Cyclones and Sunburn (Sorry long)

The weekend just gone was the ‘infamous’ Bernese Mountain Dog Garden Party in Midhirst, Taranaki. I had the afternoon off work to travel down to the ‘Naki. I had booked in to get my final jabs from the Manila trip before going as I don’t often get to Westgate during the day.

Friday was really, really wet as the tail end of Cyclone Innis lurked overhead. Driving out to Westgate was HORRENDOUS!!!! The traffic was down to about 50 kph on the motorway going over the causeway the rain was so heavy. I ended up being slightly late for my appointment as I had to drive very carefully.

The nurse I had to give me my jab was NOT a gentle soul!!!! She said “Are you needle phobic?” And before I could answer stabbed me with the needle and plunged the plunger. It HURT!!!!!! The other jabs I have had did not hurt. In fact the upper part of my left arm is sporting a nice big purple bruise. Grrrrrr.

Post-jab I headed home to pack and grab the dogs. I had decided to feed the horses on the way so with the girls on board we headed up to feed the boys. When I got up to the paddock poor Tai was one big tremble. The poor boy!!!! He is not so good at regulating his body temperature any more. I threw an extra rug on him, gave him a huge pile of hay, texted my long suffering buddy Kristina to check on him and then worried about him for the rest of the afternoon. While I was feeding and rugging the boys I managed to stay nice and clean (wet, but clean) but when I got in the car and took my gumboots and coat off I somehow managed to get covered in mud. So back home I went, to change. As you can see things were NOT conspiring to get me safely down the road at this stage.

The trip down was fairly eventful. I had to stop at Dressmart in Onehunga on the way down and thought that would make it much easier to get on the Southern Motorway (it was backed up for miles on the NW when I was heading to the doctor’s) but noooooooo!!! They had changed the onramp at Manukau and this was causing huge confusion and hold ups. Then there was the road works at Meremere, I spent about 25 minutes there. Then there was the serious crash at Ngaruawahia, the “Road works next 10 km” after Te Kuiti (spent 15 minutes sitting at a red light) and the mazda that could only manage 60kph through the ENTIRE Awakino Gorge).

I finally made it to NP at about 7:30. The club had booked dinner in the Kiosk in the middle of Pukekura Park (I love Pukekura Park!!!) but it turns out that the restaurant had designed a lovely menu but had forgotten to get in the food????!!!! WTF????!!!! ‘Fortunately’ there was enough cabinet food to feed us (yes, that had been sitting in the cabinet all day). I had the ‘chicken and apricot quiche’. I have put that in inverted commas as there was no apricot and two teeny tiny pieces of chicken in a great, big, tasteless bit of…..something. The chips were nice but that is all I can say. I certainly would not be rushing to eat there again!!!!

Saturday morning dawned wet and windy, it was REAL Taranaki weather (ie horizontal rain). Barbera, Steve and I headed down to the grounds and started setting up some gazebos. We had to give up completely on one as it was going to end up being blown to Hawera. The first one we set up had a ‘wall’ that we put up and it blocked the wind and horizontal rain……….. for about 30 seconds before the tabs that attached it to the gazebo were ripped off by the wind.

Everyone turned up at around 10 o’clock and we waited for a bit of a break in the weather before we started the ribbon parade. Our judge was a local vet and he took his job very seriously and really looked at the dogs (which is so nice compared to some of the international judges that look at other rings while you are running your dog). After the breed classes we started the ‘stakes’ classes. By this time the weather had started to clear and it was getting sunny.

In the stakes Brina managed to get ‘Fluffiest Pants’, Sammie and Brina won ‘Brace’, Meggie got ‘Waggiest Tail and the Estcarp, Ashgrove team won ‘Family Group’.

Lunch was delicious, there were savouries and some yummy club sandwiches that were big enough to use as an airplane chock. After lunch was the AGM (which can’t help but be a bit of a yawn).

After lunch we had games that were a good laugh. There was egg-throwing, a blind folded obstacle course, apple bobbing etc. Then we did some carting through an obstacle course. It was about 5:30 by this time and we were all (dog and human) knackered, it was a really big day (but really good fun).

We moved indoors at this point and drew the raffle. I got a few nice prizes out of that and then it was the mystery auction. The way it works is that people wrap ’things’ up and then they are raffled. You have no idea what you are bidding for and it is a real laugh. I scored a $50 hairdryer for $15.

Dinner was most welcome by this stage and there was tons of food. Steve did a fantastic job on the barbie and there was lots left over.

We got ‘home’ at about 9:30 only to discover that we had all managed to get quite sunburnt!!!! My two girls were so tired they took themselves off to bed the minute we got home. LOL I was not far behind them.

Sunday dawned fine and still. We didn’t need to be at the grounds until 10 so we had a nice slow moving morning. We headed down to the grounds and people gradually rolled in. Sunday was very relaxed in comparison to Saturday. We had a little play with the carts at the grounds so that those who had not carted before got to practise and then we packed everything into the cars and trailers and headed to King Edward Park in Stratford where we had a mass cart/walk. It was lovely and the dogs really seemed to enjoy it too.

After the cart we attempted (and failed) to make a dent in the left over food and then I headed home. It was a very uneventful and pleasant drive home. Sammie’s head rose only once on the trip home. She was a very tired girl. Brina kept me company though.

It was a fabulous weekend and it was great to catch up with some of Sammie’s puppies and the rest of the club.

Adult Ride

I had the BEST lesson at adult ride last night!!!! Tracey Page was our instructor, she is one of the country's top Show Hunter riders and she is a fab instructor. Spyke did manage to make a wee point early in the lesson by stopping at the second jump of the night; a teeny, tiny, less than a foot high, crosspole. Grrrr. Note to self: must not assume that he will jump. Must ALWAYS ride him forward!!!!

After out initial emabarrassment Spyke was awesome!! We worked on our rhythm, my position and riding corners. The jumps gradually (actually there wasn't much that was gradual about it) got bigger until we were jumping just over 85cm, which sounds teeny but looked HUGE!!!! On our last 'run' I managed to get the approach wrong to the first of the five stride double (an oxer) and Spyke had to put in a HUGE leap to get over it. That jump put our striding out for the second part of the double too (an upright) and he had to put in another HUGE leap. He is so good though as he doesn't unseat me at all.

I am having such a lot of fun with Spyke, he is sooooo the best horse for me.

Tomorrow I am off to Taranaki for the Bernese Mountain Dog Garden Party and tomorrow we are also going to be hit by the dregs of Tropical Cyclone Innis. Nice. Here is what it will supposedly look like tomorrow as I am driving down.

Glorious Rain and a Tribute

It is raining!!!! Yay!!!! We haven't had any significant rain for.... well......ages. The grass in my paddock was brown and I was starting to think about feeding hay. Now however, the grass is gonna grow, grow, grow. :-)

Today was the hottest day that Auckland has seen in 150 years. It hit 34 degrees!!! It was 32 at 6pm when I picked Mum up from work and it is really, really sticky!!!

I would like to make a note of the loss of the nicest dog walking area in the world (in my opinion :-). We are really lucky in West Auckland to have Woodhill forest to walk, ride, bike, whatever in (I may have mentioned it......a lot..... before). On Monday my favourite area was closed to the public so they could start logging it :-(. Last weekend I took my camera with me when I walked the dogs so that I could a photographic memory of it as it will never be the same again. Following are a few pics of the forest and the rest can be seen here: http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s169/Paddockornament/Woodhill%20Forest/

Waitangi Day

Waitangi Day (Feb 6th for overseas readers :-) is an important day in my house. It is:

1) Sammie's birthday. She turned seven this year.

2) The day that I bought Spyke. One of my better decisions. I have had him two years.

3) The day I retired Tai. One of my sadder decisions. He has been retired for about 5 years now.

This Waitangi Day was my first attempt at cross country with Spyke (yes, two years after buying him. LOL. What can I say? I am a wuss.) I went to Greenhithe Pony Club practise cross country with Kristina (on Oscar), Sarah (on Em) and Rachael (on Bert). It was Bert and Oscar's first ever cross country, it was Spyke's first in two years and my first in over six years so there was some achievements to be made.

Spyke and I didn't have a brilliant start at the first jump. He did the whole 'that is so scary, I can't possibly go near it' thing, including a half rear. Grrrr. However, I MADE him jump and then we jumped it a few more times working our way up to the training size. Here he is doing the training one in fine style.

The next few jumps were just as sticky. Spyke was quite nappy and didn't want to leave the other horses and I was still very nervous as I didn't really know what to expect from him. The second jump was just a small upright and the third was a table top (that, once he agreed to jump it, he jumped very nicely). Next was an old water jump that was dry. Spyke did the drop very happily and trotted throught with a bank followed by a small upright. While we were lurking around there was a lot of yahooing coming from the water jump in the next paddock and Spyke just started to wind up a bit, which scared the living daylights out of me. He soon settled though. The next jump was a box with agapanthas in front of it, well he wasn't having a bar of that one. We had to do the little pre-intro jump and then came back around to jump the proper jump. Next was a corner and once again he ran out to start with but then I got him over twice (with Bert standing next to the jump to stop run outs).

Our next jump was the turning point for us. We did the intro size jump on the side of a hill. The pretraining one was right next door so it meant I could aim Spyke at the end of the intro and he couldn't run out and had to jump, which he did. I then kept him going forward and went round to the chair. He started to spook but after the success of the previous jump I was able to have enough confidence to push him into it and he jumped it fabulously. From there on there were no more stops and we started to jump some of the bigger jumps. He was FANTASTIC!!!!!

We even jumped the pallisade!!! I have to admit though, I didn't actually realise that it was a pallisade until I was about 2 strides away. By that time I was committed and kicked Spyke on. He, of course, didn't bat an eyelid and flew it!!! We had to come around and jump it again so that Nicky couldtake a picture. He pecked slightly before take off and I ended up jumping before he did, hence the SHOCKING position. LOL. (Hmmm must shorten my stirrups)

After the pallisade we did a ramp, the water and a few smaller jumps and then we jumped the first jump backwards.

I was thrilled with how Spyke did the second half of the course and my confidence was really improved by the end of the day. I think once we have done a couple more practise days we will be ready to do an actual ODE. The others (Kristina, Sarah and Rachael) all had a fabulous afternoon too. Oscar was calm and sensible and did some lovely little jumps, Em was the world's best baby sitter and Bert was LOVING cross country by the end of it. More pics:

Spyke in the background, Oscar in front.

Away from the horses I have been painting my wagon (Hmmmm I think there is a movie in there somewhere :-). Here are a couple of pikkies of the progress. They are taken with my phone so aren't great but I will download proper ones soon.

Stage one:

Stage two: