Monday 20 June 2011

A Horse called Bob...



Ok, so I am temporarily hijacking my own blog in order to kiiind of turn it into a travel blog. I keep forgetting to write things down so maybe if I blog things might get recorded? I don't know.

I am currently in Ireland! Yesterday I traveled from the beautiful post card perfect historical town that is Adare. Sooo lovely. Now I am in guest house/riding centre outside a really small town called Whitegate in County Clare. The house I am staying in is a renovated stone cottage that is roughly 300 years old and has been restored and added to. It has all these different levels and corridors and it's kind of like a labyrinth. There's also a small tower up to the next level as well. It's been decorated using all these nifty vintage things and old saddles and horse equipment. There's old leather suitcases, old medicine bottles, and really old books lying around and pine cones and quills and flowers and candles and it is pretty much exactly as I would like to decorate a house. It is perfect. 

Outside my window I can see the small stable where our horses were kept last night (usually they stay in fields) and there's 2 donkies as well. Everything is so green, even the rocks! And I never knew Ireland had so many pine trees! It's kind of like riding through a huge Christmas tree plantation! 

The food here is amazing. I've eaten walnut and jam cake which was amazing, cherry cheesecake, and had the usual baked dinner and English breakfast. Today for afternoon tea we were served chocolate and red wine cake. Possibly the best thing I have ever ever tasted and I might need to ask for the recipe. The food is cooked by a lovely French girl called Astrid and she's well deserving of the job.

My room mate is named Peggy and is from Germany. Shes a couple of years older than me and speaks a fair amount of English, which is good because I speak no German obviously. She has told us tomorrow we speak only German :P I'm sure it will go well... The other girl here is my age and from Canada. Her name's Jennifer and we all get along pretty well. It's nice just being the 3 of us and aged similarly. Tomorrow though we will be joined by an American couple. Hopefully they will be nice too.

We rode for 5 hours today with a small break in the middle for the cake. The landscape around here is so varied. Pine trees, moor's, heath land, forests, farmland, stone. My horse is a gorgeous little red roan pony named Bob Marley for his wicked hair styles, dreadlocks and permanent bed hair image, and also for his very laid back personality. He suits me perfectly and hasn't run off with me yet. He struggles a little to keep up after we've been cantering for a while so I don't think he could run very far with me if he did haha. But I am very much in love with him. 

I have never appreciated the surefootedness of horses more than I did today. The mud they went through was easily up to their knees and there were rocks everywhere and steep inclines and downward slopes with all kinds of roots and rocks in the way. I am very impressed. And as you ride around here there's horses absolutely everywhere! Part of the moor we went through is a sanctuary set up by a guy called Pat and you can take old or ill horses there or horses without a home. Apparently there's about 60 horses there. We had a couple of ponies tag along for a while. As you walk past paddocks all the ponies come up and walk along with you and talk to the horses we ride. They're every known horse colour around here too. Not all bay and chestnut like at home. There's red roan and blue roan and piebald and skewbald, and palamino, and dun, and grey, and black, and spotted and all so adorable. Most are Irish ponies and they poke their little faces over the fence at you. And when I get home I want a donkey. They are so amazingly friendly and will follow you everywhere. Every single one I've met so far has been lovely, and there are a lot of them around here. There's also a couple of tiny tiny kittens here. They can't be more than 4 weeks old. They cry every time someone looks into their stall and I want to smuggle them into bed with me. Their little noises make me want to cry!

I am kind of in pain already :P My knees are killing me and so is my back from all the cantering and posting to a ponies rough trot haha. But still so amazing and I am going to try and force myself to make it to the end of the week! I don't care if they have to strap me on Bob, I'm sure he'd look after me!



Bob!

Bye! x

1 comment: