Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Holding her horses

excited but a l'il bit nervous...



up up and away :)



45 mins later - an old hand



Due to time and energy constraints, I’ve generally tried to do a 3 for 1 deal with the girls’ activities where possible – they all learn piano from the same teacher on the same afternoon and all play netball for the same club – it was either that or clone myself… But every now and then one falls hard, passionately and individually as is the case with Amy and horses.

She recently worked a couple of mornings at the Collingwood Children’s Farm http://www.farm.org.au/ through their school holiday program which entitled her to riding lessons in the afternoons. She came home bursting with enthusiasm and horsey love and sat down to write her Dad - in Paris buying fugly caps ;) - a 22 line email saying “it was the very best experience of my entire life”. Head over heels, she would be smuggling a horse home if we had more than the obligatory inner suburban postage stamp sized court yard. Just seems to me that if you feel that strongly about something, it should probably be something you get to do more than once.

A little investigation, a friend's recommendation and off we went to Peppercorn Equestrian Centre for her first lesson this afternoon and such perfect, quitessentially Melbourne autumn weather for it too. Amy learned how to brush Robbie the pony, put on the saddle etc, weave around cones, halt, gee-up and all those other technical terms – of course she’s now completely hooked and apparently we need to go visit “Horseland” (which sounds like we should be climbing the Magic Faraway Tree to get to) for boots, jodpurs and helmet. And yes, I am aware that I'm getting ridiculous amounts of vicarious pleasure out of this? Just luvving it all – the horsey childhood I always pined for myself ;) I’m still in shock that she could make the horse go in the direction she wanted him to!

4 comments:

Georgie said...

That's so great, and of course you need all the paraphernalia, jodhpurs and boots (velvet riding jacket too!) are an essential outfit for any girl.
It's a shame you can't fit a pony in the backyard, Lucky probably wouldn't be very impressed with that, but there could be room for a rat or parrots instead? (LMAO)
xxx

Sue J said...

Don't you dare put thoughts in my head norty girl, a velvet riding jacket sounds too gorgeous and completely unnecessary (AND irresistible)

Absolutely NO room for rats or stick insects around here!!! :P Poor deprived children...

Georgie said...

that riding jacket can't be purple.......
gosh Grinder your poor children, I hope they have at least 2 cubby houses, a trampoline and a sandpit?

Emma-Kate Castricum said...

Oh Sue, Amy looks so happy! I grew up on a horses back and it was the best lifestyle any girl could wish for. Tell your hubby, girls who are head over heals with horsies never have time for boys! My Dad thought it was great. And most of the guys who showed against me as I got older were all gay LOL so I was safe!! (until I started competing in all of the interstate Royal shows and mixing with the cattle men at the competitors bars at night, but we'll keep that one quite)