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Viva Diva!!
Sep. 14th, 2011 07:01 pmShe's back! After nine weeks' rest, Diva was reunited with me tonight. I was warned she'd be stiff, and clumsy, and generally unfit, but...
For an animal who has done nothing for that amount of time, I was impressed. She can still bend laterally, though she does have a wobble, especially when she gets tired, and her trot's very unbalanced until she loosens off. We worked in a ratio of around two-thirds walk to one-third trot, and while she was really knackered (she's gone from 560 odd kilos to 619 kilos in weight, evidently, which is an awful lot of extra weight to carry) at the end, she did a grand job and I was very chuffed with her.
Looks like she's had a lucky escape - I had her down for the Royal Order of the Bullet, but she's bounced back, with nothing more than some very sympathetic management, and some courses of bute. She didn't even need to be shipped off to the Vet Hospital. Okay, so she's not going to be allowed to jump again, but hey, I don't think she's really bothered about that.
Much as I like Molly, I have to admit that Diva and I are better suited to each other. She's a wee bit bigger, and as a result, my legs are in the right position and I do feel good on her. And her trot is so comfy - though I only managed to get her moving at a level which my instructor described as having about 65% of the energy required in an active trot. I wasn't bothered much about that - after her lay-off, I think she needs to get more flexible before she's expected to do anything really physically active.
And finally, a garden observation. My first begonia has come in today for the winter - the stems had all snapped during the gales, so I figured I'd just bring it indoors. Thus officially begins the annual race against the dreaded vine weevil - this particular corm has no signs of active vine weevil predation, so I'm hoping I've beaten the weevil grubs to it. Still, I soaked the corm in water for a few minutes, and I'll be checking it religiously for grubs over the next couple of days - I'm not leaving anything to chance.
One down, about fifteen to go. One to me, zero to the vine weevils - so far!
Incidentally, after having a stressful morning getting a report finished in time, I managed to de-stress myself this afternoon by checking out the following website:-
http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/collections/our_collections/subcategory.asp?cid=1&scid=56
Tiles, tiles, and more tiles. If you're a complete saddo about modern ceramics (I guess that includes me then...) you'll love this one. I'm incredibly sad - I kept on clicking to the very end!
For an animal who has done nothing for that amount of time, I was impressed. She can still bend laterally, though she does have a wobble, especially when she gets tired, and her trot's very unbalanced until she loosens off. We worked in a ratio of around two-thirds walk to one-third trot, and while she was really knackered (she's gone from 560 odd kilos to 619 kilos in weight, evidently, which is an awful lot of extra weight to carry) at the end, she did a grand job and I was very chuffed with her.
Looks like she's had a lucky escape - I had her down for the Royal Order of the Bullet, but she's bounced back, with nothing more than some very sympathetic management, and some courses of bute. She didn't even need to be shipped off to the Vet Hospital. Okay, so she's not going to be allowed to jump again, but hey, I don't think she's really bothered about that.
Much as I like Molly, I have to admit that Diva and I are better suited to each other. She's a wee bit bigger, and as a result, my legs are in the right position and I do feel good on her. And her trot is so comfy - though I only managed to get her moving at a level which my instructor described as having about 65% of the energy required in an active trot. I wasn't bothered much about that - after her lay-off, I think she needs to get more flexible before she's expected to do anything really physically active.
And finally, a garden observation. My first begonia has come in today for the winter - the stems had all snapped during the gales, so I figured I'd just bring it indoors. Thus officially begins the annual race against the dreaded vine weevil - this particular corm has no signs of active vine weevil predation, so I'm hoping I've beaten the weevil grubs to it. Still, I soaked the corm in water for a few minutes, and I'll be checking it religiously for grubs over the next couple of days - I'm not leaving anything to chance.
One down, about fifteen to go. One to me, zero to the vine weevils - so far!
Incidentally, after having a stressful morning getting a report finished in time, I managed to de-stress myself this afternoon by checking out the following website:-
http://www.ironbridge.org.uk/collections/our_collections/subcategory.asp?cid=1&scid=56
Tiles, tiles, and more tiles. If you're a complete saddo about modern ceramics (I guess that includes me then...) you'll love this one. I'm incredibly sad - I kept on clicking to the very end!
