Mayday!! Mayday!! Part 1

And now we've hit into May. The May bank holiday held the first of the RDS amateur qualifiers. That thing we've been working towards 😳😳

Random hen photo :)

On Thursday evening myself and CC went for a hack, just walking, nice and chilled. I wasn't in the mood for doing much else, but knew I had to ride him because we'd a lesson in the morning. Our last lesson before a weekend of competitions, eek. Including, that big one..........the RDS amateur qualifier.

It was a really nice evening, so we enjoyed our chill walk and of course King Rusty was with us.


Friday morning it was lesson time with the drill sergeant. We were doing it in the Ballinasloe showgrounds. But not in the main arena, in the warm up arena, where Seamus managed to put in a course of about 9 jumps and only in 2/3rds of the area!! So what that meant was it was a tight course. Jumps came up fast. I warmed up fine and then it went to shite. No joke. The wheels started to come off the bus. But then we redeemed ourselves and got it together by the end. It was actually good that it didn't go perfectly. It got my head a bit more focused.

Showgrounds lesson video

After the lesson, myself and Rusty headed home and fed all the animals. Then we packed up our stuff and got ready to head Wesht. Although we weren't competing, we were going to the inaugural Wild Atlantic Dressage Festival up in Ard Chauin in Sligo. Serena from Make up and muck heaps was competing and I was head groom. The plan was Outlander Glamping ( in other words sleeping in the jeeps!!). I set up off with Rusty and got a 99 to keep up my energy levels 😁😂 The best 99 in the West is in Ahascragh - just in case you're passing through!! Got some snacks for the night and a buidéal vino, to help me sleep....

We eventually arrived around 9pm. It was bloody cold!! Serena was busy riding one of her two horses when we got there. So I parked up and we walked down to her. Trump (her horse) was giving her a bit of a hard time but they got there in the end. After that she plaited them both and covered Sissco in an embarassing pyjama suit 😂😂 poor horse.
Once we were done with the horses we settled in to the horsebox for a midnight feast and some alcohol. Then it was time to get settled into the jeep. Now, I'm not going to lie, it was not the most comfortable, but it wasn't awful either. I did put on the hazards once or twice with my foot during the night 😆 Saying that though, I had a nice little sleep in and got up around 9. Hit panic stations cos I thought I'd wake up earlier and I was supposed to be scribing. Luckily the competitions didn't start until 10.30.

Rusty on Tour

I helped Serena get the horses ready. Brushed my teeth and grabbed some tea. Got myself ready for scribing. Rusty was put in the horsebox - he was minus impressed! I helped Serena with her warm up and then ran to go to the toilet before I started scribing. If you've ever been to Ard Chuain, it has a massive canteen which is on the 1st floor of the building facing the humongous outdoor arena. Underneath that is the toilets. The warm up and competition arenas were just in front of it. As I walked out of the toilets I looked to my left to see Serena flying through the air. I stopped dead. OOooohhhh crap.  Trump continued bucking solidly and ran into the competition arenas ( luckily it hadn't started yet). I was stuck between running to her or trying to catch him. I went with him because a load of people had run over to her, and more people just make it worse. Someone else managed to catch him and brought him out.  As it turned out they didn't need me to scribe, which was great so I ran off and got Trump from the person that had him and caught up with Serena. I walked Trump around for a bit and then untacked him and put him away. Serena was still in shock trying to walk it off, doing the usual equestrian thing of 'I'm grand......I'll be fine'. Determined to get back on him....The walking around got harder as she started to stiffen up. We went up to the canteen to get some tea. I put a lot of sugar in hers. We sat for awhile while Jane took her details and chatted to us. Serena did not improve at all. In fact, she got worse. Whilst she was chatting to Jane, I was secretly on to her other half to get him to help me convince her to go to the hospital. Eventually we convinced her. I packed up all her tack into her jeep while she rested up and then we hit the road for Castlebar.

Waiting room Castlebar

We registered at reception and I grabbed some stuff from the boot for us to snack on while we waited to see someone. To be fair to Castlebar, we really weren't there that long at all. And in the end it was all good news, no breaks!! Phew. Wheelchair was needed though to manoeuvre her though, so I had fun pushing that around.

She'll love me for this one!!

Social Media Queen

We were on the road again in no time, but this time for home. I was meeting her other half Martin at Tuam. We couldn't pass Ballindine Supermacs and it was Drive Thru all the way!! Garlic cheese chips and my god were they DIVINEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

S'macs!!