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!