being sociable

Well it's a wee bit of a busy period in our social calendar right now (lol, usually we try hard to be unsociable and enjoy our peace) and I've ticked off traditional French lunch (well a couple of Brit twists to keep the Frenchies on their toes) for ten when we entertained our friends from our old place, tomorrow it's a Far Eastern delight for six and we round off with a barbie for some mates on Saturday. Hence blogging is taking a back seat to working the boys and cooking. I'm rather bereft of 'photos at the moment, having lost most of them on the hard drive (thank goodness for blogger and youtube) but here are a couple of shots from yesterday's lunge.....and yes he does turn himself inside out like that, even with no contact, no side reins and no bit.

Today I rode and he was a joy. In line with my thoughts on working with what I have, see previous post, I walked around on washing lines to start. Lucky for me he just keeps walking, no need for leg to keep him going, so I let him take himself along. He chose the track and even took the corners (interestingly he actually went a fair way into them which gives me a really good idea how far further I can ask him) and then we worked on some halts using a slightly opposing seat. It was a great opportunity to suss me out too, was I stiff, where? etc.

We eventually went forward to trot and just worked on a slowing down by voice and the same opposing seat as in the halt transition. Worked on slowing the trot with slowing the rising and then back to some walk lateral work. Shoulder-in/travers alternating on a large circle and incredibly he didn't chuck one of his toys out of the pram, phew. So forwards to the same exercise in trot and he was very 'up' for it, a little curled back but his back was strong and up so I'll forgive that for now. Finished with some shoulder-in up the 3/4 line into a half pass back to the track and he was just the best he's been, probably ever, again that slight curl back but good bend and energy. Just what I needed to punctuate the cooking.