Another Saturday in my freelance life :)

I woke up in Hampshire today. Now that sounded a bit as if I got drunk and woke up in another county but no, that was not the case! So yes, I woke up in Hampsire today. Quite ubruptly. My dear host's alarm is always rather loud and punches you out of sleep straight away. She will be forgiven though as she is a brill host overall ;)

The only good thing about rainy days in winter is that they bring slightly milder weather and I can go from cannot-move amount of clothes to move-slowly quantity of layers.
It was actually quite pleasant today; rain passed quickly and the sun came out. I helped turning out some horses in the morning (was awake enough to actually put the correct rug on as oppose to last time when I tried to turn a poor fellow out in his stable rug AND his turn out rug, oops!) before starting my working day examining for Pony Club badges; must say I do actually enjoy being involved in the PC activities.
I haven't had much to do with the Pony Club as a child but had a good read about it and they are rather impressive organisation with an interesting history and tradition.
Then onto a fun private jumping lesson with a girl who has been riding with me on and off for about 10 months and it's great to see her gaining in skills and confidence. That was followed by a group lesson of intermediate teenagers and as I won't teach them for the next couple of weeks (due to being booked for my day courses) I decided to give them a proper workout! When I was learning to ride we did this exercise when we had to slide down onto the left and right side of the saddle in walk, trot and canter. I didn't go as far as canter today but we did a lot of sliding down in halt, walk and trot, plenty of slaloms with sliding again (that was very entertaining to watch I must admit!) and cantering with hands high above the heads, on their hips, to their sides - parents had a bit of a show. The riders seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, everybody stayed on and not surprisingly they all started to be much more aware of their body balance. There is this one pony who just absolutely hates unbalanced, floppy riders. I really do like him but he is a bugger to teach on. However, today, he went so well for his rider. And that's a lot of what all this is about - getting the riders better so the horses can enjoy their work ;) As a result the riders will have even more pleasure out of the sport.

My afternoon and evening was focused more on training style teaching with my regular riders being put through their paces. This really stretches my brain too which is what I like the most about teaching but as I have to think and plan and think again at every moment days like today leave me quite tired.
A bit of rest is due now I think before full day teaching tomorrow. Fingers crossed for a nice, sunny, dry day in Surrey!