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 Deve
nter.
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 roa
d 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.
