Lockdown Tales

May 04, 2020

Lockdown Tales

My last post was February 20th and my god the world has changed since.........It's definitely a different world we live in now and we will never return to what was 'normal' before. It'll be a new normal. But, enough about that, you're hearing that from every source and I'd like to take your thoughts away from that if I can.

I was feeling the need for a bit of verbal/written diarrhoea, so here it goes!

I have had 2 competitions since my last post. The storms cancelled loads and then that other things cancelled everything......One was SJI with CC, in which he went double clear in 90s, all due to him because I was a passenger! The next day we were back for some dressage with Fred. I'd entered elementary, and retrospectively it was too high a level. But I was delighted with him and the effort he put in.

Cold mornings!!

Beautiful frosty morning

The weekend after I wanted to do something fun with the boys, so we headed off to the beach to get the cobwebs out. The sun was splitting the rocks and it was a fabulous day. A perfect day to do it.

Fred and Emma (minus his head!)

Smiles all round!!

Loves the sea!

My water babies

When we went in to Stage One of lockdown; schools and pubs closed, I was still travelling to work as I work in one of the essential places. But then when the older people had to cocoon I had to work from home as I live with my parents. I got my laptop hooked up and *borrowed* a monitor from work ( which they are now reclaiming grrrrr) and started life as a work from home person.

As luck would have it, the sun came out when the schools closed and has pretty much been out since. The river down the road where I took the flood pics from CC is now down to it's lowest I've seen in a long time! The fields have dried out and started looking green and grass is growing, albeit not fast enough in mine!

Extremely high River Suck

Puddles everywhere

Rivers in the yard......

I let the boys out to the grass though..........and boy were they delighted! I was so sick of putting hay out in the mornings. It was an absolute chore and I was running out of places I could put it. The mud patch was hard to drag the wheelbarrow through and the yard was getting a bit wrecked from them walking in the bloody hay- just eat it lads!! So out during the day and in at night. I could handle that much.. It nearly felt like a sleep in just being able to do that. They were wormed and then I let the green god of grass do his thanggggg to make them all lovely and in good condition. I'm still waiting.......ah no, Cu Chulainn looks great and Fred is nearly there. I meant to send their poop off to get a worm count, but then this lockdown happened.......ok I can't really blame it, I should have had it done, but convenience.........

Apple blossom

Tea break kisses

Any treats??

Anyhow, working from home (WFH) has been an absolute delight!! Before any of this, I had started running because my fitness was fairly non existent. Obviously I do lots of physical things, but I had no stamina for tough flatwork lessons with Vida!! Once I was WFH I started to run a few mornings before work. Well, that was week two. Week one I let my routine get a bit skew ways, staying up later and getting up later, that didn't work. I was tired mid afternoon and had less energy. Another thing I found was that I wasn't getting up and moving around enough, I had no people to ask questions/asking me questions or collecting stuff from the printer. It's a learning curve. So week two I got my ass back in gear and set my alarm back to a normal time for me, and tried to do stuff before work. I did ride a few mornings before work but I found I didn't like the time constraint, like if stuff wasn't going well I wanted to be able to work on it for longer and not have to finish up early. Now I go for a run before work ( who the hell am I?!) or I can't get my butt out of bed in time and just have cuddles with everyone and take muchos photos of them all.
Slightly off topic, but another thing I did was upcycle an old office chair we had hanging outside in atrocious condition. I LOVE it........and I'm very proud of it, it's perfectly imperfect.

The View

And when the sun shines........

The Chair

My face after doing a 5km run challenge

I am so lucky to have the boys at home. My tea breaks and lunch breaks are quick strolls out to the field to have a gawk at them, not that they give a crap.My new work colleagues are furry ( not that the others weren't 😁 ). Rusty was staying in with me because he's been very sick and needed to rest, but he's on the mend now, thankfully. Bluto would then join us mid morning after a bit of hunting in the field, which was entertaining to watch from the window. Once I finish work, that's it, I'm at home so I feel like I have all the time in the world to do stuff with the horses, even though some evenings I just about muck out!

I gave myself some goals for this lockdown period, mostly to improve both of their flatwork but also to improve myself and my position and my own riding. Fred has been really off for the last while on the flatwork front, fighting me tooth and nail and not being on the bit. He had his back and teeth done and was good to go.
I got some fabric before the shops shutdown and a lot of them were on big cardboard rolls which I have used for cavaletti and jumps for CC, trying to get him to get a consistent rhythm between them and for me to stop over riding him! It's hard because I don't even feel myself doing it.......I've ordered a tripod online so I'm hoping to video myself and study them. He is in flying form and is as fresh as if he never saw a jump before. He absolutely loves it all! It is his job and he is happy to do it.

Cavaletti time

Pole work

Hacking

I have my pot of gold

In the last few weeks I have focused on him a little more, mostly because I was feeling too lazy to ride the two. But the last few days I've gotten Fred back in action again, with a new strategy. Do less, do it well and finish happy. I start with a warm up walk down the lane and back, making sure he's actually engaging his back end. Then we just did walk and trot on a spiralling circle on both reins and finished. I did it on a slight slope in the field so that he would have to collect going downhill himself and would need to listen me when I was half halting him. It worked well, he was a little tense but was happy to finish at that. The next day he went even better and was really listening to me, he was starting to work on the bit without being forced. We cantered too, which wasn't on the bit but was a lovely rhythm. Happy days! So not including the warm up, which is fairly long, we were probably only 15 mins max. Then today we did the same, except more off the circle and a bit more canter, and he is a transformed horse! I've gotten rid of Fred the giraffe and somehow have Fred the dressage horse back! It's only now that I realise how off he was for so long, because it was never this hard before.....

The warm up lane

What I've been working on with me is getting my shoulders back, trying to look up ( hard when the sun is realllllly bright) and strengthening my lil leggies. On our warm up walk I try to stand straight up for as long as possible. Although, today I noticed I don't even have my foot far enough in the stirrups. How basic a rule is that?! Uck. Anyway, there's always something to work on! I need to use my core more too. I've been slacking on the pilates front lately........sure ya can't do everything right??

Here's some more photos porn.......