Day 4 of the holiday

I was awake far too early, so I quietly slipped downstairs where I internetted whilst listening to inLight (because they really are as good as they sound).

The clock ticked on and suddenly it was breakfast time. While I was getting things ready in the kitchen Soph crept silently downstairs and her morning greeting from the lounge made me lay an egg. Nearly.

With the bathroom having seen its usual amount of action and clothes being flung on, Soph left for Birmingham while I hung around waiting for prospective purchasers of her car to turn up.

I did lots of things to fill the waiting.

I took calls from prospective car buyers.

I tuned my guitar.

And waited.

And took more calls from mentalists other prospective car buyers.

Then I tuned my other guitar.

And waited a little more.

And took more calls from the intellectually challenged more prospective purchasers.

Then I figured out how to rebalance the podcast levels.

And waited.

So I played the first guitar, a series of exercises which somehow transformed in to ‘All Along The Watchtower’. How did that happen? 🙂

Part-way through a contrived segue in to ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ the (first) long-missing prospective purchaser turned up.

He inspected, started, listened, test-drove, checked documents and tried to knock me down on the price.

I said it was a shame he’d driven all the way from London and held out my hand for the key.

We agreed on £40 off the asking price for a tankful of fuel and that was that.

Then I rang the three prospective purchasers who were coming later in the afternoon. Two said ‘Thanks for telling me’, but one just ranted on and on at me saying he’d agreed to buy it so I shouldn’t have sold it to anyone else.

Is it me or was he mental? I hung up on him.

Got changed, drove to the yard, tacked up then suited and booted Vin and then I put my extra armour on.

And then we went up to the cross-country course for some schooling.

We schooled for 40 minutes on the flat working on supple, forward but soft. We began on the v.small fences and trotted over a line of four jumps three times.

On the fourth pass I kept him straight, sat lightly asked for canter and we popped nicely over fence five.

We hacked down to the start of the track, trotted out of the start box and five strides before fence one we transited to canter. Unfortunately the moment we touched down after one Vin took off like a racehorse.

I had no brakes or steering. All I could do was sit very quietly, stay off his mouth and keep him straight.

The next four fences were scary scary scary; he steeplechased them at racing pace and I had to keep up with him.

Around fence five he began listening to me, allowed me to collect his pace down to a fast canter and we completed the track; coffins, ditches, pallisades, steps, the double bank – we flew around.

No amount of training is straightening out his head; I’m at a loss to know what to try next. My trainers both say that it’s his nature, that he gets stressed and it flicks a switch in his head. The trouble is that when that switch gets flicked and he goes in to overdrive the rider has no control, and that’s really not good.

Exhausted, we hacked back to the yard where I untacked, groomed and fed Vin his tea. I love this boy to bits but this problem is breaking my heart.

Anyway.

After much tea and sympathy in the tack room, one of the girls asked me to have a look at a website she’s setting up. I suggested a couple of things she should keep an eye on, but overall it’s excellent, slick and very professional.

When I got home Soph was already back and tea was on the go.

Since then we’ve eaten tea, drunk tea and are now sitting here drinking more tea, eating cake and watching ‘Clueless’.

Back to work tomorrow. 🙁