Friday Weather Watch

You can see those night-time temperatures starting to drop in Cereste.  Meanwhile, look at the roundy yellow thing on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday which is missing from the Cork forecast!

Despite the cloudy/rainy image for Friday in Cork, it's been quite a nice day here.

View from Dee's garden.

Anne and I loaded up the horses and went off for a more adventurous hack in the Boggeragh mountains with Dee and Ed and their horses Captain Jake Morgan and Wilson.

Dee and Captain Jake Morgan

It's brilliant riding country up there - we had to do about a mile on a very quiet road, then we went into a Coillte forestry plantation and did a circular ride on the forest trails.

Flurry whispering sweet nothings to GiGi!

We went through a lovely stream :

There's a video of this which I'll add later when Dee sends it to me.

It's great to know that we can load up GiGi and Flurry and that they'll travel well together, and then come out of the box calm and happy to work when we get to our destination.

Thank you GiGi & Flurry!  And Dee and Ed for inviting us - we'll be back for that picnic ride in a couple of weeks!

Typical Irish Hack (to be compared with Typical French Hack later)

Summer arrived for about six hours today, and Anne & I headed out for a quiet hack from home (mine, not hers, GiGi is staying with us for a while)

It had just started to cloud over when we set off, which made it very pleasant riding weather.  We did a short road hack :

And stopped to admire the view a few times :

The horses were so laid back with the warm weather they were almost horizontal - there were times when we thought Anne was going to have to get off GiGi & carry her!

Then we went into a couple of stubble fields, which woke both horses up no end!  We had a couple of canters, but Anne was complaining that the fields around my place are too small - she's probably right, it always seems like you have to pull up too soon.

We'll have to take a trip down to her place before all the stubble gets ploughed.

There's a real autumnal feel to everything now, all the trees and bushes are laden with fruit.  There's a great crop of blackberries, and I've spotted some damsons growing nearby - I can feel a jam-making session coming up!

We got back just as the rain was setting in for the evening - good timing or what! 

No hacking tomorrow, Regional Dressage Championships are on Sunday and poor Flurry is going to have a practice session tomorrow.  Hopefully he'll be a bit more lively than he was today, otherwise they'd better have a crash-cart ready for me when I finish riding on Sunday!

Step One of Taking-the-Horses-to-France (Martine)

Although Anne and I are really good friends and see each other several times a week, Flurry and GiGi had only ever met once, briefly.  It's really important that they know each other well, as they will be sharing a paddock in La Florentine, the horse farm where they will be staying.  Olivier, who owns the farm, is a well-seasoned horseman, and knows better than to add two temporary visitors to his herd!  So, this week, GiGi came to stay with Flurry and Paddy (who looks after my friend and co-conspirator for the last fifteen years, Denis).

All went well, and within a couple of days all three were totally settled.

Left to Right, Paddy, Flurry and GiGi enjoying the evening sunshine

Next step was to box Flurry and GiGi together.  I have to say, I think that every time a horse goes into a box, it underlines their utter trust in us.  It goes against every instinct a horse possesses to allow himself to be confined in a small, narrow space, with no escape route, and then be rattled and bumped around our winding country roads, yet the vast majority of horses willingly walk up those shaky ramps and into the blind alley that is a horsebox.  We're lucky in that Flurry and GiGi are pretty easy to load, but GiGi had some sort of a panic attack in my trailer last year so we weren't too sure how she would be.  Also, it's ages - well over a year - since either of them travelled with another horse, so we were a little concerned that either one of them could feel extra claustrophobic.
We needn't have worried, they loaded really easily and although GiGi stamped around a bit, they both arrived at the other end of the journey (Anne's house) cool & unflustered.  We had a lovely hack, including a gentle canter through a stubble field, loaded them up again and brought them home.
Step one complete!  Horses are buddies & will travel happy together!

Quite content in the horsebox