next hostel on the list "yes we have a bed but you have to get here before 7.45 take vaporetta 82 and get off at Zitelle" Off I go again and do a complete loop of the Grand Canal (takes about an hour) before I realised I was on no 4!! I have no idea how that happened I was at the jetty that had a big 82 above it! Its now 7.44 and I ring the hostel back but only get answer machine and still get the weird message when I ring the other place. Oh good times!! OK OK don't panic Ill just stay at a hotel (ekk she thinks looking in her wallet) So I went into about 5 all saying no were fully booked tonight and then on the 6th said yes we have a room... €200 "ah OK can you give me half an hour and Ill be back if I cant find anything..." So tried another 5 and finally struck gold whew! I even had a double bed and a buffet breakfast.

So crisis adverted and am safely home with acres and acres of glass in my bags.

The Luck Changes

Well where do I start? I have so much news...

Ive been away at competitions for the last 2 1/2 weeks and just got home late last night (was very excited to have my own bed and my own shower again argh I feel so clean) so that's why you guys haven't heard from me for like ever - I know you having withdrawals so Ill catch you up on everything now.

First off we went to Luhmühlen in Germany, had Tucker in the 4* and Zack in the 2* (my first 4* - very exciting) Surprisingly I wasn't as daunted by the 4* track as I expected to be, I guess its always nice if you know you don't have to ride it lol. So as always we were one of the first to arrive on a nice sunny summers day which lasted until dressage day when it started bucketing down, the car park ended up being knee deep in slushy wet mud... good times. But it was an awesome week and Tucker was a little star and ended up 10th which is Susys best result in a 4*. Zack on the other hand was a complete shit so hes gone to live with a friend of Susys and we are now down to 4 horses. oh my life is so cruisy! There were so many big names there though. David Green tried to jump me, he snuck into the lorry in the middle of the night jumped in my bed and stuck his hand down my top before I realised what was happening and was able to kick him out. And I talked to Zara Phillips (well she asked me for a spanner at the end of the XC - hey its my claim to fame I'm practically royal now!!) but also met lots of other people Hoys, Fredricks, Mary King (OMG shes SO nice!)

From Luhmühlen we went straight up to Ede in Holland and had Tony and Fabio come up in the little lorry to swap horses. We had another good week (with better weather thank god) with Ava coming 3rd in the 3* which had about120 starters so a pretty good effort in my opinion.

A bit of drama on the way home though. We were honing it along the motor way and Susy pulled out to pass a car in front of us, the car then pulled out to stop her getting past - OK so the car wants to go faster now so we pulled back and the car pulled back this happened a couple more times with Susy getting more and more pissed with the car when finally it pulls over to take an exit so Susy decides to run him off the road - not literally of course just give him a bit of a scare (and me too as Ava was sent flying around in the back) so we passed him with not much room to spare and the horn and lights on full blast and carried on our merry little way when we realised he was following us - OK heres me thinking about that truckie back in NZ that got attacked with a claw hammer. Then a few ks on a cop pulls in front of us with a flashing sign say "please follow" fantastic!!! He took us off the motor way into a tiny little village with very narrow roads (I have no idea what he was thinking! That was almost scarier that running the car off the road!) and was like oh just a routine check can we see all the documents etc which were all fine then there was a bit of a drama about not having a disc (which we don't have to have because its registered as a campervan or something but the cops didn't know that so had to sit around for about half an hour while they rang up and were checking everything out) and finally when they couldn't give us a ticket they told us that they had a call from a car saying that we were doing 120km and driving erratically which is completely untrue because it has a limiter that wont let it go above 105km... Tosser!!!

Belgium

Q. How many forms of public transport does it take to get to Belgium ??

A. Just about everything ever invented well lets not be silly and include space ships in this but everything else! – Car, Bus, Train, Metro, Shuttle, Plane, Taxi

I had an awesome time in Brussels , it was great to see someone that I actually knew – and that spoke English =) (How is it that I keep ending up in places that don’t speak the language I do?!? The have 3 national languages there FFS and not one of them is English!! What are they thinking!) The plane ride there was horrible, it was a million degrees we were all crammed in like sardines (I know what did I expect) Ah but the worst part was the screaming baby!! 2 hours of solid screaming! How is that possible?!?

Helen, Chloe and I went to Bruggs and had a poke around and saw some old church and went for a boat ride on the canals which was fun until it started raining =S That night Chloe, Diego (Chloes boyfriend) and I went out. We had a good night ended up drinking cocktails… =S and then going to a sheesha bar. That was interesting it’s a big pipey thing? (looks kinda like a vase really) that has a tube coming from the bottom that you smoke. It has water in the bottom so makes bubbly sounds and somewhere there’s tobacco flavoured like apples… mmm…

Chloe had her prom on the Monday night so I got to see her looking all pretty. Helen tried to make her hair curly with rollers and stuff but as soon as they came out it was dead straight again. How unfair she wants curly hair and can’t have it I want straight hair and can’t have it – where is the justice??? Anyway she looked great and said she had a good night.

So yea didn’t really do much else. Saw the Manikin Pis - got a photo of it pissing on my head, rubbed the angel face that gives you good luck (giving the angels feet a wide berth – they’re meant to help you get pregnant) and saw the main squarey thingy – what’s it called?? Something in French. (See I can’t keep up with all these languages!)

And yay!! I have a laptop now. =) very exciting. Haven't quite got it connected to the internet yet but am working on that. And in the mean time I can watch DVDs and stuff.

We've had a few dramas around here since I got back, Susys been away (she's on holiday in Egypt – as you do) Rose had colic from windsucking too much!! So now has a collar and a muzzle on all the time although it still doesn’t stop her. And Avas had a swollen leg from galloping. Oh good times.

The Break In

I had to break into my own house!! It was Lauras day off so I was down at the yard by myself and of course me being me I didn't take my keys down which was fine for most of the day cause Laura was home but then she went out and locked the door so when I came back at the end of the day I couldn't get in! SUPER! This also happened to be the day before we left to go to Marbach (at 4.30 the next morning ) and of course I hadn't yet packed my bags! What do you do?!? Id left my phone in the house also! So I was wondering round and playing with the horses and things and just generally killing time when a couple of the BMW Sauber F1 guys came for a nosy at the horses and we got a chatting (thankfully they spoke English! - That doesn't happen a lot round here!) so they decided they would break me into my house, they ran off to get some tools and came back and started attacking the lock on the door (which happens to be quite secure - not sure if that's good or not I guess it depends on the situation) I wasn't very keen on them breaking the whole door down (didn't really think Susy or Laura would be too impressed) so we went to plan B which was to get in through the window. Yes good idea you say... I live on the second story remember. So my BMW nights in shinning armour ran off to get a ladder (Why oh why do you need a ladder to work on a F1 car?!? Not that I'm complaining or anything) and my window was kind of half open but like the kind of open that you have to shut it completely to be able to open if fully (for security reasons of course how handy) This was not match for my BMW friends however who attacked the frame with some fancy tools and completely took the window apart (again - not sure if that's good thing or not) but got me inside (where luckily my keys actually were rather than down at the yard or something stupid ) and managed to put the window back together and fully working even!

Marbach was heaps of fun. We took Zack and Tucker. Had a bit of a drama getting there as the navigator (and Susy) got very confused when we had to take a detour because of a road closure and ended up going over a 3 tonne max bridge (Truck is 17 tonne!!) and then found a dead end so had to go back over it!! Luckily Susy speaks German otherwise we would still be trying to get there. German is such a cool language I just want to crack up every time I hear someone speaking it! It sounds like its so much fun! However I think I should stick to one language at a time and at the moment I think Italian is the top of the list. So anyway back to Marbach, we were the first ones to arrive and got stuck right after getting in the gate so got pulled out and found a super park right next to the stables but Susy was too chicken to pull the pop-out out because it wasn't really all that flat and she thought it might get stuck out (would make driving home on the motorway interesting)so tried to move to somewhere flatter and what do you know... stuck again, so got pulled out for the second time in 10min and found somewhere kinda flatish (so I had to walk up a hill with all the gear much to my excitement ) The comp went OK Zack was pretty good considering he hasn't been out in about 6months but unfortunately she fell off Tucker in the SJ (was really unlucky) so decided there was no point starting him in the XC so I got to watch heaps of the XC which was awesome.

Nothing New

Ive spent the last couple of days off in bed watching DVDs and reading books. I could write a few reviews for you but you'd get more interesting things if you did a google search... Ive been out for dinner and drinks a few times (mmm pizza)

OMG our hot water is broken AGAIN!! This is driving me mad! Last night I washed my hair in the wash box down at the yard (it has hot water) I was so desperate my head was soo itchy!! So since Ive been here Ive learnt how to pee in a horse box and have a shower under a hose... what an education...

Susy and Laura went down to Pratone for the Italian championships a couple of weeks ago but Ava flipped at the 3rd to last fence (would have been in the lead if she had of finished) she just misjudged the width and didn't manage to get her landing gear out in time. Both are fine, Ava had a bit of a puffy knee and Susys limping around the place but no lasting damage and apparently they are both very lucky. So they got back at 1.30 that night *yawn* Susy didn't come back with the horses (they were worried about delayed concussion so thought it best she didn't drive) so they didn't have a key to get in the gate, I haven't got mine yet either (stupid office people) so I was in a mad panic at 10 last night trying to find a key to the gate (try explaining that one to someone that only speaks Italian!) and Lauras phone had run out of battery so I was waiting up looking frantically out the window every 10 sec waiting for them to arrive so I could let them in. Ended up getting to bed at 2.45 by the time we got the horses sorted and did some more icing and stuff with Ava. Ahh the life of a groom.

Am going up the Germany on Wednesday taking Zack and Tucker and straight after Laura is going with Caro to France so busy couple of weeks. Oh and whats really exciting is Ive just booked a ticket to see Auntie Helen in Belgium the week after that... YAY

So yea I'm sure Ill have something a bit more interesting to report after Germany and Belgium.