Since the ponies took a back seat during my exams, we now unfortunately are yet to get our plaited HOYS (Horse of the Year Show) ticket. I wouldn’t say we’ve been overly relaxed about getting the ticket, however we have definitely now reached panic point and with less than 10 qualifiers left, of which we can only go to about three. I really hope that we’re not about to miss out on my favourite show of the year for the first time in 10 years. Thankfully, now that I am back at home, we’ve been able to properly get going with the ponies really for the first time all year, and hopefully this will have made a huge amount of difference as they now have our full attention.
In more worrying news, mummy, who loves a challenge, has decided to take up bee keeping. I was made to go with her to collect them so that I could remember all the information that she wouldn’t. This was lucky as once we had arrived, she turned into a little girl as if going to collect her first pony, and her extreme level of excitement meant that she wasn’t even able to listen to John the bee man, let alone try to remember what he was telling her. She then began to deliberate names for each individual bee from a 1000 bee swarm. John, however, told her it might be a bit tricky and so that idea was shut down. This, thankfully, also calmed her a bit. However, she then unfortunately caught sight of the all the winning prizes that John had from his bees. She has promptly announced that she is now ready to give up the workers (working hunter ponies) and pursue a future in bee keeping competitions. Thank goodness I was there yet again (pictured top, ready to help with Mycroft), as she has obviously forgotten that John said the bees wouldn’t be ready to even start making honey for another year, let alone start a career in competing.
In the midst of my restful time, I have also had the stress of taking my driving test. Having passed my theory first time during half term, my family, who as well as a challenge also love any sort of sense of achievement, were suddenly filled with immense pride. Far too much, in fact, for something that really takes very little skill. As a result, now that I was practically being hailed as the next Lewis Hamilton, I became very spurred on, and with my parents by my side telling me I must book my test immediately as I was obviously such a talent. I decided that it was an excellent idea and managed to get a date a week after my A-levels finished, thinking that it was probably better just to get it over with, and that there shouldn’t be any problem since I was evidently so skilled.
Cashel Bay JJ at the water treadmill
As it turns out, this was in fact a really, really thick idea. I wasn’t having any lessons during my A-levels, and when I finished for summer, I suddenly had a week to find a driving instructor who could both give me lessons and come to the test with me. It took the whole week just to find such a man at such short notice, meaning I was incredibly ill prepared and finally realised that the theory actually counts for nothing.
Continued below…
Lucy Eddis’ horsey teen blog: ‘now is not the time’ and a very special judging style
Lucy is battling with the painful task of
Seeing as it is clear where this is going, I don’t know why I’m putting myself through the shame of telling you that I failed, with a colossal five majors and four minors. Funnily enough, about 10 minutes in, the examiner had to use the brake, I won’t tell you why because it’s just too embarrassing, and I thought, “bother, I’ve now got to go another half an hour when I’ve already failed anyway. What a complete waste of time”. Sadly, I had been too dim to notice that I had in fact failed twice by that time anyway.
While I was getting on with that, we have also started taking our ponies to a water treadmill. Percy took to this very well, however the same can’t be said for the supposed schoolmaster, Cash, who made an unbelievable fuss. We have always said that despite his seemingly calm and collected frame of mind, he is a secret worrier, and sure enough, it took us forever just to even get him near the treadmill, and once he was in, he wouldn’t stop crying for help. Let’s hope he’s better next time as I’m not sure we can face going through the whole operation again…
Lucy
