The Wobbleberry Challenge!

I'm almost never ill, but it happens. All week I've been coughing like a chain smoking tramp, and on Friday, I developed a streaming cold and raging fever. All I wanted to do was lie on the sofa and watch back-to-back episodes of Orange Is The New Black (which I've 'discovered' approximately two years after everyone else. It's awesome, although Piper gets on my wick - she has a shower scene every episode so why is her hair always so limp and stringy?) but I have two horses that nobody else in my family has the faintest idea how to look after. So I dragged myself up to the yard yesterday morning, all sweaty and fluey (my hair actually looked a lot like Piper's) and mucked out. I told the horses to behave as I was feeling dreadful. They immediately interpreted this as weakness, towed me over to some grass, stuck their heads down, started grazing, and were generally massive pains. Thanks for the sympathy, bitches.

Once I'd got home and collapsed on the sofa, still covered in mud but feeling too weak to make any effort to be less minging, Ian took the kids out to give me a break. I got stuck into Orange Is The New Black - and naturally, the family managed to return right in the middle of a steamy lesbian sex scene. I didn't get to the remote fast enough. The kids, who can spot trouble from a mile off, lit up with glee.

'What are those ladies DOING, Mummy?' 'Why is that lady taking that other lady's bra off, Mummy?'

My brain was too mangled with flu to come up with any remotely believable excuse, so I just let them put on some ghastly nonsense about evil cats instead wend went to sleep. Mother Of The Year, that's me.

I felt a lot better today, and managed to ride Angel. She and I had our usual argument about working correctly in an outline, but we did some nice trot work at the end, which was good enough for me. We've got a lot of work ahead of us though, given that we've signed up for the Wobbleberry Challenge. Aimed at slightly older riders like myself, whose nerves of steel have weakened a bit along with our pelvic floor, us Wobbleberries have to do a BE 80 level one day event by next autumn.

Eeek! I've always wanted to event, but it's scary. That said, I'm kind of a thrill seeker. I've always liked doing things that scare me. I've got no interest in jumping out of planes or munching on giant insects, but something challenging - yes please.

Me and Roxy did attempt a one day event at the beginning of summer. A baby one, just 60cms. It was a disaster. We did OK in the dressage, but when I turned Roxy into the showjumping arena, she trotted out backwards. It wasn't a good start, and things didn't improve from there. I'd foolishly left my whip in the car -why, WHY? - and she smugly turned in three refusals and that was that. We were eliminated before we even got to the cross-country phase. And the jumps were totally diddy. She could have stepped over them!

A few weeks after that, we did an Eventer's Challenge at Checkendon in Oxfordshire and got round successfully but I missed a jump (totally my own error) so we were eliminated. And a week or so after that, we went back for Combined Training (dressage and showjumping) and won.

And then Roxy went lame. Turned out it was her arthritis - and maybe that's why she was so erratic on the jumping front, forward one week and refusing everything the next. Anyway, I got her hocks medicated, but decided that eventing was asking too much of her, which is why Angel came along.The Wobbleberry Challenge is - hopefully - the start of our eventing career together.

So that's the plan. We're both unfit and don't know what we're doing, but we've got the winter to get to know each other and get into shape. I'll try and kick my addiction to Twirls - actually, that's going too far. One challenge at a time is enough!

Along the way, we're raising money for Wilberry Wonder Pony, a fabulous charity that raises money for bone cancer research. I'm aiming to raise £300 - hopefully more. I'll be banging on about sponsorship over the coming months, and it would be wonderful if anyone reading this would like to bung some cash via JustGiving. Even a couple of quid would be great - it all adds up. Here's a button to help you, look! And please stay tuned to this blog as I'll be posting updates on our progress. If it all goes quiet, then I'm probably having a massive panic, in which case please send me sympathy and Twirls. Thanks!

Dressage diva

Sorry, dear readers, for the week or so that has elapsed since my last blog post. I meant to post much more regularly than this, but I'm so busy, I barely have time to answer texts, let alone blog. My life is one mad dash from home to the yard to school to work to school to the yard to home again. I'm in such a rush all the time, I keep forgetting things - like taking Sam to Beavers, to my husband Ian's great annoyance when he turned up to collect him, only to be told he hadn't turned up due to his irresponsible mother forgetting to bring him. (I added the bit about the irresponsible mother, the Beavers leaders didn't say anything of the sort. Ian definitely thought it though!)

My memory is so sieve-like, I keep thinking it must be early onset Alzheimers. In fact, I had to see the doctor about an unrelated issue (don't worry, I'm fine) and told him that I'm tired all the time.

'There's something wrong with me,' I said weakly. 'I'm exhausted. I keep forgetting stuff. It's weird. I need a blood test.'

'Describe your average day,' he said. So I did. He said, 'I'm pretty sure you're just tired.'

I asked him if he could prescribe me something to make me less tired - but apparently there's nothing legal that will do that. I've probably got a few contacts from my old illegal rave days...But I'm a responsible adult these days (curses!) which means my options are a) do less or b) stop complaining about being tired. Option b it is then!

Roxy excelled herself this week by ditching her sharer again. It was during a riding lesson, and I didn't actually see what happened, but she does have a nice sideline in shuddering sideways spooks which can take the unwary by surprise. Sticky bum jods are always a sensible option when riding Rox. Her sharer has decided to go back to riding school horses until the bruises heal, which I completely understand. Luckily, I've got another sharer for Roxy, a lovely girl who hasn't come off her yet and seems to be really enjoying her riding sessions, so fingers crossed this one stays the distance.

I jumped on the little minx (Roxy, not her sharer, although hopefully I didn't really need to clarify that) yesterday for a spot of dressage. I was going to ride Angel, but as I hadn't had a chance to look at, let alone practice, the test, I decided to ride Rox instead as I thought we'd done Prelim 18 before. Turned out we hadn't - it's got a serpentine in it, and I've definitely never ridden a test with a serpentine before - but considering I was literally riding it as the caller called it, we did really well with a score of 64.04%. OK so we were sixth out of six but the highest score was 69% (my lovely friend Claire) so there wasn't much in it. The judge is known to be firm but fair, so I was very happy with my chestnut madam. She might not be kind to sharers, but she pulls it out of the bag for me when I need her to!

Here's our test sheet. It says Angel on it, not Roxy, but it was Roxy that I was riding! We've qualified for the area championships so that confusion could prove slightly awkward, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Got a rosette too, and I do love a rosette.

On Friday, I had a jumping lesson on Angel with Susie Pilbeam, the South Oxfordshire Riding Club (SORC) instructor, who really helped me get going with Roxy. It was in the indoor school at Attington Stud, near Thame, and mine and Angel's first outing together since I got her. She travelled nicely (although I really must get that trailer serviced as soon as I have some cash, I've been driven into and also accidentally hit a wooden shed with it this year so it's definitely due an overhaul) and was a bit spooky at Attington, but remarkably calm really. We definitely need to work on fitness and impulsion, but she jumped everything, even when she was clearly flagging. She's such a good, genuine girl.

I gave myself a day off riding today due to feeling like a limp, used tissue, but even limp, used tissues still have to muck out and feed their horses. I feel even more limp and, er, used (not sure this analogy is really working for me) now. But another week beckons, and with it, the prospect of clipping my hairy beasts. (As soon as I've retrieved the clippers from the Post Office, where they're currently languishing. It does annoy me - if you miss the post, they take your parcel to the sorting office in town which is miles away and has no parking, so you have to drive to town, park in the expensive main car park, then walk across town for the pleasure of queuing up for hours before you can finally get your hands on the item that you PAID TO HAVE POSTED TO YOU! Grrr.) It'll no doubt be another week before I get round to posting again, so see you on the other side!