A Weird Kind of Day

I spent the weekend up the coast at home with with G and our cute little kitty cat. So nice, but it feels weird to not ride for two days in a row!

I ended up getting into work a little late this morning, and was immediately asked how the farrier was. I was like "?!?!"
My coworkers: "Isn't that the guy who puts horseshoes on? Is he good looking?" 

Me: "Yes, a farrier puts on horseshoes but I have no idea why we're talking about this?"
Long story short, my phone autocorrected "ferry" to "farrier" in my email explaining that I would be late this morning. What I meant to say: "I'm going to be 30 min late because I'm going to stay overnight and hop on the ferry in the morning"

View at lunch. One of these days I will take the plane rather than the farrier ferry.

 So...yeah. My office mates spent the first half hour of the day googling farriers and imagining I lead a much more exciting life than I do.

Then I had a presentation to do for work, supposedly for just a few people, mostly coworkers and industry people. Get there and it's in this huge hall and there are a lot of people, it's been advertised to the public. And there is a microphone and a stage. I'm shy. I.just.cant.even. Coworker had to step in and do it for me because it was like a bad dream...my words just left me and I was frozen. Ugghh, I know supposedly practice makes it easier and all that, but that doesn't seem to apply for me. Thank goodness public speaking is sort of optional at my job.  

Awkward presentation made me late for my lesson, so the whole warmup felt rushed and kind of off. Bridget was super keen for about two minutes, then decided she was frozen too, hooves glued deep into the arena sand. Or at least that's what it felt like. We were either underpowered, or strung out and flat. We smashed some jumps. Repeatedly. Our jumping lesson evolved into a much needed flat lesson. 

Canter/trot/canter, pony must be on my aids and must stay round. I had to be very firm with her, but improvements were made. 

Moving forward, Bridget is getting further restrictions on her diet because somehow she's got fatter in her jail cell dry lot. She's magical like that. I'm also under instructions to ride her up the big hill two or three times a week to get her fitness a little better/help her lose weight. It's about a 45 min round trip. It's too steep to do much but walk, so it's kind of boring and I'm guilty of only getting out there on the weekends if I have time. Third on the list: I need to put my spurs back on. I took them off because B was getting spur rubs, but it's hopeless without them. We're going to try roller ball ones and see if they are the magical combination of annoying/motivating but not bruising/rubbing. I'm feeling discouraged about her return to a marginal work ethic.

All I can see here is spur rubs - thank goodness as her summer coat continues to come in the darker hair is shedding out,

Tonight, as I filled out my dressage show entries, I noticed the judge is someone we know. And not on a good way! Long time readers might remember an "interesting" clinic we had last year. If you don't, short version: she was really, really critical and hard. Think George Morris style and up the intensity even further - probably fair critique, quite focused on etiquette, and super harsh in the delivery. Ignorance was no excuse! We served as the bad example all weekend.  It wasn't just me imagining it,  my fellow riders were so scared to be the next "me" a lot of them that rode later cancelled their lessons! Perhaps in the last year she's forgotten the horror that was us? We've moved to a new town so perhaps our anonymity has been restored :) Maybe she still has nightmares about us. Just in case, I will NOT be carrying a whip, and I will sit the trot because I'm still not confident I'm carrying my whip or changing diagonals in correct locations. I will remember forever more to keep the bight of my reins to the right in dressage though ;)

Honestly, while there were some funny moments, it was a bit of a demoralizing day. Thank goodness there is always tomorrow :)