Once again I find myself sitting in sunny England and yes the sun is actually shining for the moment. Virgil and I arrived the other night after a long flight from Melbourne. Arvey was scheduled to fly with us but after coming down with a virus the week before the owner wasn't happy with his blood work and so it was decided that he shouldn't fly. So poor Virgil had to undertake the flight all by himself! This was the first time that I had flown with the horses - normally Shane flies with them.
Virgil was happy to be in a paddock after his long flight
Virgil coped very well given that he had no other friends for nearly 36 hours! While we weren't allowed to stay with him during take off and landings, once in the air we could go down and check on him and make sure he had hay and water. The flying didn't seem to bother him at all. However when we stopped in Singapore and Dubai he didn't like the noise of the other cargo being moved around and got a little cranky. But really, horses manage to put up with a lot of stuff that their normal instincts would tell them to run in the other direction
We are staying with Chris Burton whilst overseas. It's nice to have familiar faces around and it also happens to be where Alex Townsend and her team are staying. Virgil will have a day or two to settle in and get over his jet lag and then we will start some light dressage work before Shane, Niki and Olivia arrive on Tuesday.
The plan for Virgil is to go to a couple of one day events to gain some more experience and then tackle Blenheim and Pau. While we are over here we will also visit France and check out the test event for next years World Equestrian Games in Normandy.
Getting some of the bags packed
As always before we left there was a lot of packing to do so out came the packing list and tack trunk. This time to as we were staying longer there was a lot of gear to pack and not only for the horse! There was also Some of Olivia's stuff to travel with Virgil and me and its amazing how much stuff a small child needs! Of course we had to give her a packing limit!
Olivia with just some of her things that now get carted around to events and before you ask - no we did not bring this with us, just her porta cot, pram, car seat …!
So with only one horse to look after this will be a bit of a holiday for me. After all there is only so much that you can do with one horse before they are sick of the sight of people. We will all be fighting over who's going to entertain Olivia! On the upside though we might get to see some of the country side!
