It’s been a very quiet weekend at the yard… most of our friends are in Mozambique for Charlene and Miguel’s wedding…. so almost all lessons were cancelled and even though Dianne asked me to ride Polaris for her while she’s gone (which I was looking very forward to) the weather  didn’t play along at all. We had our first couple of Highveld thunderstorms as well as a nice dose of hail!

Either way, it was a great weekend! We got up very, very early Saturday morning (G, JB and Kyle went to the airshow in Waterkloof) and I went to the Western Shoppe sale to buy new riding boots… my old ones are just up to no good and even though I bought them second hand, they hurt me and with summer arriving my legs seem to swell and I couldn’t actually get them on anymore. So I got a nice pair of Mark Todd riding boots… with a ZIP.. that actually FITS PROPERLY for an absolute BARGAIN!

The sale was an absolute debautury – I was in the queue at 7am… and there were probably about 50 – 100 people infront of me… as soon as the gates opened everyone just ran to the marquee to grab what was up for sale. I was lucky (and clever) enough to find the only pair of 39′s that was up for sale – and though I went back to try and have a look at the rest of the stuff (even though I didn’t have any more money) the people was just so rude and the tent so over-full that I decided to rather give it a skip and leave.

Today (Sunday) we were supposed to have a surprised / unarranged but arranged and forgotten about Tossy Raynor lesson, but once again due to the rainy weather and the arena being flooded we had to cancel it… a pity… but it was also quite refreshing to just lounge around at home and not having to rush somewhere for something or other.

Tomorrow is AHS vaccinations and deworming, so no riding for 2 days… sooo….. Wednesday’s lesson is bound to be interesting!

Next Sunday is the Avis Derby which is ALWAYS awesome!!! So very, very excited about that!

Miss all you guys in Moz – so wish we could be there but hopefully next time!!!

Before the GAS website was redone I kept a blog on another webpage – so for those of you with spare time on your hands who might want to go back right to the beginning of our journey – go to this link.

I met Henriette at the yard bright and early on Sunday morning the 31st of July 2011 to take some nice photos of me and Flag… little did we know that the photoshoot would have to be cut in half due to the toe episode…

Flag was very willing to perform and run around once Flight joined him in the grass arena, so we got some really nice shots of them!!! While Henriette was taking some photos of Beatrice riding bareback, I took Flag to eat some grass in front of Teddy’s stable – the idiot didn’t realise there was something in the stable and when Teddy stuck his head out the stable door Flag SHAT himself, leapt up in the air and landed on my foot… ooooouuuuccccchhh!!! It was very sore but he’s stood on my toes many times before and they weren’t even bruised, so I just hobbled back and waited for Henriette to finish with Bea so we could carry on with some more photos of me and Flag.

Suddenly I felt something wet in my shoe so I asked Pam to just hold Flag so I can take a look – as I took my shoe off it was just blood everywhere… so needless to say the photoshoot was cut short. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but basically my toenail was wripped out of the nail bed – and the nailbed split underneath the nail… so they had to sew the toe back together in the emergency room.

Luckily it’s now almost 3 weeks later and although I still can’t wear my riding boots I’m back in the saddle – looking very sexy with my white tekkies and chaps… not comfortable at all, but at least I can ride again! I’m going back to the doctor on Monday when he will remove the nail he sewed back on (which he only did to protect the burst nail bed underneath) and then we will see if the nail is indeed growing back or not.