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Shopping list ♥Jan. 26th, 2012 // 05:52 pm♥ [Tags | clothes, shopping, weddings ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/861834.html ] - buy new work trousers: got a couple of pairs, and a couple of pairs of non-work ones. Work-style trousers apparently pocket-free this season, bah. Forgot to buy new work shoes. - look for pirate-themed cufflinks: managed to find the little shop I remembered, and got photos of half a dozen pairs for later consideration. - buy a shirt that a) fits me and b) looks roughly like a men's shirt: went to all the shops on Jermyn Street, tried on the 'slim fit' shirts everywhere that offered them, sighed over gaping busts and flapping waists. Plaintively asked those places that do bespoke shirts if they'd make me one, got one place that (with some sucking of teeth) said they'd put darts in the waist of a men's shirt and charge me £200 for it. Sigh. (What I really need is a men's shirt made with Bravissimo styling, but all their shirts are too casual / girly this year and - from memory - every year.) I suspect I may have to just buy the best bust-fitting one I can and then get it taken in at the waist, but no idea how I go about finding someone to do that. - get a new fitting for the (incredibly practical and nailvarnish-friendly) Tiffany keyring that X and Y gave me as a present for helping out at their wedding: went into the store and spoke to the nice lady at customer service, who knew exactly what I needed and then got increasingly bemused as none of the variations she brought out fitted onto my keyring. Then she weighed the keyring, and inspected the Tiffany tag, and rather apologetically informed me that it was a fake. Given that X and Y are no longer together, this is somewhat ironic. Now I need to get myself a new keyring; not sure I want to spring £100+ish for a genuine copy of the one I had, though. I got half way home and realised that I probably should (on account of having just replaced all my bras with a Quite Different Size) have gone and bought a new bikini for upcoming holiday. Got home and tried the old ones on: indeed, the tankini and swimsuit are still ok, but the bikini's a bit dubious. Not terribly successful, then. Link Who loves you?

Wow, car stickers have got advanced... ♥Jan. 23rd, 2012 // 06:59 pm♥ [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/861369.html ] The other day, our National Trust sticker fell off the windscreen. I stuck it back up, but it was obviously trying to tell us something: today, the new one arrived. Link Who loves you?

Ponder, ponder. ♥Jan. 23rd, 2012 // 04:37 pm♥ [Tags | games, riding, work ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/860968.html ] ( Thinking aloud ) Conclusion is probably that I don't mind if it's Tuesday or Wednesday (except possibly in the whole not having to go two days in a row sense), that Girl will have to change her day, and that I will have to ditch Yogilates in favour of something I can get to after riding with less of a variable travel time. Hmm. Oh, in other news, I finished Tiny Tower. Those of you who've been playing may wish to know that there are currently 19 of each business type, meaning you can do it in 153 floors. Now I need a new casual game on my iPhone: any suggestions? Good things include quick loading, not requiring a data connection all the time, not being too money grabbing and not being too obsession-making. We Rule bad, Tiny Tower good. Pocket Frogs was good, too, and I'm almost considering wiping the file and reinstalling it to start it from scratch, unless anyone has a good suggestion? Link Who loves you?

Pony pictures! ♥Jan. 22nd, 2012 // 03:55 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding: side saddle ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/860546.html ] It wasn't entirely sunny today, but Mike took a few pictures with his phone of us with the new side saddle. GB is definitely more comfortable and forward with it, which is good, and I think I did ok.... (Photos would, of course, be better if it wasn't slightly dull, and if the pictures weren't of a dark horse carrying a dark-clothed rider, against mostly dark-green background, as with this user pic, for example!) ( Pictures! ) Link Who loves you?

Side saddle ♥Jan. 20th, 2012 // 04:59 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding: side saddle ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/860285.html ] Today, after months of trying to get hold of them, the Side Saddle Lady and her Daughter came to see me! (They also came to see my up-the-road instructor, who was having a lesson with Daughter. I snuck in and watched, chatting occasionally to SSL*, and was insanely reassured to find that Daughter was telling my instructor off for the same things that my instructor tells me off for!) * SSL's first words on being told by Daughter who I am were "Oh dear, you're bigger than I thought you'd be... I don't mean that rudely..." Oops. I did tell her my height and weight.... After they'd finished up the road, they came down to the yard and I took GB over to meet them, much to his bemusement ('why do I have a bridle but no rug or saddle...?') and suspicion (on account of how I was carrying the side saddle). When they had a look at clanwilliam's saddle on him, they pronounced it to be too tight over the withers, which I'd suspected and which explains why GB wasn't keen. We moved onto the ones that they'd brought with them, and after discarding the ones that had the same problem, or were just too wide, or were apparently so uncomfortable that they caused GB to take a chunk out of my arm, found a couple of possibles in the half a dozen they'd crammed into their car. We had a go with the better of the two, and everything seemed good: I found the fixed head more comfortable than on the one I'd been using and it was much easier to sit to the trot, which I think means that GB preferred it too (with the other one, he's tended to be very fast and therefore bouncy, but he was taking it in much more of his usual slow way with this saddle: hopefully, this means that he was uncomfortable but now is ok again). I even got a few tips from Daughter about my position, which I really must try to remember! After I got off, we had another quick look at the other possible, but SSL firmly declared that the one we'd tried was the best bet. So, I've signed an agreement, and I have a new side saddle to try out (another Owen, as it happens, but an older one) for six months! All I need to do is a bit of shopping: need a longer girth, and a new numnah, and... well, I suppose really I'd better have a riding habit, hadn't I...? (Some day soon, when it is both sunny and a weekend, I will get Mike to take pictures!) Link Who loves you?

More rib stuff ♥Jan. 20th, 2012 // 10:00 am♥ [Tags | ow ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/860134.html ] Been to the GP. As expected, not much to be done for it: he thinks I probably sproinged the cartilage, rather than cracking a bone (no bruising or swelling), but had a listen and a feel and says that it all seems ok, I probably just did something to pull it a bit. Just got to live with it. Sigh. (Still, inevitably as I was off to the GP today, last night and this morning it was a bit better than it had been... hurts now, though, from the poking.) Link Who loves you?

Death list list ♥Jan. 18th, 2012 // 05:11 pm♥ [Tags | lj death list ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/859676.html ] Ok, still ok for people to jump in if they like, but as of now I have lists from: flickgc drplokta rose_gialle cuboid_ursinoid dougs the_maenad hano nwhyte ang_grrr were_gopher darth_tigger nils And who's on the lists...?( Read more... ) Link Who loves you?

Small world ♥Jan. 18th, 2012 // 03:22 pm♥ [Tags | ow, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/859596.html ] Chatting to one of the other riders after our lesson this morning* who, when I said the word "Mudchute" said "I *thought* your horse looked familiar!" Turns out that she and her daughter used to ride there about eight years ago, and GB was daughter's first jumping horse (as with so many other people!). I said they can have a go for old time's sake, if they like! * Which went really well. Very pleased with it: my position was apparently much better (okay, okay, maybe her crazy obsession with forever shortening my stirrups has something going for it!), which meant that we had a lovely trot going on, and I think I've finally managed to understand the instructions I'm now been given for what my hands should be doing when we're going around on a circle: needless to say, these are completely different from the ones I've been given in the past. In less cheery news, my rib is bothering me. I'm going to go to the GP on Friday and see what they say: the hospital told me six weeks, and it's been more like eight. In general, it doesn't bother me at all (I can occasionally feel it if I stretch or sneeze, but, eg, right now there's nothing to indicate it's dodgy and there also wasn't when I was driving, grooming GB, riding him, carrying his saddle around, washing my hair, and so on), but it's started to be really painful at night. It was always worse at night, but the last week or so, at a guess, it's been getting more and more painful when I first wake up and roll over, and when I first go to bed (possibly also in between, but I'm asleep then so I don't really care! It's not waking me up, which it did the first week or so), and the pain's much more of a stabbity-ow pain than the achey-must-move-slowly one that it was before. Last night, I went to roll over and got stuck: if I stayed perfectly still, it was absolutely fine, but if I tried to move in any way, in either direction, it was agonising. This was not terribly amusing (except in the sense that it was actually quite funny), so yes, I think I'll go and see the doc. Mike did offer to give me a push, which previously had helped when it was sore (because he was pushing me, I wasn't using any muscles to roll over so it didn't hurt), but it still hurt when he tried that. I eventually managed to roll over onto my front with only minimum whimpering, and then onto my other side. Similarly, pressing my hand over it, which also used to support it enough to stop it hurting, doesn't work any more, which is how I got stuck last night: I managed to get my hand into place, thinking it would be enough to let me roll over, but then couldn't roll over or get my hand out.... Ok, this is actually quite amusing. Now. [g] (Standard treatment for ribs is painkillers. Sadly, it's difficult to time pain killers so that they'll kick in shortly before you wake up in the morning. I may try taking them half an hour before bed, though, and see if that helps.) Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

Now what? ♥Jan. 17th, 2012 // 12:29 pm♥ [Tags | jobs, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/859162.html ] I'm just registering GB for the vee-eee-tee, as he's due a 'flu jab next month. One of the questions is: Is your horse vaccinated for... - tetanus only - tetanus and flu - none of the above As far as I can tell, he's been done for 'flu but not for tetanus. I suppose that that means I have to choose 'none of the above' and then confuse things thoroughly by putting the date of his last 'flu jab in answer to the next question ("Date last vaccinated"). Also, there is apparently some sort of post-Christmas rush on. Another pimp on the phone today, three times so far, I'm going out after Yogilates on Thursday afternoon for another interview; I'm already not keen, on account of TfL says 50 minutes and I need to change from tube to train at Waterloo: eww. Link Who loves you?

Weaving! ♥Jan. 16th, 2012 // 04:12 pm♥ [Tags | holiday, riding:holiday, weaving ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/859035.html ] Over the last six months or so, I've been weaving green-ish-brown-ish-blu-ish squares and triangles, some with a pattern and some plain. Over the last week or so, I've been sewing them together.... I was very vaguely following this pattern, although I went for neither triangle nor rectangle nor v-shaped, instead making an isosceles trapezium. I observe on looking at it now for the first time in ages that the pattern calls for a crocheted trim around the edge. Hmm. I've never tried crotchet, and I'm not sure if I want to start. We shall see. Anyway: not terribly interesting pictures ( here ) I'm very pleased that it's finished in time for Holiday*, because I suspect it will get nippy in the desert at night and I'll want a nice little light wrap. I'm also pleased because now that that's finished I can try out the knitting loom I bought a few months ago! (In more embarrassing news, I just had a phone call from a pimp I didn't know about a job that I have neither memory nor record of having applied for and that, when she told me about it, not only doesn't sound very interesting but also doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd have applied for unless the advert was shockingly poorly written. I went "Mmm hmm?" a lot.) * No, I don't think you did know about that, which is very remiss of us. World events permitting, we're off to Ras Al Khaimah for a week next month. We're going to get some sun and some warm, and we're going to ride ponies in the desert and try falconry and look at nature and stuff like that. We might even leave the resort, if we're feeling particularly dynamic: apparently, they have some good History there. Link Who loves you?

Brrr! ♥Jan. 16th, 2012 // 02:47 pm♥ [Tags | jobs, riding, riding: side saddle, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/858715.html ] The canal froze last night, and indeed is still frozen now: only the second time it's frozen over this winter. On the drive out of town, I kept seeing ominous patches of frost here and there by the roads, and indeed when I got to Bexley it looked like something from a Christmas card. I was going to take a photo of the spectacular covering of ice crystals on a drink can that had evidently been left out overnight, but then I realised that I'd left my phone at home: oops! One advantage of the cold is that the mud has all frozen: it took me about five minutes to groom GB, other than doing his tail, which was a nice reminder of How Things Used To Be! After that, much to his expected annoyance, I stuck the side saddle on him and did twenty minutes (v impressed with myself: I've been doing about fifteen, and needing to stop and swing my leg onto the other side of the saddle for a rest half way through!), which actually included some slightly more interesting things than just bouncing around in a circle. Then I swapped the saddles over and joined in the lesson that was about to start: more interesting than previously, and I suspect that I will end up doing it with the side saddle, once the side saddle lady has been later this week to see what can be done about improving the fit. By the time I was finished, even allowing for the fact that I'd been riding for an hour and a half, it was actually quite warm, as long as you stayed in the sun; still bitterly cold in the shade, though. I did have my silly hat on, though, so maybe not all *that* warm. Now I suppose I'd better call back the pimp who set me up with an interview last Friday, and see what he wants: he called while I was out, and did I mention I'd forgotten my phone...? PS: any more for the deathlist, before I do a list of the nominees? I'm missing a few of the Usual Suspects, and though I should check! Link Who loves you?

Oopsie. ♥Jan. 15th, 2012 // 01:27 pm♥ [Tags | driving, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/858421.html ] I don't know why, but I quite often have trouble getting the car out of the garage when Mike's put it in there: presumably, he puts it in a slightly different position to the one I'm used to. Today, I got more stuck than usual, and, um, scraped the paint on the side. Oops. On the plus side, I did get a lovely ride out of it: I went out early, in the hope of getting the school to myself before the kids started jumping, and it worked. Seriously frosty out there in the countryside, which was nice because it made it less muddy, and I was slightly worried about the school being solid but, once the Nice Chap had been out with the quad bike and harrow, it was really nice to work on. GB was being a very good lad, too, so we had a nice schooling session followed by (when the kids finished warming up and started putting the jumps up) a wander up towards the woods, behind some other horses, in which we just went far enough for GB to start going "don't wanna!" and then came back, in the hope that he'll realise that going up the lane isn't always going to lead to nasty muddiness. (I did think about going into the woods, on the assumption that it was cold enough to not be muddy, but I decided not to risk it being absolutely frozen solid!) Nasty drive home, took me an hour, most of which was right by home due to a road being closed: unfortunately, there's no other practical way onto the peninsular, although I did see some people taking an entertaining short-cut through the McDonalds and Lidl carparks to cut off a corner of queues! Link Who loves you?

We did get a bit of sun today... ♥Jan. 9th, 2012 // 04:12 pm♥ [Tags | riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/858276.html ] ... it was only rather watery! (Posted mostly for frostfox: you can see the length of his mane from the sudden drop in length when his rug flattens his mohican!) Link Who loves you?

Rats! ♥Jan. 8th, 2012 // 04:18 pm♥ [Tags | flat, riding, riding: side saddle, riding:angelo, shopping ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/857931.html ] Our oven seems to be broken. It says "F05", with occasional intervals of "F08". Which is Fun, and Exciting. So we went to the yard instead, where I put the side saddle on poor, abused, starved GB and then had a nice little ride on him, including a couple of canters, which I'd not don before: much more comfortable than trotting, I can see why a lot of women used to just not bother with trot! (I was going to get Mike to take some pictures, but when I suggested he bring his camera out, he pointed out that the light wasn't very good, so we didn't bother.) After that, I swapped back to the regular saddle and we had some more canters, in which he was so full of beans that he he even through in what were him were a couple of quite big bucks: I think he hasn't get twigged that he can get all the fun of cantering around when he's in the field, without a rider, so he misses it when I don't let him have a nice run. After that, Mike jumped on him for a bit, and managed a few bits of canter too (one of them not entirely at Mike's request!), and then we put the pony away and pulled everything out of his cupboard, on account of how the woman in the next stable said "Oh, your loan found a rat in there yesterday...." This, of course, explains why the terrier that is one of the many dogs that lives on the yard keeps trying to get into my cupboard.... (Rats are, of course, fairly normal around horses. They generally prefer to be where the food is, but one obviously decided that the cupboard had enough chance of food, possibly from the smell of GB's treats in their slightly-horse-chewed box.) So, cupboard contents removed, and then bits of bedding, occasional food dropped by GB when he's been in the cupboard and a small and thankfully empty rodent nest made from straw and bits of carrier bag swept out and thrown in the bin. On the way home, we stopped off and bought two really big Really Useful boxes for rugs (I'm worried about them being seen as a source of nice warm bedding and getting chewed up) as well as a new one for food. And I suppose I shall have to tell the loan girl to not leave carrots out on the cupboard shelf, too. Sigh. I'm not sure if it's worth trying to close up the hole at the bottom of the cupboard that Ratty is presumably moving in and out through: hopefully, cleaning it out and getting rid of accessible food will be enough. I don't particularly want to reach in and find a small nest of wriggling babies and a defensive mother one day. Link Who loves you?

Death list reminder ♥Jan. 6th, 2012 // 05:35 pm♥ [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/857835.html ] To do this weekend: let me have death lists! Today was a bit of a write off. Not even the combination of bright sunshine and mud-free pony could lever me off the sofa. Sigh. Link Who loves you?

Some Things ♥Jan. 5th, 2012 // 11:12 pm♥ [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/857354.html ] Today, I Ran Errands. Like a Real Grown-Up Person. In A Car. Admittedly, one of them was foiled by the dry cleaners only being open in the morning this month, but I did ok at two of the three not-at-home parking options*. I also did Yogalates, which I'm still not sure what it is (possibly on account of not ever having done piates). It seemed pretty yoga-ish to me, and I'm not sure it's worth doing for more than a few weeks: once I can keep my heels on the floor when the woman says so, is there a reason to do it? OTOH, woman was all "you do a lot of yoga, then" at me, which was pleasing, and seems fairly competent. Oh, and lives in Bexley, so it may be that if I give up and go to the Bexley Pilates place then I'd get her anyway.... * One of them had two parking spaces end-on-end, so I just drove through one and into the other. The other two, I had to just drive into. It took me a few goes. I got out of them ok, though! That's got to count for something, right? Link Who loves you?

Emailing the Ians ♥Jan. 5th, 2012 // 10:42 pm♥ [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/857293.html ] Just tried small-Ian's cix address and got a bounce: it was working only a few months ago! (Attempts to find large-Ian's email address dissolved into a horrible mass of 'contact us' forms, which gave me teh f34r.) Could anyone give me an address for one/other/both? Comments screened. Edit: Sorted! Ta! For reasons of personal paranoia, if this post appears on FaceBook I did not make it. I don't have a FaceBook account, and won't see whatever anyone posts there whatever the screening is. Link Who loves you?

Bad websites... ♥Jan. 3rd, 2012 // 01:06 pm♥ [Tags | pilates ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/856863.html ] So, in the spirit of Getting On With It, I've signed up to do online booking at the nicer-sounding local leisure centre. First, I was presented with: Yes, only *men* can have the rank of Captain! Then I got to the bit of the form that looked as though it was going to do a postcode lookup but didn't, and then I got terribly confused about why I would be entering my mobile number via a dropdown box labelled "select site".... Then, oh joy, they sent me an email to confirm that I have signed up. My username, I am solemnly informed, is 110085[XX]. They have provided me with a temporary PIN to use with it, but recommend that I change it to something more memorable when I have logged in. (Hmm... "Yogilates". That sounds good for me. I wonder why it doesn't appear in the "Yoga and Pilates" section of the booking site...? Link Who loves you?

Pilates ♥Jan. 3rd, 2012 // 12:08 pm♥ [Tags | pilates ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/856750.html ] So, I've been vaguely thinking for a while that I should either re-start yoga or I should start doing pilates, on account of it will help with the riding and so on. (I did briefly re-start yoga on the Wii Fit, but then I had my little accident, and the astonishingly procrastinatory way that I've been putting off re-re-starting ("Ooh, my ribs a little bit sore today..." "Oh, but I'm riding later...") suggests that it probably won't be terribly successful.) I had a look online at pilates, and discovered something very peculiar: apparently, the most popular, nay, often *only*, time for mid-week, non-evening, not-before-work classes in this area is... during my weekly riding lesson on a Wednesday morning. Sigh. I'd really like to find something on a Thursday (as that's a day I know I can't ride, due to the loan, so I know I'm not going to say "sod it" and go to Bexley for a ride if it's a nice day), some time between 11am and 3pm. The only place I've been able to find is... in Bexley. Sigh. I shall keep looking. Below the cut, tedious notes for my own reference. I would say "Back to yoga, then", but I didn't really see anywhere that looked that good for that, either. (I should note that it is true that our local leisure centre offers both yoga and pilates classes. I'm pretty sure that they're shite. I may give them a try, although I note that the pilates class is at - haha - 11am on Wednesday. There is something called "Power Pilates" on a Thursday, but I have no idea what that means. They also have Hatha yoga on Tuesdays. It's £10 a session unless I pay £8 a week for a membership £8 a week if I pay £60 a year for a discount card.) ( A List ) Edit: Mike points out that we have *two* local leisure centres: I didn't realise that the Docks watersports centre did anything other than, well, messing about on the docks. It has a much more appealing range of classes at much better time, although I still have my doubts about the quality. They do Tai Chi, too! And More Than One Kind Of Yoga! This reflects the differing social mix between the two halves of the area, I suspect. Link Who loves you?

Shopping ♥Jan. 2nd, 2012 // 02:25 pm♥ [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/856446.html ] "So, if Mike is going to stay on the sofa all day, that raises the question of what we're going to have for dinner. There's soup in the freezer..." "Or we could have a take-away." "Indeed." "There is a third option..." "Oh, is there still stew in the freezer?" "Less likely than that..." "... we could go out for dinner?" "So unlikely that you're never going to think of it..." "..." "Flick could go to the supermarket!" [glares] Link Who loves you?

Death lists! ♥Jan. 2nd, 2012 // 09:36 am♥ [Tags | lj death list ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/856138.html ] You talked me into it, but doing a poll is too much of a pain to enter the names. Comments screened: you know the drill, ten names each, they have to be listed on either the BBC or CNN website when they go, number of points inversely proportional to the number of people who have them. Go! Link Who loves you?

Death lists ♥Jan. 1st, 2012 // 01:25 pm♥ [Tags | lj death list ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/855863.html ] Not terribly surprisingly, the winner is johnnyeponymous. Final scores, unless someone thinks I missed a death but has waited until now to mention it: 36 points: johnnyeponymous Edit: 27 points: the_maenad 24 points: flickgc, evil_mogwai 18 points: drplokta, ajshepherd 9 points: hairyears, the_maenad 6 points: darth_hamster 4.5 points: rose_gialle, cuboid_ursinoid, darth_tigger, purplecthulhu Nul points: bohemiancoast, kim_huett, dougs, ang_grrr, nils Do we want to play again? I'm unsure if it's worth it, but if people want.... Edit: Gosh, that was an exciting last-minute change: Ronald Searle moved the_maenad a fair few places up the rankings! Link Who loves you?

Books: ♥Jan. 1st, 2012 // 01:18 pm♥ [Tags | books ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/855706.html ] ( December books ) In 2011, I read 191 books, of which 84 were re-reads. My most-read authors were James White (11), Kage Baker (11) and Jim Butcher (14). Link Who loves you?

Better now... ♥Dec. 28th, 2011 // 04:03 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/855313.html ] Well, other than a bit of a cold that's making me ache and be too-quickly tired when riding. (Speaking of riding: conversation with instructor today in which she -- obviously instantly ready to laugh and make a joke of it if I reacted wrongly -- suggested that I try riding in a corset, especially for the side saddle. I don't think she was expecting me to say "Hmmm... I'll have to think about which one would be best, it would need to be an underbust and some of them are going to be too long...." I shall report back. I was thinking I'd break the side saddle out for a bit yesterday, but then I got dressed and felt too knackered and aching to want to get back up off the sofa. Friday, maybe.) (Also speaking of riding, I'm coming to to conclusion that GB not only doesn't like mud but also, once it's of a certain level of suckiness, actively finds it painful to walk in. I took him out to the woods last Saturday, with another horse, and he was still very unhappy even when I gave up after fifteen minutes and headed for home: there were occasional places where the ground is level and clear by the side of the path, and then he happily bounded along, but as soon as he had to go back into the mud he was picking his way as though he was walking on eggshells. I think that I'm going to abandon the woods until either it gets drier or we have a couple of nice hard frosts. Of course, then it will be too hard to go fast on, but there you go.) (This post is largely parenthetical.) Link Who loves you?

Good/Bad/Dog Food ♥Dec. 23rd, 2011 // 09:35 pm♥ [Tags | culture, going out ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/854971.html ] Good: Fascinating Aida. Same set as we'd seen last time, but very much fun. I continue to expect them to do Suddenly New Zealand when they start the intro to (what I am referring to as) Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. New soprano much better than old; they should keep her. Bad: Pippin, at the Menier, which I left at the interval on the grounds of it was crap. I should probably have checked what it actually was with Mike before it was booked, but tbh the general concept (as figured out when we went in there) of "this is a video game in which the main character plays the part of Charlemagne's eldest son" wasn't too terrible. It was the fact that it was a musical full of ludicrously thrusting crotches and no decent songs that did it for me. Indie review: "I admire the production's flair and chutzpah. I'm not sure that I could sit through it again." Quite. Standard: "the problem at the show's heart remains. If we don't care about the existential crisis plaguing Pippin in the musical that bears his name, what hope is there for any real emotional engagement?" Quite quite. I'm just glad that the attempt at a panto-sing-along didn't come near our (inadvertently) front row seats. (Pippin's (presumably evil) stepmother did have a nice frock, though.) Dog Food: Horse. Git. Remind me to beat him more often. Link Who loves you?

Coo! ♥Dec. 21st, 2011 // 03:11 pm♥ [Tags | driving, riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/854640.html ] Today I drove all the way to the stables, and then I drove back again (with a certain amount of wading around a muddy field, scraping mud off GB and having a riding lesson in between)! The only real problem that I encountered was that (sigh) the car smelt of wee. Link Who loves you?

The Weather Conspires Against Me ♥Dec. 20th, 2011 // 09:01 am♥ [Tags | riding, weather ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/854504.html ] I observe that it is (whilst also probably being bloody freezing) a lovely day. Lovely weather for riding, in fact. Utterly unlike the forecast for tomorrow and Thursday, the days when I can actually go and see my pony. Sigh. Ah well, Nutcracker this afternoon! (I did wonder if, with newly shortened travel times, I could get away with going to the yard first, but I suspect I should allow time for showering and changing and so on, really, and that makes it not possible given the amount of mud that there will be on GB.) (I was going to say that I was pleased to report that I no longer smelt of horse pee, but I've just had a sniff, and I'm sure I can still detect a little. Plus, you know, the skin on my hands is falling off from repeatedly scrubbing them. Nice.) Link Who loves you?

Death list ♥Dec. 19th, 2011 // 08:13 am♥ [Tags | lj death list ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/854075.html ] After a quiet couple of months, Kim Jong-il. Points for rose_gialle, cuboid_ursinoid, darth_tigger and purplecthulhu. As that was the first points for all of them, it makes no difference to the scores so far: johnnyeponymous is still in the lead. Again. Bah! Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Bah! ♥Dec. 18th, 2011 // 03:27 pm♥ [Tags | culture, driving, going out, riding, riding: toby, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/853994.html ] Everything Smells Of Wee. Culture: The Ladykillers: very funny, thoroughly recommend it. No idea how it compares to the films. Noises Off: Ditto. No idea how it compares to the original. Two very good evenings out. Driving: Haha, they gave me a licence. Yesterday, Mike came with me and we went around the local area for fifteen minutes. He only screamed twice, which I thought was very good. Today, Mike came with me to the yard, and he didn't scream once! Very impressed. Think he even had his eyes open! Once at the yard, I found that Shit Bag had lived up to both of his nicknames. I'm not entirely sure how, but he'd had everything out of the cupboard (sigh: at least last time he just had the treat box out), eaten all the treats (double sigh) and got poo all over the side saddle. Pulled everything back out from where someone had helpfully shoved it, and put it back in a more sensible order. Then turned to deal with the Mystery Rug on the stable floor, which turned out to be his thicker turnout rug (maybe his thinner one got wet and someone got it out to use while the other one dried?), which he had not only pulled off the wall and stomped on the ground but also peed on. Lovely. Stuck it over a fence in the (intermittent, when it wasn't sleeting lightly) sun in the hope that it would dry off a little; it didn't, so I hung it back in his stable, still sodden and smelling. While I was doing this, Mike was waving a brush at GB, so I went and got the rest of the mud off him. As that was going on, someone offered/asked that I ride their horse, as he wouldn't have time today or tomorrow and also hadn't yesterday. So, Mike rode GB and I rode Toby, who GB knows quite well (we do our Wednesday lessons together, for example, and they've been in the woods together a few times) and who I know from observation is a nice but rather speedy horse. We took them both into the school, and things seemed to be going ok as we warmed them up, other than a slight inability on my part to stop Toby (resolved by riding him with what were to me insanely, cruelly short reins, but there we go: different horses need different treatment, and all that). Things went downhill, however, when we tried to actually ride them: GB decided that he wanted to be wherever I was, and spent the next half hour heading towards me whatever Mike did, at a speed entirely related to the distance and unrelated to what Mike was actually asking for. We solved it slightly by having Mike just follow me around, but it wasn't terribly satisfactory for me (didn't get to do anything very interesting), Toby (didn't really get a thorough work out, or to canter nearly as much as he wanted to), Mike (didn't feel terribly safe) or GB (didn't really get a thorough work out... oh, wait, that probably does count as satisfactory for him, doesn't it? Sigh). In retrospect, I probably should have jumped on GB and made him do some work, but I didn't think of that until too late. I'd not encountered this particular problem with him before, but I suppose that it does make sense: if I'm standing by the side of the school, he tends to try to stop whenever he gets near to me, too. Not sure what the best way to deal with it is, but I might see if Toby's owner wants to do a swap some time, as I think he's a good enough rider to be able to keep him better behaved. GB did at least go nicely out to the field, rather than being his usual stubborn self. On the other hand, that was probably because I'd just given him a tremendous beating after the little shit bit me: I'd just chopped his apple in half (not that he really deserved it, but I always give him a treat to reward him for coming nicely in / out of the field) and he didn't want to wait while I untied his rope, walked him to the field and then gave it to him. So he gave me a little nip to remind me that he still hadn't had the nice juicy-smelling treat he so obviously deserved. It's probably a good job that I had about six layers on, because it very nearly broke the skin even through them all. After such a terror-filled morning, Mike decided that he was going to drive home. We stopped off to get (sigh) more horse treats (which I'm tempted to keep in the car) and a new headcollar (no idea where it's gone. Sigh. He probably ate it) and have some lunch (in Greenwich, which was absolutely packed: Cafe Rouge and Pizza Express both had queues, so we ended up in a Mexican place which was not terribly inspired but was at least hunger-satisfying; do not understand: yes, Greenwich has a market and a few shops, but they mostly sell tourist tat, so why were so many people there?) before we came home. Where I took all my clothes off, had a shower, put my coat and clothes in the wash, scrubbed my hands again after touching my clothes, and yet can still smell bloody horse pee.... Bah! Link Who loves you?

Lock up your cars.... ♥Dec. 15th, 2011 // 01:28 pm♥ [Tags | driving ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/853509.html ] Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Things and stuff ♥Dec. 5th, 2011 // 12:19 pm♥ [Tags | books, cons, culture, going out, riding ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/853326.html ] A reminder: the TAFF deadline is 9th December. Remember to vote for Kim! I appear to be a very bad nominator! ( November books ) I am horribly behind on many things. Sorry. My life can largely be summed up as horse-drive-horse-drive-ow-con-drive-ow-horse. (On the plus side, I am now feeling better. I had a nasty moment when we got to Amsterdam and my chest started hurting, but it is now better than it was, and I was ok riding today. I did go to Guy's Minor Injuries, after being nagged, and they said "You've either bruised or cracked a rib. If it takes three weeks to stop hurting, it's bruised; if it takes six, it's cracked. You can tell which is is by how long it takes to stop hurting. Bye!") No joy finding out where to lorry was going, which is annoying but not terribly unexpected. Current favourites are a building site and a plant nursery, both of which are always locked up even when there are people moving around inside, so I can't find out anything more. Ah well. As well as going to Amsterdam (not only did the con not have a bar, but the hotel didn't either. Well, it had two, but they didn't open until 5pm. What's that all about...?), we went to see Howl's Moving Castle at the Southwark Playhouse (pretty good, although I was unimpressed by one of the actors. Stephen Fry as the Castle was fun. Tiny tiny venue!) and The Ladykillers at the Gielgud (really good, made my ribs hurt though!) Link Who loves you?

Oh my poor head.... ♥Nov. 26th, 2011 // 08:41 am♥ [Tags | family, going out, ow, riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/853141.html ] Oops, seem not to have updated recently. Hmm. Things I have done: - been to see Les Mis (sentimental crap, sorry, didn't like it at all) - been to my university alumni dinner (had very strange conversation with former personal tutor) - been to the Scandawegian Christmas Fairs (bought usual fairly small amount of stuff, including tasty cinnamon crisp breads which Mike has almost entirely stolen) - been to Farm AGM (am now free! Free I tell you!) - had Descent of Mother In Law - been to Canterbury (missed the Cathedral, on account of being too feeble to keep walking around. Mike took some pretty photos, though) - had a really bloody horrible day at the yard, in which GB was a very GB (spooking, spinning around and running off into undergrowth, barging through me, being even worse than usual in refusing to go out to the field, etc. Very nearly topped off by my missing the train home, at which I think there would actually have been sobbing, but fortunately I walked fast enough to make it) - had a really lovely day at the yard, in which GB was an absolute sweetie (we joined a group lesson with the lady who's been teaching me side saddle, he was lovely and forward going throughout, only slight glitch was that he wanted to run off like a mad thing instead of provide a nice and showing-off canter. He behaved charmingly all day, with no face pulling or shoving, and went to the field with no complaint, which I think is because I used a non-standard route that didn't go past the sheds, which do scare him rather: something to try again in future) - had a really mixed day (yesterday) at the yard, which started off with GB being well behaved and polite, continued on to GB being delighted at being allowed to run around the arena as much as he wanted, and then went all earth-sky-ambulancecar, after some bloody idiot in an HGV, on a road that is very clearly marked as also being a bridleway, decided to sound his horn about six feet away from us. Naturally, it was when I was working without stirrups, and naturally GB reacted in an entirely understandable way. I lay on the ground and whimpered for a bit, then managed to shout for one of the people on the yard, who took GB away and put him out in the field then, finding that I still wasn't making very much sense, took me off to hospital. I've never had a CT scan before! Anyway, they let me out, but I ache all over, from my head (which has a fetching lump), down my neck (which just oww. Lots of X-rays there, to be one the safe side, before they took the brace off) via my left arm and hip (which has bruises that I can only assume represent the bits of rubber that are mixed in with the sand on the arena floor: never had that happen before, so I really must have hit hard) and down to my left leg (which is fine after I've been walking for a bit but largely unable to support my weight when I stop and it has a chance to stiffen up: I think I gripped so hard that I pulled a muscle in my desperate and futile attempt to stay on the horse). Today, we stopped off on the way home from Canterbury to buy me a new hat. I haven't actually seen my old one (although I have now found out by SMS where it is, at least), but there's no way I'm going to risk it, given the afore-mentioned lump on my head. I wouldn't mind, but I'd only had it about two bloody weeks.... I think that this is the only time that I haven't got back on the horse. I think that it was probably for the best, in the circumstances. My head aches. My plan for Monday involves a very gentle ride, followed by a walk up the lane in an attempt to find out who had a delivery just after noon on Friday, so that I can write a strongly worded letter to whoever the lorry driver works for. In more cheerful news, here is a pony picture: (Thank you, asphodeline! He seems to like it a lot!) Oh, and it appears that GB has a girlfriend: we stopped at the yard to say hello on the way out of town today, and I went into the (small) field to give him a carrot. Once he'd figured out that there was carrot involved, he happily followed me over to say hello to the others, and a chestnut mare followed him, until he lunged at her and chased her off. He then followed us back to the gate, where the mare was standing, and proceeded to both boss her around and nuzzle up to her.... Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Busy Flick ♥Nov. 16th, 2011 // 05:31 pm♥ [Tags | culture, going out, riding, riding: side saddle, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/852834.html ] Also, chilly Flick. Brrr. Rather glad I didn't wash my hair when I got in from riding, as I'd be even chillier! Last Friday, my driving lesson was conveniently cancelled, so rather than have my instructor drop me off at the yard before a quick ride before Mike picked me up to head North, we both went to the yard and rode GB, who was Full Of Beans. After riding, we headed up to Novacon, via an expensive stop at a horse-stuff-shop, where I bought myself a pair of boots for sloshing around in muddy fields (very reasonably priced) and a new hat (as mine is both a little elderly and now too big where the foam's gone: if it was just the size, I would have had it re-padded, but it's been landed on a few times as well, so I was due a new one), which is lovely but probably wouldn't have been my first choice if I'd noticed the price. Novacon was the usual nice hazy weekend of sitting in the bar chatting, with occasional trips Outside for tasty food. People seemed to like my new frock. Yay new frock! Also yay fabulous treat for GB, which he hasn't had yet on account of it being Too Heavy to take on the train. On Monday, I went up to the yard and went for a ride in the very misty woods. Saw a fox: they have much healthier foxes around there than around here! It was actually red, not grey, and had a bushy tail! Last night, I went out to see Chinese modern dance with Erik, which was utterly fabulous. Our gobs were well and truly smacked by it. Today, I was pleased to find that my plan of putting GB's tail into a rough plait did indeed stop it from taking half an hour to brush out, so I shall keep on doing that. I had a side saddle lesson, for which I did all the tacking up myself (GB behaved, phew) and then jumped on and rode up the lane, to some bemused looks. The lesson was good, but much more tiring than last week (got cramp at one point: ow!). Apparently, my position is improving. GB was a bit bored by it, particularly when we stopped to talk to the instructor. I made the wrong call when I said I'd rather go in the indoor arena, though: I thought he'd be less distracted/disturbed by watching what was going on around him, but unfortunately it just meant that he could hear noises and not see what was causing them.... Plus, he was rather Full Of Beans, so he was a bit fidgety generally, on account of wanting to have a good canter and not being able to. I rode him back to the stables again afterwards, and then immediately swapped the saddle for the regular one and let him have half an hour charging at full tilt around the arena, which he enjoyed immensely, but I think it's probably time to try and find someone else who wants to ride him once or twice a week. Next week, I'm going to join the instructor's group lesson with my normal saddle, so that she can see how I go in it. She's also going to give me the details of her instructor, who also rents out saddles: although clanwilliam's one fits GB pretty well, we're not sure it fits me very well.... Tonight is a quiet night, but then I'm out Thursday and Friday, leaving Mike home alone with his Blu-Ray box sets. Poor Mike.... Link Who loves you?

Woohoo! ♥Nov. 16th, 2011 // 09:03 am♥ [Tags | going out, my life story ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/852686.html ] My Life Story are doing a Golden Mile gig, in March at (boo) Shep's Bush. Tickets just went on sale, including VIP options with Extra Stuff. Link Who loves you?

Shopping! Yay! ♥Nov. 10th, 2011 // 03:27 pm♥ [Tags | cons, going out, jobs, shopping ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/852479.html ] I don't often go into town, lately, which is odd given the actual distance involved, but I did today: I had a job-interview-with-a-pimp to go to, so I thought I'd go in a bit earlier and do some shopping. I now have a slinky new Ghost dress, with bonus 20%-off-today, and I also have a stack of new bras, on account of how my boobs shrank. Well, shrank in the sense that my back size is now a lot smaller and my cup size has gone up again. Hey ho. Then I had what turned into a strange interview: after about ten minutes of chat, I said "So, do you have any questions about my CV?" and the guy said "Hmm? No, it's fine. I decided after five minutes that you were ideal for the job." So we chatted for another ten minutes and then I came home. If it hadn't been for the successful shopping previously, I would have been most annoyed at being dragged into town for that! When I got home and unpacked, I found a mystery English National Ballet leaflet in with my new frock. Very mysterious, but does anyone fancy a Nutcracker, or indeed a Strictly Gershwin? Also, and I will almost certainly regret this in the broken bones sense, does anyone fancy skating? A question: does anyone use car clubs? There are a few car club spaces near us, and the other day I realised that I Didn't Understand: how do you get the keys off the previous person...? Also: have just opened first Christmas card of the season. It's from my Grandad, but even so! Must pack for Novacon. No time tomorrow. Eep. Edit: Eww! LJ is randomly sending me hmtl emails, even though my settings (I have just checked) say plain text. Anyone else seeing that? Editedit: Found a support request already open, "This has been reported to LiveJournal developers, who will investigate the problem and take the appropriate actions to resolve it." Wow, that's helpful. Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

Bleh. ♥Nov. 9th, 2011 // 07:49 pm♥ [Tags | going out, hair, riding, riding: side saddle, riding:angelo, shopping ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/852131.html ] I'm tired. I just realised that, other than on trains and on horses, I didn't actually sit down between about 10am and 5:30pm today. This may have something to do with it. Today, I went up to the yard, slightly later than usual (this was a mistake, I then had to rush rather. Ah well) because I had a lesson at 12 up the road. GB was his usual muddy self, and I seriously think I'm going to have to a) wash and b) trim his tail in the near future, because it's being a nightmare of mud at the moment. I might start plaiting it, which some of the other owners do to cut down on the mud and tangles. After I'd managed to get him ready (didn't have time to brush the mud off his boots, oops: I did want him to look pretty!), I led him up the road to the big stables, at which point I realised that I had a problem: the only way in that doesn't have big 'staff only' signs is through the office. I hovered, vaguely, until I saw someone go past in a staff shirt and asked what to do, and the nice young lady went into the office to let them know I was there, after which I heard an announcement for my instructor over the tannoy and she came to rescue me. GB was a bit disturbed by it all, I fear: for a start, why had I walked up the road rather than riding him? And why did his saddle feel funny? And now he was walking through a strange stable block, full of strange horses, and, and, and! He calmed down after a little walk around the arena (the instructor looked at the saddle, said "you'll need more padding to be able to get your right leg on," and popped to her (on-site) house to get me one that she made for her previous saddle, so I walked him while she was away), and was happy enough to be pulling faces and getting arsey about all the girth tightening that went on, so (pausing only for the instructor to say "That bit's too low!" and show me how to adjust the bridle better) I jumped on and off we went. Not sure if it was the saddle or the way I'd originally put it on, but I felt that I was slipping to the left rather, which was confirmed when we undid it all, repositioned it and fastened it back up. It did generally feel more comfortable than last week (and so far I ache less!), but it's still hard work. GB did really well, bless him: slightly more difficult to get out of halt than usual, but a rather more spanking trot than I actually wanted. Rather than having the place to ourselves, we were sharing the arena with two other riders. This was fine on the right rein, but slightly terrifying on the left as I haven't yet got the knack of twisting myself to the side but facing forward, so I couldn't see what anyone else was doing. Still, he did very well. And, in a beneficial side effect of the new turnout arrangements, when I (eventually) got him out to the field afterwards the other horses hasn't yet drifted over to the other side, so they were actually visible. Not that he actually went and joined them, but he did seem happier, and quieter, than he has been the last few times. Plus, I have now seen evidence that he can in fact still roll all the way over, in both directions. It must have been a very itchy set of girths, poor boy, as it was the first thing he did! When I got home, I jumped in the shower and then went for a hair cut (positively elderly lady, much to my relief. "Ooh, it's nice to just give someone a hair cut! I haven't done this in years!") and a bit of boring shopping (including buying a packet of cotton wool - washing GB's cuts is cutting into my grooming kit supply - in Superdrug. Whose carrier bags are lurid pink. I looked like I was carrying the world's largest sanitary towel), and then came home again and finally got to have a sit down. Ahhh! Moving back in time, yesterday I had a driving lesson (drove to Bexley 'on my own'. Still haven't hit anything) and then Did Housework (Mike cooks and shops, I do the rest. So why do I seem to have more housework to do now that he's working? It's a mystery). Monday, I went up to the yard and took GB out in the woods, after spending ten minutes working on the whole concept of 'and now you walk through the gate. No, not backwards. Forwards. Through the gate. Argh, now it's locked again! Ok, I unlocked it. Now, though the gate. Through the gate....' I have no idea how, even allowing for the total of an extra hour of travel time, but I was out of the house from 9:30 'til 3pm, which I never used to be at the old yard even when I spent an hour or so sitting around chatting. Sigh. Still, we had a lovely ride, and he was good once we got out there (even when going through the other, identical-except-for-a-puddle, gates. Go figure.) Sunday, we went to the Yellow House for brunch (yay!) and then I went to the yard, where GB lived up to his name: he refused to go through the carpark of the big riding school (I suspect he didn't like their forklift, which was belching very stinky smoke), so I had to get off and lead him as he was being dangerous with the cars, and then he refused to go through the gate into the woods, so I had to get off and lead him.... Sigh. Someone said that there are a lot of kids letting off fireworks in the woods, so maybe he could smell them. He should be used to the noise, at least! In the evening, I completely failed to go to the Thomas Dolby gig that I had a ticket for, on the grounds of tiredness, coldness and extreme apathy. Saturday, I don't think we did anything. It was nice. Friday was more driving and more apathy (sorry, Liam!). Tomorrow features more running around. I'm not sure I approve, but as part of the running around is frock-buying-related, I don't suppose I can complain too much. Link Who loves you?

Books and stuff ♥Nov. 5th, 2011 // 01:19 pm♥ [Tags | books ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/851883.html ] ( October Books ) Thursday was the ton; people who were there should be incredibly grateful that I'd had a shower in between coming back from the yard and going to the pub. While Mike went for a nice ride in the woods, I spent the morning pulling up rubber matting from a now-unused stable, washing all the manky horse pee off it, and then putting it down in GB's stable. I smelt really grim in the car on the way home, and I could still smell it even after I'd had my shower, although Mike said he couldn't. Eww. Link Who loves you?

This is going to hurt ♥Nov. 2nd, 2011 // 04:56 pm♥ [Tags | going out, riding, riding: side saddle, riding:angelo, stables ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/851475.html ] On Monday, I rode my pony. I got there just as some of the nice people on the yard (they are pretty much all nice people. I like this.) were getting ready to go out. "Coming out to hack with us?" they asked. "Ok, as long as he's not too muddy!" I replied. God, I sometimes wish my horse would lie down in a puddle of mud more often. Lovely ladies, but really, it was not a hack, it was a plod. Plod. Plod. They did get into canter, oh, at least three times. But they were going so slowly that GB was actually happier just trotting next to them, especially as he's not used to the hills and so needs to really get some oomph to canter up them. GB was as bored as I was, I suspect. At one point, they said "Do you want to go in front for a bit?", so I did. "Oooh," they said, "my horse doesn't normally walk this fast!" The bloody horses were kitted out in martingales and enormous great bits, needless to say. I find that my bum gets numb if I walk for too long; it was numb before we were half way around. Last night, we went to see Sakamoto, which was lovely. The first three tracks were a bit dull, but then it perked up and got much better. It was billed as a retrospective, and I think it was in chronological order: I don't have all the early albums, and on the basis of this, I shan't bother. Interestingly, the bass player was half of the bossa nova couple that Sakamoto did an album with a few years back, so I had seen him before, at the Union Chapel. Today, I popped off to the yard bright and early, had a small panic when I groomed GB and pulled lumps of blood-clotted hair off his leg, decided it was ok really as no pain, heat or swelling, jumped him for 45 minutes in the school (I has started, after Monday, to fear that he'd forgotten what the aids meant. I now suspect that it was just boredom and the fact that he knew he could just catch up in walk if he needed to on the odd occasions that the other horses trotted a bit. Still, Needs To Learn.) and then prepared to sort out his stable, having been offered some rubber matting by someone whose horse has just gone off to be sold on the grounds of psychoticness. Only she wasn't then around, so I hung around chatting for a couple of hours and finally saw her just as I had to leave for a lesson up the road. Ah well: tomorrow, for that. But the lesson! I had a side saddle lesson, with the big local school's senior instructor (she learnt side saddle a few years ago, when her hps started to go. She's since had them both replaced, so now she does both types. Boggle.). Next time, all being well, I'll be doing it on GB, but this time I was on one of the school horses ("I decided not to put you on my horse, as she's enormous and a bit rambunctious. But I tried this one out for half an hour with the side saddle yesterday, and she took to it well so off we go!" And I was told that GB might not cope why, exactly? Sigh). Nice horse, though, very responsive and - for something with any breeding - very smooth in trot. It's bloody hard work, though. I can tell I'm going to ache tomorrow, I'm fairly sure that I have a bruise on my right inner thigh from straining the muscle, my left seat bone feels distinctly tender, and I suspect I'll need to start up the yoga again if I'm actually going to do this. Very strange, generally: I frequently felt like a shop mannequin, posed and trying to be motionless in an odd position, and I suspect it will take me a while to get used to turning to the right even when I want a left bend. On the other hand, some of it will probably help my astride riding as well: the regrettable saddle-shagging that An Unnamed One Of My Old Instructors allowed me to pick up is even more of a bad thing here, and I'm much more aware of what my seat bones are doing, to the extent of successfully asking for trot with no leg movement. (I'm quite glad that Mike's coming to the yard tomorrow, because I'm not sure I'll be able to walk, never mind ride!) She's also, I suspect, a generally bloody good instructor, better than I've encountered before. Random passing comments included "your hat's stretched, you need a smaller one" (which I knew, and hadn't got around to dealing with) and actually teaching me what muscle groups to use to keep my leg in position (which I am incredibly crap at when I have stirrups, whether one or two). Less happy to learn that fabulous-new-yard-with-masses-of-turnout... isn't. Apparently, the (corporate) owners of the big field have complained that it's being overgrazed, so now on their big-field days the horses will only go out at noon. I'm somewhat unimpressed that the notification of this was a bit of paper on a (very full) noticeboard (it's been there since Monday, I only saw it when someone mentioned it today). I need to speak to the owners, because tbh if that's the case then I want GB to get morning hay, and I don't really want to pay extra for it (although I am a sap, and probably will). Good thing: today was his first day in the small field, and he didn't stand by the gate wimpering for me to come and bring him in. He wandered around and said hello to the other horses, and then later I saw him strolling around next to the horse in the next door stable. Link Who loves you?

What a lovely day! ♥Oct. 29th, 2011 // 03:43 pm♥ [Tags | driving, going out, riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/851063.html ] It was very very grey when I left London, but when I got to the yard it was lovely and sunny, which was nice. Scraped the mud off GB, pleased to again not find any bumps or cuts (although I'm starting to worry if he is in fact just spending all day standing on his own in the corner of the field. Hmm. Well, being in the smaller field on alternate days will fix that, when it starts next week), and then looked around to find someone to go and ride with. Hmm. Most of the people I knew seemed to be just taking their horses out to the field, having already ridden. Hmm. So, well, I know I *said* I was going to wait a week or so before I took him out on his own, but.... We had a lovely time. There were a few points where I wasn't sure which way to go, but I took advantage of the GPS (Grumpy Pony System) and spent the first half hour making him go the way he didn't want to go and the last half hour letting him go the way he did, and that seemed to work quite well! He was looking around a bit, but the only times he was actually scared of something were when a dog chased a squirrel and when we went past an obviously-suspicious tree stump. We had a few nice canters (mostly at the start of the 'way home' half), although he was struggling with hills and, I think, with twists in the paths: he's spent his whole life resolutely cantering on the correct lead, and you can't really do that when you aren't going in a circle, so we had a fair few places where we'd canter a bit, do a couple of steps of confused trot, canter again on the other lead, confused trot, swap back to the first lead.... I'm sure he'll get used to it. I hadn't planned on doing it, but we went past the jump that he snuck over the other day, and I could practically hear him going 'oh, g'wan!', so we went up there again (plus, sneakily, it's a pretty steep hill, and I used the energy from the jump to keep him in a fast canter all the way up it: good exercise for him!). There was more traffic today than during the week, but it wasn't quite such a traffic jam as I feared. I did see the same bloke, presumably an instructor at Mount Mascal, three times with three different accompanying riders: as we went into the woods (fortunately: GB decided he wasn't going to go through the gate, and I was about to get off and lead him when the chap came up and held it open for me), at the far side of the woods, when I was cantering up and fairly flat but wiggly bit, trying to get GB used to the idea, and then again (coming back in) as I was leaving (we managed the gate fine, that time. In fact, we managed the gate so fine that I am going to have a fabulous bruise on my leg where Someone was rushing through before it was open...). (We went though another gate, twice, while we were out: no problems with that one, either. Shit bag was just doing it to show me up, obviously.) It was really lovely in the woods in the sun: the trees looked lovely. Have a fairly pony-free pony picture of the day: In non-pony-related news, Mike has Abandoned me this weekend, being busy smoffing today and going to a recruitment fair (bizarrely, both as a job seeker and manning the stand for his new company) tomorrow. We are going to see Fascinating Aida tonight, in Greenwich, though. Last weekend, pixiejuice came to London, and we went to see the Degas show at the Royal Academy, which was very interesting: lots of pretty pictures of dancers, but also stuff about what his contemporaries were doing with photographing and filming people and animals in motion. We also went for lunch at Fortnums, mostly because my mind went blank and I was starving, which was actually quite nice. Driving lessons continue. I'm getting better. Yesterday, my driving instructor moved our car and I had a go at driving into and out of our parking space, which is a bit fiddly. Still haven't hit anything! Link Who loves you?

Hmmm ♥Oct. 27th, 2011 // 05:58 pm♥ [Tags | lj ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/850791.html ] Anyone know anything about this alleged huge LJ security problem? Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Settling in ♥Oct. 27th, 2011 // 03:28 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/850484.html ] Things seem to be going well on the pony front. GB was out in the field all day yesterday, getting thoroughly muddy, and then this morning (after scraping the mud off...) one of the other liveries took me up into the woods to show me around. Other livery also has a little elderly bay gelding, and they seem to get on well, which was good. GB barely batted an eyelid at it all, as long as he was behind or next to the other horse, although he was a bit less happy when we made him go in front (except for the point when he realised he was going home and suddenly picked up the pace!). He did struggle slightly on some of the longer up-hill canters, though, poor thing: about half way up the slope, I could feel him gather himself together to keep going. He'll get used to that fairly soon, though, both from being ridden and from running up and down the hill in the field. And he can't have been suffering too much: I did *try* to steer him around the jumps, but he decided he'd rather follow the other pony! Have to see what he's like when he gets more used to it, I think. I shan't take him out on his own for a few more times, though. In the field, I think things must also be going ok: he's been seen over on the other side of the hill with the other horses, and when I groomed him I didn't find any sign of cuts, bumps, or other sore spots, so he doesn't seem to be getting in fights. He did pull his face at me a bit when I turned him out in the rain, but by the time I went past on the way to the station, he'd vanished from sight, so he'd presumably gone off to find the others again. I think he's already started to put weight on... I'll keep an eye on it and cut his feed down if I have to, but given that he's going into his first winter with turnout, it's probably not a bad thing! Link Who loves you?

In the field! ♥Oct. 25th, 2011 // 01:41 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/850391.html ] GB went out in the field for the first time, today. I let him go and he sniffed around for a bit before cantering off up the hill: That seemed to be good, so I wandered off and put my things away, then went to get the train home. As I walked past the field, I saw him again: No, dear, it's not time to come in, yet. Go to the other end of the field and find the other horses.... Link Who loves you?

Pony picture of the day: ♥Oct. 24th, 2011 // 04:55 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/850104.html ] (Ahh! That's better!) Big field tomorrow. I've asked them to keep him in, so that a) I can be there to take him out and see his brain explode and b) he's not going out in a big rush of excited horses. Other exciting news: I went to the big stable up the road to get my pass and key to let me into the woods, and I remembered that, when she was there last week, Toni had mentioned seeing a sidesaddle demonstration. So I thought I'd ask, and yes, one of their senior instructors does side saddle lessons. So, I have one booked for next week. Ulp. See how it goes! Link Who loves you?

Ha! Break into that, you sod! ♥Oct. 22nd, 2011 // 04:36 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/849711.html ] Today, I dragged Mike to the yard and made him use tools. The cupboard now has a nice big lock on it, and the hole repaired so that GB can't get into it and eat the replacement treats. GB also now has his stall guard over the door, so that he can have the door left open while we're there, and drainpipes on string on two of the walls, so that his rugs can be conveniently hung up to dry and air for him to pull down and trample into his bed. There was much banging while this happened, so I put GB in the quarantine pen for an hour or so, where he had a nice roll in the dust. Slightly worried that he didn't manage to get all the way over, but hopefully he was just a bit stiff from being in his stable so much, or cautious after he hit the wall yesterday. (Being able to roll all the way over is a sign of health, and I've always been quite pleased that he can still do it. Hopefully he'll get the knack back when he's out in the field running around all day.) After that, Mike had a ride, which I was going to describe as 'quick' but will instead call 'fairly short': GB was being a bit of a git and refusing to move above a plod, until I went and got my hat and jumped on, at which point he went off like a rocket. Sigh. Git. Link Who loves you?

Well, that was inevitable.... ♥Oct. 21st, 2011 // 05:52 pm♥ [Tags | riding, riding:angelo ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/849187.html ] Got to the yard this morning, looked inside his stable, and found the contents of the treat box strewn across the floor. Well, most of the contents: he'd unsurprisingly eaten everything edible, that being a bag and a half of treats. I had a few nasty moments until I managed to find, hidden under some bedding, the knife that I keep in there for chopping up apples and so on. (Whilst this isn't actually the reason why I don't let him have treats with sugar in them, it's made me bloody glad that I don't: if that had been a bag and a half of Likits, he'd probably have needed the vet.) He also seems to have made an executive decision: they use hay nets there, but he's used to having his hay on the floor. I have no idea how he managed it, but overnight he managed to empty his net onto the floor without getting it untied from the wall (I'm quite impressed! Actually, I'm quite impressed that he got into the cupboard, removed the plastic treat box without pulling everything else out, and then got it open without biting it in half, but there we go!). So, I put his lunch time hay down on the floor for him. It's better for them to eat off the floor anyway. Still, he seems to be settling reasonably well: he even had a roll, after his bed had been done and his rug taken off, although he didn't manage to get all the way over on account of clocking the wall with his leg part way. I took him up and down the lane today, and he was fairly chilled on the way back. He's decided that the tractor parked by the arena is a scary thing, which is slightly annoying, but hopefully he'll get used to it. I've been meeting a few more of the people on the yard (there seem to be more in the mornings than in the afternoons, which is worth remembering), and I've had a couple of offers of companions to go and try out the woods, which I think we might do towards the end of next week. I also had an offer of some rubber matting, which I think I might take up: I was talking to the lady who does the mucking out for part of the week, and saying that she should take it as read that she's to put extra bedding in if he needs it and I'll pay for it (he gets a bale a week as standard). She was saying that her daughter is about to sell a horse and isn't likely to get a new one, so I think I might have her matting if it's a) in decent condition and b) significantly cheaper than just buying new. Of course, I need to do the maths on how long it will take to pay for itself in terms of less extra bedding.... Link Who loves you?

The Big Day ♥Oct. 19th, 2011 // 05:50 pm♥ [Tags | farm, riding, riding:angelo, stables ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/849105.html ] Poor vgrumpybastard has had a very strange day today. First I rushed around a lot moving things about, then I stood around chatting for a couple of hours, and then the horse box finally arrived (they hit bad traffic through the Blackwall Tunnel). Half an hour of failing to get him to load was solved in about five seconds of waving a lunge whip across the backs of his legs, and we headed off. When we go there, they said he'd ridden in the box as though he did it every day of his life, and when we got him off he hadn't sweated at all, which was brilliant. He was very confused when he got off, though. Kept having to pause and look around, and did not want to go in his new stable, which apparently used belong to a very small -- based on the rug left in the bottom of the cupboard -- pony called Picci -- based on the name plate still on his door; I have set frostfox on the job of fixing the latter, but for now his old laminated one from Mudchute is duct taped to the door! He was being a noisy bugger, too (which he never normally is: Mike had never heard him make a sound before), as he tried to find his friends. Poor boy will have to make new friends! Given that he was obviously confused and a bit freaked out, I let him have a little wander around and then, with the aid of some hay, got him back inside. We went off for some lunch while he settled down, and then unloaded the mountains of stuff from the car and put it all nicely in the cupboard, tack room and feed barn, as appropriate. After that was all put away, and the paperwork had been sorted out, I took him out for another little wander around, and let him say hello to the horses on the yard (seemed to go well, generally: one youngish mare was a bit funny with him, the others were ok) and get cooed over by the people (it is in fact the case that he is a very handsome horse, and looks good for his age!). He was mostly ok, but every so often he'd stop and stick his head up in the air to listen to who-knows-what. It took another good bit of coaxing to get him to go back into his stable, but then he perked up and stopped trying to kick the door down (I discovered, when I shouted at him, that the horses next doorare owned by a woman called Angela: she wanted to know why I was yelling at her...) when I gave him his ball o'treats, after which we stole away home. Hopefully he'll be ok! Poor Mike has a To Do list, now, on account of being Male: - new keeping-closed mechanism on cupboard door (I have The Fear that GB is going to get in the tonight looking for treats. They are sealed in a plastic box, but he knows they're in there) - putting fixings on for his stall guard (GB was *very* unhappy at having to have his stable door closed when I was there to open it for him!) - rigging up something with rope, ceiling joists and a drain-pipe so that I have a place to store rugs and things. Poor Mike. (Ohemgee, LJ is sucky with the ads, isn't it? Having to watch a video before you can post? What's that all about?) Pictures: I did try to take a nice picture of GB on his last day at the farm... ... but he was too busy untying himself. Typical. Getting in the horse box This went on for half an hour, until we just got a really big whip. (We didn't actually hit him, just annoyed him by swooshing it on his legs. As the girl trying to load him said, "I wish he'd rear or fight or get stressed or something, that way we'd have a problem to solve. He's just standing there and not moving....") Off we go! New home! Forgot to take a picture in his stable: doh. Here he is having some grass and chilling out. Link Who loves you?

Consumer electronics ♥Oct. 14th, 2011 // 09:36 pm♥ [Tags | flat, phones, tech ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/848671.html ] 1) Last Saturday, we had people 'round for dinner. Afterwards, while we were playing Trivial Pursuit (protip: never attempt to play a set of TP that is only younger than half the people in the room), I stuck the table cloth in the washing machine. Later, after Mike had got bored of laughing at everyone else flailing pathetically and won the game, I took it out. It was Wet. I stuck it on a spin cycle, and when that finished... it was Wet. I went to bed. The next day (which, I just mention, was the 9th), it continued to be Wet, so we went to John Lewis to get a new one. All went smoothly (as in, we wandered around the bits of the basement that had phone signal while Mike checked Which, decided which one we wanted and *then* were told we had to wait half an hour for a human to deal with us) as we pointed at the one we wanted, sat at the little desk, laughed companionably at the way that all six of the hits for our postcode were in fact us, and then... "Is delivery on the 18th all right?" Err, what? Yes, yes, I appreciate that a significant proportion of people buy new washing machines because they are Having Their Kitchen Done, but surely more of them are buying because the bloody thing is broken? We came home, and got the same model cheaper from Currys, delivered on Wednesday (12th). It's fairly nifty, in that it does a load in about 45 minutes. It's Bad And Wrong, in that it doesn't have proper settings. I thought that this was just a quirk of the old machine, but apparently none of them do now, which is both odd and, as mentioned, Bad And Wrong: there is a perfectly good and logical system of clothes washing settings, which boils (ahem) down to "do it on forty-double-bar unless it's towels". Yes, yes, there are occasional things (usually those that claim to be hand wash only but obviously aren't, or dirty nappies or whatever) that go on something different, but that's basically it's "40-d-b" or "hot". So why does my new washing machine have settings labelled things like "sports clothes" (actually, I can understand that one: it's aimed at harassed mothers with three sets of sweaty, muddy teenaged piles of stiff cardboard at the end of the half term. Eww. I'd burn it.), "mixed load" (aha! That would be 40-d-b... but...) and "synthetics/delicates" (I've decided to go with this one and up the spin rate). Pah. I am reminded of the Friends episode when Ross (for complicated reasons to do with getting them together) had to help Jennifer do her laundry: "Now, you need to separate the laundry into, er, different types." "... you mean like skirts and tops?" "...". Perfectly good system, why invent a new one? 2) It must be my birthday, because today my present arrived. Siri is cool but, to be entirely honest, we're probably a bit too English for it: "Will it rain tomorrow?" "Do I need a coat?" "No, go on, you think of something now!" Slightly annoyed that it doesn't do any location services outside the US (and has some peculiar ideas of what a location request is: I was trying to figure out the form of words to make a calendar entry, and the first few tries ended up with it telling me that it was sorry but it couldn't look that up outside the US), and that it can't launch an app for me (as far as I can tell, after a few tries, it knew exactly what I wanted but wasn't permitted to do it. I can see the logic, I guess). Still, shiny new phone is incredibly shiny, both compared to Mike's (ha ha) and, particularly, to mine, which was Mike's previous one and has recently developed a habit of requiring thirty seconds between characters when entering a postcode to be located on the map (not handy when wandering random bits of central London looking for interview locations!). Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

New stables! ♥Oct. 7th, 2011 // 05:01 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, driving ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/848613.html ] (Let's see if this cross-posts... I have checked, and the box is checked at the bottom of the page. It didn't, but I thought I'd just check and see if there was anything in my in-box that gave me a clue. Oh, right, yeah: my LJ password was the same as my KoL one, so I changed it just in case....) Right then, the horse box is booked: GB will be moving on Wednesday 19th October. Somewhat nervous! He'll go over there on the 19th, with a bag of used bedding taken along to help the stable smell right, then he'll be wormed and kept in for five days*, then he'll have a couple of weeks in the big field every day to get to know everyone in a nice big space, then he'll go onto the regular rotation between the big and little fields. * I was thinking about worming him before he went, on the grounds that he's kept in at weekends or in bad weather *anyway*, so he'd only miss a couple of days out at most. They were happy to do that, but she raised the good point that if it's done at the new yard, he'll have a few days when he can be led around the yard to meet the other horses, so that they don't all mob him saying hello the first time he goes in the field. Driving lesson this afternoon. Did manoeuvres. There are four of them now (reversing into a parking bay is the new one), but you only have to do one on your test. Because of the layout of the test centre I'm using, you have to do the bay parking at the start of the test, not at the end, so if you get it then you know that you don't have to worry about doing any more of them! Having so far never stalled the car, I managed it half a dozen times today. Oops! Link Who loves you?

Belated September books ♥Oct. 7th, 2011 // 12:09 pm♥ [Tags | books ] R-Gods and Pawns-Kage Baker R-Cryptonomicon-Neal Stephenson The Associate-John Grisham The Magician King-Lec Grossman The Confession-John Grisham Monster Hunter Alpha-Larry Correia City of Dreams & Nightmares-Ian Whates R-Geisha of Gion-Mineko Iwasaki R-Anathem-Neal Stephenson R-The Good Women of China-Xinran R-The Door In The Air-Margaret Mahy R-Little Fuzzy-H Beam Piper R-Fuzzy Sapiens-H Beam Piper The Clockwork Rocket-Greg Egan Reamde-Neal Stephenson Goliath Scott-Westerfeld Link Who loves you?

By popular(ish) demand.... ♥Oct. 6th, 2011 // 11:20 pm♥ [Tags | riding:angelo ] vgrumpybastard. He's moving in a week or so, to the more favoured of the places listed in my previous post, the number of which I forget. He beat me up yesterday. Annoyingly, I got two injuries out of it: a stair- and ride-preventing bash to the knee, which is horribly painful and interestingly coloured, and a scary looking swollen lip, which faded away to nothing overnight. I still have no idea why he spooked. Shit bag! (And DW is throwing an error for his username. No idea. Here.) Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

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