Sport Endurance, Clumber Park

Hi there, I hope you're having the fabulous weather that we're having, although the forecast says rain for a lot of areas apart from us (we are more or less in the middle of England). I just wanted to say what a fabulous time I had on Saturday. I saw the ride round Clumber Park advertised on the Sport Endurance website. It's my first ride without Mr O, as he had a competition on Sunday (more about that tomorrow). I signed up for ten miles, but when they measured the distance out, it turned out to be twelve miles, still well within Barnaby's capability. Then in the middle of the week, my friend Sam emailed me to ask if I was doing it, as she'd like to take her new young mare, so we arranged to do it together. I got Barnaby out of the field in the morning, gave him a groom and put all his travel gear on. We loaded him in the lorry and began the journey to Worksop. To my surprise we got there quite quickly and were an hour early. Fortunately Barnaby was unusually well behaved, considering he didn't have Zak with him. He seemed quite happy to tuck into the rather nice grass, while we waited for Sam. We couldn't start until 10.30am anyway, as all the actual competitors were setting off first, followed by the pleasure riders. Sam had struggled to load her horse Millie, but arrived about 10.45. Her horse was whinnying her head off in the trailer. I had tacked Barnaby up by then so rode off to meet this new mare. She was quite a sweetie, a coloured horse, but not a cob I don't think. She wasn't quite as big as Barnaby, and soon started batting her eyelashes at him. He just kept staring at her, not sure what to think. I had decided to ride Barnaby in a double bridle (a good move as it turned out) but forgot a breastplate again, so had to tie the map to a D ring on the front of the saddle. My drink cannister was attached to the left hand side too. I coated him in suncream and fly spray, and we set off at 10.58am. Clumber Park is several thousand acres of stunning parkland. It belongs to the National Trust. It's very popular with walkers and people love to bring barbeques and picnics, especially on such a superb day as this turned out to be. We rode along tracks through woodland, but also wide tracks overhung with trees, which was good as we had some shade. And Barnaby went like the clappers. I was trying to hold him back as this was Millie's first time out with another horse, and Sam wasn't sure how fit she'd be, but Barnaby was determined to catch up with every horse ahead of him. In the end I gave up trying to fight him and we gradually overtook other riders. He had an unbelievable turn of speed, even in trot, he hardly needed to canter. The ground was so flat he just flew along, it was like being out hunting. There was a log near the end and I was seriously tempted to jump it, but I wasn't sure about Sam and there were loads of people having a picnic there. It seemed a shame to go carting through them! The thing is, I really wanted to aim for a good speed, but couldn't really, and we did it in 2 hours 39 minutes, which I think is quite slow. If you're going to be any good at it, you'd have to trot most of the way and hardly ever walk. They probably don't stop and drink either, there's probably some way of drinking as you go along. You'd have to be prepared to trot down hill sometimes too, which I'm not very keen on. The direction markers were really easy to follow, but I did like looking at the map, and knowing when each checkpoint was imminent. The only bad bit was that my whip kept getting caught up in the string of the map case, so I might not take a whip next time, it was very off-putting. We had to ride through a really big ford, but luckily the water was shallow. Barnaby has actually been here before and went straight in without hesitation. To give her her due, Millie went in too, and she's never seen water like that before. It's obviously Monday now and I'm only just coming down from the adrenaline. It was like a cross country course that went on for ever! Although it was mega fast, I really, really enjoyed it. So the plan is, when they do the Novice Challenge at Sherwood Pines, I am going to have a go at doing it as a competitor. Barnaby had Sunday off, and I've ridden him today. He was fairly stiff and content to walk most of the way round, which shows he's overdone it slightly, but if he won't listen to me and slow down, that's his problem, silly Hoof. I love him, I'm totally proud of him, and I can't wait to do it again...

So Much To Do, So Little Time

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, I've never been so busy. It's all about prioritizing, isn't it? The fact is I love to ride, so by the time I've mucked out, taking Barnaby out somewhere is my first priority, which can also be quite tiring, as you can imagine. So the way I spend the rest of my time is very important to me. I've realised how important card making has become to me, I absolutely love it. I do love blogging too, but I've realised I'm spending far too much time on facebook again. I do love Farmville (do you play it?) but it's so slow, especially if you play in the evenings, which makes it very time consuming. I've decided to put that on the back burner for a while. It takes over your life if you're not careful, doesn't it? We did a fantastic fourteen mile pleasure ride round Rother Valley Country Park last Saturday. It was absolutely superb. We did a ten mile circuit and arrived back at the lorry park so the horses thought we'd finished. I nearly called it a day there, but I'm so glad I carried on as it was nearly all galloping after that. I thought Barnaby might be tired but he easily kept up with Zak. It was a fabulous place, the sun was shining and both horses were in a very good mood. It was my birthday on Monday (14th) so we went to my favourite craft shop, Dolly Cottage Crafts (what a sweet name!) and bought the item I've been waiting and waiting for - a heat embossing gun. I've been playing with it ever since. I also got some flock and some adhesive paper. Let me show you what I've been doing:

I've made several cards for Mother's Day which I've taken to the shop, and this is one of them. The thing is, the scalloped pink border is made using flock, so it's got that lovely soft texture. I stamped the image of the little girl and coloured it as usual, and then stamped it again on adhesive paper. I cut out the section that is her pink top and stuck it down on the stamped image. It's double sided sticky paper, so I peeled the top off and rubbed in the flock. I am very pleased with it. I'd like a pale brown flock, then I could use it on some bears, which would look really cute I think.

What else? Oh yes, this one:

This is another stamp from Little Claire's Designs. I think they're all so sweet. These and Lili of the Valley are my favourites. This card was actually quite hard to make and should have had an acetate window but I couldn't get the ink to show up on it at all which is a bit frustrating. I'm pleased with the end result though.

So all is well here, but one of the other reasons I haven't been blogging is that I'm so deeply in shock over the events taking place in Japan. I'm sure we're all watching developments unfolding on our television screens in horror. I think it's hard to grasp the scale of the disaster. Some of the images of the tsunami make it look like a bit of treacle spreading out, it's so hard to believe the wave was over 20 feet high and moving at a rate of 10m per second. You just can't fathom it, can you? So my thoughts and prayers are for all those involved, and I'm sure yours are too.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Mrs O.