Wales, Spring Break #4: Horses

Beauty out in the field

Rocio and Beauty

Jess and Beauty

Shadow and I

Rocio and Trixie

Shadow bowing for us

Saphire up close and shadow behind her

Beauty doing her little bow

Shadow demonstrating flexibility (and hunger :)

Shadow and I

Gella and Robbie

Gella and Robbie cantering

Conquer

Melody in a funny photo

Justina, Melody, and I

This is the fourth and final post of Wales I'll do, but believe me, it's one of the most special ones! :)

As I mentioned before, Justina is a true horse lover and we would talk about horses and especially Andalusians all the time. Horses always make me extra hyper as I'm so happy being close to them, so you can imagine that when Justina took me to the horse riding place so that I could just take some photos of horses, I was the happiest person in the world :D Not only did I get to take pictures, but I also got to groom both Melody (Justina's current horse) and Robbie (the horse that Gella's taking care of now). I had never done so much horse grooming in my life and I couldn't stop smiling! :) The mere fact that I was surrounded by horses made me feel in heaven. My imagination was galloping wild :) while my camera was taking shot after shot after shot. It was wonderful! This was the pre-story of my whole cooking mayhem - there was a reason for me to be overly excited ;)


Three days later, on Saturday, Justina organized a ride for us at her friend's stables. Can you imagine I was super excited once again?! So excited, in fact, that I managed to forget my camera in the house, so we had to go back just so that I could grab it and take tons of pictures it afterwards... :) We went to the stables at 12 pm and once again had to groom horses. This time, we were taking care of Trixie and Beauty. Trixie is a show pony, so sweet and well-behaved. Beauty is the cutest fluff-ball-of-a-pony baby horsy creature in the world! She's all black and has her long winter coat on which makes her so soft and cuddly! We all loved the two ponies. Rocio even French-platted Beauty's mane - and that was just too cute! :D While we were grooming the two ponies, Ingrid, Justina's friend and owner of the horses, came back from a hack with Shadow (the Welsh cob I got to ride) and Saphire (another gorgeous mare that Ingrid's daughter rides). We were now ready to go for our ride. Rocio got on Trixie, and I rode Shadow. Justina and Ingrid were leading the two ponies so that they wouldn't run off in the field with us uncontrollably wobbling on top of them. We walked around Ingrid's field, took some good shots, trotted a bit, and then took the horses back to the stables for some more grooming. That riding experience made me even happier (if that was possible:). The only thing I regretted was that I had apparently lost training... It was only during the final trot that all I once knew started coming back to me. With that, the desire to go back to Bulgaria and pursue horse riding to the max during the summer also came back :) So that's my plan :) I was a happy camper on cloud nine (i.e. I was experiencing total bliss) that day! It was such a superb experience! :D


As we got back in the car to go back home, I wasn't as excited any more... I knew that I had a paper to finish up for one of my art classes - due in 2 days. How could I sit down and write a paper after such a great day?? Thankfully, we got some more excitement - namely, going to Justina's horseful :) house to do some computer-related stuff; and then having dinner fell into the category of fun things.


I did get to write my paper, on Sunday morning, between 8 and 10 am - I didn't get a lot of sleep, but at least I didn't waste a minute of my final hours in Wales :) Luckily, I got to go to the stables once more to help Gella take care of Robbie, which once again made me want to ride horses and move to Wales and all of that.

Well, when we came back, we chatted for a while until Pookie made us our final, amazing Welsh/Bahamian meal. We ate the food, took some for back home, and reluctantly dragged our suitcases towards the cars parked outside. It was supposed to snow, but that forecast never came true :'( (except for at 3 am that night when I was finishing up my load of laundry back at Richmond). It was time to say goodbye and I was ready to miss a week of school and stay longer, but alas, it was not possible. Plus, I couldn't live a week without Jess and Rocio :) So that was the end of our Welsh experience. It was the best vacation ever! I'll never forget how kind and amazing Pookie, Justina, and everyone else was!

PS: Here are the links to all my pictures again... :)

Wales - Spring Break - most photos
My first visit to the stables with Justina