The venue is booked and all arranged, we have

I wake up to hear the sound of heavy rain splattering against the window and i am so please that we have hired the indoor arena. So I leap out of bed...ok... I scrample out of bed and groggily wander to the bathroom... eat...no not in the bathroom..downstairs and then jump in the car and set off. I decide to take the Mondeo as it has cruise control and is so comfy to drive... I am happily driving along and see my turn off..as I dip the clutch it feels like my leg has gone numb. I am worried for a few minutes as I am still not fully recovered from being ill but then I realsie it's not me it's the clutch...its busted and now I can't get it into gear. So now there I am at 9.20am literally 10min away from the venue stuck in pouring rain at the top of the slip road with my hazard lights flashing. I phoned Dawn Amour who laughed at me but then said "No worries and I'll let the girls know" I then called Brian who inturn called the rescue service. 30-40min I'm told I will need to wait...then I get a call from the rescue service..."I have to inform you that for safety reasons we advise you to vacate your car and stand on the other side of the crash barrier" "Oh! Thanks but its raining and I don't want to get wet" anyway not to worry after only a 15min wait the RAC turn up. I get out the car while he pushes it to the left lane (I was stuck in the right hand lane) The RAC bloke then told me to sit in the car so I didn't get wet. I laughed to myself thinking ..One says get out the car and another says get in...15 min later Brian turns up in my car, we swap keys...Brian is towed home and I set off for the venue arriving at 10.30am...only an hour late which is not so bad and I walk into the arena to a welcoming chorus of "Hi Dawn ..you made it then"

Everone was playing with their horses so for a bit I just stood and watched and chatted. Then everyone came into a horseshoe and I mentioned somehting I learnt while with Inga on the beach course. "Rocks in the River" This is asking your horse for vertical flexion by using phases on the side rather than the poll. eventually you will get to where you touch the hair on zone 3 and your horse flexes willingly. This is played though at the stand stil then at the walk and trot from both sides. There is more to this than just applying pressure but I'd be here all day explaining what with the speed I type lol.

Pic 1

In Pic 1 you can see Evelyn playing with Merlin and at first Merlin was having none of it, the little lad was only confused and didn't know what was being asked of him but Evelyn was great with him, gentle and patient and rewarding meant soon at the lightest feel Merlin was responding and flexing lovely. Maverick...has he done this before lol...Julia merely touched his hair and he was stretching right down to the floor making it look so easy. Rocky what a lad and what a handful...Full of high spirits and wanting to have fun, he'd nip Carole to entice her to play and would shake his head when Carole said no...he's such a character.. Carole ignored his attempts to play and being gentle with him Rocky was soon saying..oh all right I'll play your game and stretched.
Soon while some carried on with the "Rocks in the River" others started doing other things which is brilliant.. There's no pressure to follow anything and after all these fun days are yours to do as you want.. the rules are "There are no rules" apart from we can't have stallions here lol, anyway there was Dawn Amour playing the circling game with Monty a lovely grey lad with a gorgeous long flowing mane... in the opposite corner to Dawn was Julia having fun with Maverick playing with the big Parelli Ball (see Pic 2At first he seemed to be saying "I ain't going anywhere near that" Julia just kept smiling and Maverick who was so curious decided having a sniff of the ball wasn't so bad after all. Then I watched Ulrike (Pic 3) wth an umbrella over her shoulder asking a reluctant Casey to come to her. Casey planted her feet so I suggested to Ulrike that she also backed up to take the pressure off Casey. This worked and soon by playing with the umbrella Ulrike could stand still and Casey confidently walked right up to her... Way to go Ulrike...

Pic 2	Pic 3

Soon Ulrike went on to play with Casey using the Parelli ball and though doubtful at first Ulrike soon had Casey backing up to it and sniffing it . Carole started playing the circling game with Rocky and Rocky being Rocky had his own version.. a few bucks here and there and not forgetting his showing off stunt of rearing up. Carole was having none of that and everytime he reared Carole made him back up... Uh! This isn't the game thinks Rocky, this is getting hard and with passive persistance Carole soon persuaded Rocky that it is rather nice to walk on a circle. Until he decided to try his antics again..lol Oh! Rocky you little rascal.. (Pic 4 - Rocky and Carole) By the way for you readers, Rocky is never aggressive he's just mischievious and has a high play drive. Good thing he isn't the size of chance at a whopping 17+ hh.

Pic 4

1pm and it's time for Lunch

Armed with about 30 Parelli DVD's I head off to the shop for a coffee and hand out a free DVD to anyone who I pass. As soon as the word free is mentioned hands come quicker than I can give them out. By the time I reached the shop I onky hand a few left which were placed on the table for anyone to help themselves to. So I grabbed a coffee but that went warm by the time I got sat down. We all got together in a circle which all we needed was a little camp fire. Julia went to sit down then slowly fell off her seat.. "What happened there" I asked "Dunno, I felt myself going but couldn't stop" laughs Julia... Us lot being such a friendly bunch coulnd't stop laughing either. The horses were all settled until something caught Rocky's eye who then started doing loads of half circles. He set Maverick of who soon settled and Monty and Merlin who were next to us tried to turn around to see what was going on.
Whoosh-----------> All too soon it was 2pm and we decided lunch was over and time to get playing again. GAMES ----->First game was "Quick, Fire, Draw" or as I called it "The Carrot Stick game"... You can use a cone, balloon, bucket or anyhting really, I'd have liked balloons but all we had was a bucket. So you place the bucket on the ground. Two people lay there CS down with teh handles touching the bucket. The person stands as far away from teh bucket as they can still holding the end of the Savvy String. A count down is given.. 3, 2, 1, Draw. On the word draw the person pulls on the SS which, make sthe CS flick up into the air. The person grabs the CS by the handle then tries to hit the bucket. I was hopeless at this, not once did I manage to catch the CS.
So who played who:

Dawn Morton v's Evelyn Essam winer Dawn
Brenda Foster v's Moira Dixon winner Brenda
Carole Ryan v's Dawn Amour winner Carole
Dawn Emerson v's Julia Bye winner Julia
Ulrike had to leave due to other arrangements.

The final was between Dawn Moreton and Brenda and it was a tight one, neck and neck till it was 3-3 and all was down to the last game. Just by a whisker Dawn managed to hit the bucket first and declared the winner. Dawn then give her lap of honour around the bucket.

Now for some Conga's... these simulations are great fun, first up was played in groups of three. You stand in a line holding onto each others waist. The person in front is the horses head, the one in the middle is the rider and the one at the back is the Q's. The idea is the rider has to control the horse by walking forward or trotting, yoyo, driving the Q's etc.... Conga A was Julia, Moira and Carole and Conga B was Dawm M, Evelyn and Dawn A.

Conga A	Conga B

I and Brenda were happy to watch and it was so funny. After everyone had experienced being in all three positions and given each other feedback we then went on to playing another conga. This one really did get us all in fits of laughter. Played in groups of 4 so I joined in (until I got worn out). Conga A was Dawn M, Me, Brenda and Evelyn and the others making up Conga B. The idea for this game is you have three people making up the horse and the fourth person is the human who guides the horse using a Savvy String (instead of a 12ft line as we did not have one spare) and a carrot Stick. Those being the horse could do as they wished, they could be RB dominant, LB unconfident. Spooky, idle whatever they decided, it was up to the human to find the savvy to deal with the situation. Conga A was pretty much well behaved but Conga B...well what a handful ... bucking, bolting, refusing to move and at one point when I was resting chased after me... lol.

Conga A	Conga B
Conga A	Brenda

Can you notice the glint in Carole's eye, you gotta watch her, she was doing some huge bucks earlier on when being the Q's. we had loads of people watching us and they must have thought we were crazy then realised just what fun we were all having. Some people started asking questions and thought it was great. Our horses even started to watch us. I'd have loved to know what they were thinking.
I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was 3pm already. So for the last 30min everyopne played with their horses and got their breaths back. At 3.30pm it was time to leave, after saying my thanks to everyone and my cheerio's I set off to see to my boys. (to which I decided to keep them in as they were cold and shivering). It was a brilliant day and the rain didn't effect us one bit. Just to finish here's a nice photo of Dawn Amour with her pony Monty.

A Brilliant Day