It’s absolutely frantic here right now. I am only riding one horse a day with all of our babies and our own horses out of work. Colombo is also enjoying being a pig pen in the mud. So why “frantic” I hear you ask…. because the move is a tomorrow-type reality. It’s as though we have been at training camp and now it’s the Olympics (of moves). The trailer is out on the road every second day at least, taking loads of horse stuff and house stuff indiscriminately. In addition to our own belongings, I have been scouring sales and second hand shops to buy furniture for our absolutely lovely big viewing lounge. I haven’t had access to a viewing lounge this nice for a long time. I bought the coffee pot first…..
We would not be on track to move in if it wasn’t for Ron McCullough who has been building walls in stalls at super speed and Paul Tidman who is moving electrical components around. The plumber has been and all the water works and checks out, the bedding is ordered (TONS of it, bedding down a whole new barn is HUGE), and hay is organized….Whew!. We have had wonderful support from the Datta family who own Balsam Hall. The barn we are moving to has been empty for a long time and there has been lots of work to do. It’s all coming together thanks to volunteers like Paul and Maureen Williams who have done massive amounts everywhere in the barn on their days off, we are also very grateful to Lisa and Rick Howard for hours of brutal physical work. Everybody here in the Hawkridge team has been working extra hard to pull it all out the hat. So far we are winning but it’s still VERY exciting and I will be glad when we are in situ and it’s all over.
In addition to the move, Eventing Nights at the Royal are to be on the fifth and sixth of November this year. That means we ship our horse in on the fourth. Not much time to get the new barn settled in! The RWF is always a great time. Selena and I spend far too much and do lots of horsey Christmas Shopping. It’s a glorious place to shop, warm, dry and packed with horsey goodies, what more could you ask for. Then of course there is the food. I am almost positive that if you go back through the blog year by year I probably go on and on about the food at the RWF every time. Still…it calls for some serious pre starving so that you can max out and still have room for the Apple Dumpling at the end.
The internet is so fantastic for being able to keep track of what is happening in International eventing and eventing in the USA. I love keeping track of the live scoring plus all the video that appears on YouTube after every big event. We have added a link on our blog page to O’Hanlon Eventing on Facebook. A good place to see links, videos and photos from all over the web of Selena and the O’Hanlon Eventing Team. I have been linking to Boekelo-tv and watched all sorts of stuff on FEI tv. The internet is connecting eventers worldwide.
You may have noticed I am a bit short on photos! On the Sunday of the WEG I ran out of battery halfway through the jog up. I took some photos with my iphone as the day went on, but not quite what I would have liked. Can you believe I ran out of battery at that point, BEFORE the show jumping and the medal ceremony. UGH. The really bad news is that I can’t find my battery charger, what with the move and all. Sigh! If I can’t find it soon, I will have to resort to my phone again to document ‘The Move’.
