I'm dreaming of a white Boxing Day.

Not quite as good as a white Christmas but damn close! That is unless your flat out on the couch unable to move due to a particularly bad bout of the flu (Thanks Chloe!) whilst everybody else is outside building snowmen and having snow fights.
Never the less Christmas in Carcassone was awesome. Lots of family, lots of presents, and LOTS AND LOTS of baking thanks to Kates early Christmas present (a kenwood mixer).
Before the terrible flu outbreak we managed to get in lots of roller blading (new Xmas present :-D) which put me in good stead for the ice skating rink we found in Carcassone town. They had quite a lot of festivities going on, with a market around the ice rink, a ferris wheel and a parade consisting of 5 men dressed up in fluffy costumes (which took quite a likening to Ariki, Tamati and I) and a small band.

Greece is a whore everybody's been in her

I was back for one night before leaving for the wonderfully sunny Greek cruise :-) The first night was in a very fancy pants hotel... that is apart from my bed, evidently they were trying to squish as many people in as possible so I had a stretcher that was designed for dwarfs. As we all know I'm not exactly tall but my feet were hanging off the end quite impressively.

The boat was amazing. The beds however weren't a great improvement on the previous night. We had 4 of us in a cabin that barely held 4 beds never mind the luggage of 4 girls too! It didnt really matter though as we spent most of the time in one of the numerous bars on board or on the sun deck sitting around the pool drinking (the unlimited supply of) cocktails or joining in silly activities such as towel animal folding (unfortunately the game of 'stop the bus' – anyone know what this is? - didn't seem to happen, much to Dees disappointment) and just generally mixing in with the 150 year olds that made up everyone on the boat the wasn't part of the contiki group.

The on board parties were fun (couldn't possible be anything to do with the free alcohol). There was the contiki cocktail party, a toga party in which there was a lot of macarena style dancing (the Americans seemed to know an awful lot of similar ones), the captains cocktail which didn't consist of much except dressing up and (after a long wait in line) getting your photo taken with the captain which Hannah then proceeded to loose we did however take the opportunity to do titanic impersonations at the front of the boat. And if all else failed there was always the karaoke to keep us going – my personal fav being Jeremys version of Michael Jacksons Thriller.

Of course we did get off the boat and onto the islands the tour went to Mykonos, Kusadasi, Patmos, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini and back to Athens.

There were some talented stair walking donkeys (an interesting ways of making them go) which Hannah kept reminding us for the rest of the holiday.

Turkey was quite entertaining. We opted out of the tour and spent the day wandering around the bazaar fending of very thought out and well rehearsed chat up lines: “hey Charlie's Angels have arrived” “Four angels... one devil muh wah ha ha” “Oh its the desperate housewives” and my personal fav “ Ladies this is the boarder patrol, you must come through my shop to have your passports checked”

Boekelo

Boekelo was so much fun!!! Crazy crazy party's like every night. I guess that's what happens when the main sponsor is beer! First night was the best, it was a bit of a spontaneous random one in the tent in the yard, they were poring the drinks 9/10 gin 1/10 lemon so everybody was wasted at like 8! Then Susy decided it was a good idea to start dancing on the tables so dragged me up... well it all went downhill from there – half an hour later all the tables had been pulled together and everyone was up I must have fallen off like 20 times at one point I fell (I still maintain I was pushed) had Susy and Andrew Nicholson fall on top of me. At 12 they stopped the music so Susy decided we would take everyone back to our lorry... this the massive flash lorry that's kept spotless... yea messy. I woke up the next morning very sore, very hungover and with a fat lip. It must have taken me like 2 hours to plat poor Mossy.

The next night was the meet the stars, we weren't planning on going but we were passing by after dinner so decided to pop in. I felt very out of place everyone was wearing dresses and suits – I was wearing jeans caked in mud and my yard jacket never to mind a few beers later and everything was fine. Twas also a very entertaining night with Zara Phillips and Dirk Schrade spinning around the dance floor at a great rate of knots and Clayton Fredricks stealing the mic and having his very own karaoke party. The most entertaining part however was at about 4 that morning I hear the lorry door slam so hard I think its gonna fall off its hinges. I found a very very drunk Australian curled up over our toilet...

So back to the horse bit Mossy was a star did a really awesome dressage was coming 36th (there was like 110 in the class). I managed to see her jump 3 fences on the XC – the first and the last perfect, then number 5 which was like a cross bar oxer kinda but quite big and very wide. She smacked the first rail SO hard she was basically vertical with her bum above her head then she landed on her knees with Susy hanging off the side and somehow managed to reorganise her self and keep going leaving Me John and Bryn staring in amazement trying to get our heart rates to return to normal. The rest she was very good (she was a lot more careful after that) just had a very stupid stop jumping off a bank. And Show Jumping was OK.

Mossy came back to Italy with a friend of Susys and from Boekelo we went straight to Düsseldorf to pick up Dodo and take her to a comp in Austria. Dressage people are very mad, everything is blinged up to the eyeballs! Bandages with sequins, halters with sequins, and my most hated tail coats with sequinned words written on them!!! Dodo was super got 7th in both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix special despite her lack of sequins.

New Toy

We have a new pony. Name is Blue Moss. She's a New Zealand TB was started by Mark Todd in New Zealand and then went to some Irish girl whose had her since she was like 5 or something. Mossy is very very sweet (somewhat ugly however – her forehead is ridiculously huge and she has no forelock to cover it) but needs quite a bit of work, from what I've heard the Irish girl didn't do her many favours but so far shes come along loads.

Quarantine

First up was the CHIO at Aachen. Was Dressage, Show Jumping and Eventing so I got to catch up with lots of people I met in Spain. Ava went rather terribly almost crashed with the carriages as they came bolting out of the main arena where they had their prizegiving right before her Show Jumping round which Ava being the stresser as she is gave her a mild heart attack and consequently she had something like 5 rails down. XC wasn't much better – 2 run-outs at a chevron in the second water, Susy has noticed that shes picked up a recent habit of having a little snooze in the middle of her XC, did the same thing at Badminton. Fingers crossed its sorted before the Olympics!

From there we went straight up to Holland for the team training with Hanns Horn. Really lovely place and lots of cute babys around. Only problem was that there was no track for fitness work so we had to hack for about 20mins to this random sand road (yes an actual road with cars and things).

Whilst in Holland I had a couple of days off and venture up to visit Mel! I had detailed instructions of which busses and trains to take and much to my surprise I managed to not get lost! That must be a first for me! I did have one slight drama with my train ticket however, I had it in my pocket and when the ticket guy came around do you think I could find the damn thing! Was a bit of a stress as I searched through all my pockets and emptied my bag onto the seat – nowhere to be found! After about 10min (during which time I'm getting very odd stares and trying to explain in Dutch that I actually did buy a ticket) the guy beside me found it under the seat and had to climb on his hands and knees and ferret right under the seat to dig it out. Highly embarrassing! Was awesome to catch up with Mel. Had a great gossipy time just like the old days and had a way too successful shopping trip in the beautiful Deventer.

From there it was back down to Aachen for the quarantine. Quarantine was lots and lots of fun. It was basically just one big party as there were heaps of people all with only one horse (except us as Susy took all of hers up!) and not much going on as there was no competition or anything. So everyone was bored out of their minds and being complete fools.

The Italian team delayed the naming of the team to the very last minute (2 days before they flew!) So it was all a bit stressy in the Italian camp. Luckily I don't speak Italian (ha not often I get to say that!) so was able to stay out of the most of it and declared my self and honorary Canadian!

So we had Ava at the quarantine and the other 4 at a yard that was 15min up the road and had the scooter to get between the two. On the second to last day I was going back in the afternoon to feed the others when a cop starts following me... OK sudden memory jog to remember all the road rules and am on my best behavior when he pulls me over... eek I was breaking so many laws for starters the number plate on it was from another bike, it hadn't been registered since 1997, I had my riding helmet on not a motorbike one, didn't have my license or passport with me, and the guy reckoned I was doing 80km in a 50km. Yikes! It ended up he followed me back to the yard where so I could show him my license (highly embarrassing arriving with cops behind me!) and after he added everything up he decided that it would be too expensive and let me go after I promised to not ride it again! Whew!

This is a photo of everyone with their spacesuits on just before they left for the airport.

Me Amelia, you Tarzan

Well I finally made it to Toulouse to see my cousin and what a mission that was only took 14hours of traveling, luckily I had a sleeping train (which was interesting... I swear the guy opposite me was about to drop dead! His lungs must have been so full of fluid he was making more noise that the train, and then he would stop breathing for like a minute before coughing and spluttering and choking everyone awake... bergh!! Even the memory makes me feel like spewing)

So their new house was cool... empty but cool. Spent a bit of time furniture shopping and then furniture building and by the time I left it wasn't so empty :-)

We went to this crazy ropes course thingy. Ariki and Tamati were like little monkeys swinging all over the place while the rest of us were tentatively negotiating our way around. Half way round I got brave and decided that if everyone else can flying fox upside down then I damn well could too. Well that ended up with me getting my hair caught in the slidey thing, missing the rope to pull myself onto the platform and sliding back to the middle of nowhere... apparently my assumption was wrong.

Elroy and I stupidly decided to go the extra for experts route (see photo) , oh the PAIN! It looks easy but I tell ya there is no comfortable way of doing that!

Pretty People

A few photos from Susys wedding. Was an awesome night (even had a few English speakers venture down for it).

Une Baguette s'il vous plaît

Well it wouldn't be an Amelia trip to the airport without some sort of drama. It seemed like a good idea to get a late night flight so I could work that day and leave in the evening, I had it all arranged for Mauri to give me a ride to the train station at 5 so I was all ready and waiting watching the clock tick by twiddling my thumbs getting increasingly nervous. He finally shows up at 5.40 (last train leaves at 5.50) and off we bolt breaking all sorts of speed limits. As we arrive at the station I can see the train at the platform so off I run out of the still moving car sprinting through the tunnel and dive into the train just as the doors close behind me - I think I must have been a stunt woman in a former life. At this point I thought it was a good idea to actually find out whether this was the right train or not (there wasn't a whole lot of time for confirmation before hand) turns out that although the train was going to Milan it wasn't going to the central station where the airport shuttles leave from... Can't have everything I guess. So by the time I got off the train and caught the metro I was again very late and had to do another desperate sprint waving the arms please don't leave before I get there highly embarrassing maneuver. So the shuttle arrived at the airport 10min before the plane was scheduled to take off. I was jumping the ques for the xray etc and was the last one to board the flight doing the walk of shame down the plane aisle avoiding everyones glares and 2min later we were racing down the runway

When I got off the shuttle in Paris I was greeted by Shona and Jude with berets, how cool we must have looked wandering the streets in the middle of the night with our funky hats! We then headed back to their apartment (I met the famous Maurice!). After winding our way through the multitude of hair braiding shops and dodgys cooking and selling popcorn from shopping trolleys on the street (mmm food poisoning) we get to the apartment building, climb six million steps, open the front door and are greeted by a hallway full of junk a trend that was continued through the rest of the apartment. Hey, it was cheap.

So off we went early in the morning to see the sights. First up was Notre Dame, up up up the spiral staircases and up some more. I almost passed out from exhaustion / dizziness more than once but didn't fancy having to climb again when I woke up in a heap at the bottom so managed to control myself. Saw lots of awesome gargoyles and had a photo with Emanuele and back down the staircase which strangely went in the opposite direction.

Next was the Louvre. We spent a few hours walking around (would have to stay for a week to see everything) we got a bit hungry a little way into it so despite the no eating or drinking signs posted around the place we thought we might stop for a small snack on the baguette we had. After finding a quiet corner we sat down and started chomping away when we looked up and spyed the surveillance camera pointed straight at us... opps. We now had the energy we needed to fight the crowds for a glimpse at the Mona Lisa, and a glimpse it was we fought our way through to the front but still we were miles away.

The Eiffel tower was pretty cool. We spent hours waiting in the que despite the fact that the sign said the top level was closed (what is the point if you're not going all the way to the top?!?) Anyway just as we were about to buy our tickets it opened to much excitement. We went up in the evening and stayed up until after sunset and saw all the pretty lights and the towers impersonation of a Christmas tree and learned that Auckland and Wellington are in different directions, I didn't think New Zealand was that big but what would I know...

Badminton

Wow wow wow wow!!! I was at Badminton!!! So so many people, they were saying it was record numbers, you could hardly move through the crowds it was crazy. And the shopping was something else you could buy anything you wanted even not horse related (except the one thing I needed which was a spanner! I spent hours looking for one but alas no I was forced to borrow one to do my studs for the whole weekend) Every time I went into the trade stands I seemed to get lost – not fun when I have to get back to Ava in a hurry! Although they had a golf buggy shuttle service from the stables to the main arena which was very handy and saved a lot of time and walking.

We took Ava the Raver in the end who was such a little star. She jumped so awesomely but unfortunately had a couple of XC refusals.

The huge badminton conspiracy that nobody tells you until you try to wash your horse... theres no wash box or hose or anything! What is up with that?!? And the other crazy thing, steps to the muck heap?!? Its not like everyone brings wheelbarrows or anything. But seriously wouldn't it be easier to built a temporary ramp than temporary steps?! Sometimes I wonder...

I caught up with Hannah when I wasn't frantically running about the place which was awesome hadn't seen her for over a year so was neat to catch up on the goss.

Driving home was terrible! We left at 8 on Sunday afternoon to catch the 12.15 ferry which all went fine until we got to Dijon at about 10 the next morning, we were so lost and drove round and round for almost 2hrs poor Ava (and me!) before we finally managed to find the stables we were staying at. Deja vu the next day when we were very lost on the other side of Milan trying to get home! Oh I miss Susys driving!

Home Advantage

The event at home was last weekend and very successful it was indeed. We had all three horses entered Ava and Tucker in the 3* and Caro in the 2*. Both Ava and Caro won their classes and Tucker... well lets just pretend that he wasn't there. And to continue the winning streak Laura and I won the grooms prize for both the 2* and the 3* so smiles all round.
Was crazy having an event at home, it really makes you realise how much work goes into putting everything on. Has brilliant benefits of your own shower and bed!

Fun in the Sun

Wow crazy crazy couple of months. Id been back from NZ for only a couple of minutes when Susy tells me I'm going Spain for four weeks leaving in 5 days time!! So I pack every item of clothing I own and drive to Lyon to meet up with 9 Brits and their 10 horses (it was quite a convoy we had with 3 trucks and 1 trailer) for the 3 day drive right to the bottom of Spain. Luckily all of us 3 grooms got on like a house on fire (would have made the 4 weeks spending every moment together interesting if we didn't) so we had the best time ever.

It was such a massive event. There were about 1500 Show Jumpers (who were there for 6 weeks!) and 500 dressage horses so tons and tons of people everywhere. They even had a supermarket and a laundromat on the grounds all of which were at the Show Jumping which was a huge trek up a hill because of course they're much more important than us dressagies. We did however have the Café de Kurupay (a.k.a. crappy cafe) where we ate breakfast lunch and dinner nearly everyday - lucky us!

The day we arrived it was pouring with rain which made unloading 11 horses worth of feed and gear rather exciting especially since because the parking is so tight you have to unload on the drive past the stables which meant were holding up trucks behind us. Add into that stressy riders expecting everything done 10 seconds ago and you have a rather tense group (very thankful I work for Susy at this point!) So after trudging 130 bags of feed down to the tackroom Dane decides its too crowded in there and we have to keep it all in the trucks and just bring up what we need when we need it (again thanking the gods that I spend most of the year working for Susy! Karma when Dane fell off a couple of days later however) By this time the trucks had been parked so we had to wheelbarrow it down a VERY steep hill (very steep hill + large wheelbarrow full with heavy feed + tired grooms = wheelbarrow careering down hill out of control and 3 thankful people that Dane wasn't around... ) Also not fun lugging the bags up the hill in the morning because we forgot to take the wheelbarrow down the night before.

Susy did 4 tests (3 days driving and 4 weeks away for 4 tests - its a very different world!) she went straight into the Big Tour (quite brave considering shes never done pure dressage before) first test was Inter II where she got 3rd and then 3 Grand Prix tests which went OK.

Because there were so many people it was the best party event. Every Monday was a rest day so Sunday nights were especially awesome again of course everything was up at the Show Jumping but once you made the mammoth effort to get up there it was all good. At least it was downhill to carry all the drunken people back! For some crazy reason one of our riders brought a strobe light (its not like we were tight on space or anything... ) but anyway we had it going on our yard a couple of times which was pretty crazy. Strobe light and the dirty dancing CD - oh the memories

We managed to make it out of the showgrounds to the beach! It was really awesome cause you could see Africa in the distance! We even got brave and went swimming. I was cracking up cause everyone was saying about how big the waves were... um yea... no Our riders rented a house about 10min away in Vejer it was the most amazing labyrinth of white washed houses and winding cobbled streets right up on top of a hill (crazy crazy roads to get there) so once you've made it through the front door you're in this court yard type thing on the left there's a well and in front there's this massive tree that goes up to an open roof (how it works I don't know I'm just as confused as you are) and anyway there's like 10 rooms all dotted around over 3 floors and the bathrooms are like playing a game of hide and seek. Weird. the car would barely fit between the buildings and it was so steep I though we would roll over backwards! Add that to Michelles driving - clearly hasn't driven a manual in a while and you get a pretty exhilarating ride). The house was something else, the front door was so low that even I banged my head on it (twice on the way in and on the way out not that I'm admitting to it though, I did end up with a massive egg on my forehead however

We decided on night that we would all go out for dinner in Vejer. So off we all go following Susy to a nice place she was told about "up some stairs and its just on the left" - the city is on a hill how many staircases do you think there are! Its a really crazy place - kinda like one of those mirror houses you think you've just walked in a circle and your in a completely different place so after 1.5hrs of walking round and round we find ourselves back where we started much to my surprise, we came from the other direction and I felt like I was upside down or something! Eventually we found a pizza place but Lady Pauline didn't like the look of it so off we went again... we did eventually eat that night. On the way home Katy was thrown into a fountain very very funny it sparked revenge for the whole rest of the competition the best of which was convincing James to put makeup on for this photo thing that he had to have taken (I mean how gullible do you have to be!)

I'm now having a much needed restful Easter in Belgium. Its snowing!!! Bit of a shock going from NZ heatwave to Sunshine Tour in Spain to here!