An Arrival and a Departure

The horses have arrived safely at La Florentine in Céreste!

Huge, huge thanks to Paddy, the driver from George Mullins Transport, and Nathalie from Chevaux Express, who were both incredibly understanding about the two neurotic ould wagons who needed regular updates throughout the horses' two and a half day journey!

They left Dover at about midnight on Saturday, and hit the road in Calais at about 3am.  The journey time was expertly gauged by Paddy, and Nathalie was waiting for him at Mâcon.  She let Anne know as soon as she had the horses loaded and we both heaved a sigh of relief - we had each been running through all the possible disaster scenarios that could have caused the handover to go wrong.

Here they are arriving at La Florentine.  Photos are courtesy of David Regan, who very kindly went out and photographed their arrival for us.

Hello! Or should that be Bonjour?

GiGi looks on...

...while Flurry is unloaded

Then GiGi follows

Nice n steady...

Tied up to get their rugs on

That's Shrek the dog in the background

Hey, what's this?  I don't think this is my rug!

I'm guessing that Fani decided that the thicker rug was for the horse with evidence of a clip - a reasonable assumption!  They quickly spotted their mistake when they tried to squeeze GiGi into Flurry's rug!

Meanwhile, throughout all this, Anne was packing, leaving and being contact point for both drivers.  Me?  Um, I was heading to Thomond Park for a Heineken cup match - Munster v Llanelli Scarlets (Munster won - woohoo!)  

Polly drove all the way to Rosslare so that Anne was available for phone calls if necessary, but as far as I know, her interpreting skills weren't required.  Fionn, the neurotic traveller, dozed happily all the way, thanks to little yellow tablets.  

The last report I received was that Fionn was installed in the kennels, the forecast was for calm seas, Anne was totally chilled and herself and Polly were heading for dinner in the restaurant.  The only bad news was that the on-board wifi was down, which is why I'm doing this post.  

Looking forward to hearing from her tomorrow!