New gates required

It was showery today, but we managed to catch some good weather and it was pleasantly cool.
I had another short session with Remy in-hand on the yard and a lungeing session with Anky. After all the problems we've had with Anky's health I think she's starting to fitten up a little. I hope so , anyway.

Not brilliant pics, Jim took them with his dinky camera.
Travelled into Limoges today to look for some gates for the drive. We don't really know what we want, but after today at least we know what we don't want. How difficult can it be to get a pair of gates!

Une tempête particulièrement violente

La France commence à affronter une tempête particulièrement violente - tonight according to the meteo. I hate storms, especially lightning, which, since we arrived in France has fried my modem twice.  Happily lightning isn't forecast, but I'm not looking forward to the very strong winds and rain!!


It wasn't too bad this morning, fairly bright but with a strong blustery wind. I did some in-hand stretching and flexing exercises with Remy inside  and then took Anky outside to do the same. She's the perfect horse to start my in-hand work with, she's patient, and, most importantly, very forgiving. When I do anything with her it makes me want to ride her even more, I miss it.  I'm afraid to even think it in case she throws herself to the floor and starts rolling around in agony. I'm going to try my best to do more with her in-hand and on the lunge, if I can get her fitter I may be able to start riding her again.
We've brought the trailer back round onto the yard so we can recommence our trailer training, but by the time it came to bringing them in the weather was way too bad to do anything constructive. Just as I was bringing Bonbon out through the field gate the lid blew off one of our water containers and scared her half to death, but she was such a good girl and stood (relatively) calmly with me until it had stopped blowing around the yard. 
Roll on Spring!!!

In-hand inside

The weather was awful this morning, it was peeing down when I got up, it stopped for about half an hour while I was grooming and tacking up, but then just as I was ready to go out it started raining again. The wind had got up and was really blowing. So, excuse or not, I stayed in the stable and did some in-hand practice.
I thought I'd start with Anky as I need as much  practice as I can get. I groomed her, which I think she quite enjoyed and then put the cavesson on. My aim was to do some flexions and stretches at halt,which is what I'm going to do with Remy as preparation for further work in-hand. She was a good girl and we got some nice flexions left and right followed by stretches down.
I then groomed and tacked up Remy asked him for halt and then moved to his shoulder. He's not used to the close work and was very interested in what I was doing there, snuffling in my pocket and trying to back up.
I stood him next to the wall with his bum in the corner and tried again and he stayed at halt (not that he could go backwards). It's funny how he can look round very easily when I want him to face forward, but then when I ask him to give me some bend to the inside , he looks resolutely ahead! Bend to the outside felt easier to me, I asked with the outside rein while pushing gently with my left hand to show him what I wanted and he seemed happy with that. Asking for the inside bend was trickier as he was resisting, so I  put my right hand on his neck and gently massaged until he softened and offered the inside bend. I don't know if that makes sense, it seemed to make sense at the time.  On one point he flipped his nuchal ligament which I was pleased with. I'm not sure how much we learned from our first time, but he stayed calm and wasn't too distracted so I'm happy with it.