....Dougal!


Yes this France and France likes making rules and regulations, it likes making so many that most french people don't seem to be that bothered about breaking them. Especially road rules like speed limits and solid white lines or private property and no hunting/shooting/fishing signs. I'm with them on this, I hate rules and restrictions so I find it particularly galling that one of the rules that can't be bent if I wish to have Dougal registered with the Haras Nationaux  as Origine C...
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Muddy played the joker this April first, she set out with the dogsbody and his brother to look at a job, boiler installation or something thrilling. So Mud's entertained herself in the van by barking at the trees, jumping on the dash and nashing her teeth at the window, unfortunately during her frenzied car guarding activity she managed to jump on the central locking. And no, the keys hadn't been removed so a frantic rescue operation ensued. Not of mud's, of the keys. The dogsbody obviously h...
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It seems to me that the vast sprawling forests that surround Fontainebleau just to the south of Paris are destination to  a wide variety of adrenalin junkies all seeking their particular thrill fix, as you too will soon discover.

First up we had to get there, you may remember that I had foreseen such a long trailer trip being a particular problem for Turnip travelling alone. It seems like I know my root veg. Turnip said,"Two hours fine, a minute longer, no way, hold on guys, I'm busting out of...
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Please, no more snow
So although this is what it looked like last week from tuesday til friday we did finally get a snow plough round which coupled with a day of rain allowed us to get out. Everywhere was back to a delightful wet bog by then and the spring looked ever so far away.
Thankfully that meant an end to lugging round hay on foot and amusing ourselves watching the little birds feeding

which has been quite amusing since the big fat finches have learnt to ride the carousel,

giving the litt...
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My blogs are getting back to be intermittent affairs and far from meaning there is little to report it's the opposite, we've been busy bees and to be frank by the time I get  in each night I'm far too bolloxed to have brain cells ready to produce text of any description, let alone worth reading.
I notice my last blog is written from the snow, so too is this, obviously snow means less horse stuff and  more time.

Anyway this blog is dedicated to Turnip as his progress hasn't really featured for a...

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Yeah, yeah we had the snow too!  Unlike some of you we actually had polar bears 'dans le coin' .
 To think some of you poor buggars still have snow now! Our snow only stopped us riding for four days (touch wood, there could well be more on the way) but while it was here I thought I should do something useful, so it seemed a cunning plan to break Peggy in, even if she is only two. There are some ponies in Peggy's background, we won't mention names, who weren't that cute to break so it seemed a...
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I don't know how it's been for you, but here it's been a pretty drab start. Grey, grisly wet and depressing.
Despite this or perhaps because of ? We've knuckled down to get some basics learnt, we've trucked Normany, ridden miles and hopefully got some foundations in place, or  we're on the road to being understood at the very least.
Visa has started jumping at Gavray



as has Cloud



Popeye has forded streams



as has Monty



And yes, that's the Mouse back in the saddle remembering how to ride ponies that ...
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Monty's been nagging, nagging and nagging at me, he wants to go and see the christmas lights at Montjoie up the road.
So I threw in a little new year's eve surprise for him and took him up in the trailer to see in the new year!



One minute we were there, then the next we're here;



Welcome 2013!

We had to take Popeye too;



'Cos he'd heard from Visa and Cloud on their coach tour last week that the lights were seriously cool;



So as you can see, all three of us and the camera man had a truly wicked time;



e...
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Before the year is done( and the clock's ticking now) I wanted to catch up with a few of our fearsome and fairsome adventures from this particularly pretty Autumn.
Boy, that seems a long time ago now after weeks of greyness, mist, cloud and rain. How can you have Christmas in a soggy mizzle? It's depressing enough anyhow, at least with a sunny day of crispy snow it feels right!

So anyhow this Autumn we got up to a few tricks outside of the usual pony stuff like breaking Visa;



with spotty dogs, t...
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Hope you all have a very jolly time



with family and friends.



I hope Santa's reindeer remember where you live

 

and Santa



remembers what you wanted



and not what you didn't;




Hope you get to share lots of yummy food but don't make a pig of yourself,



I mean; a pig of yourself



Hope you have a few drinks, but not too many



Most of all we hope you get to have a lot of fun



with all your loved ones.






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we survived the apocalypse! And everyone partook of a little jubilation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9FTcsOycCk

Even Turnip wanted to do dancing, but since he does dancing nearly every time he goes out for a ride he had to   ' make do' with dressing up in the tutu;



It was rather optimistic of the Mayans to predict an armageddon so far into their future I feel, since to the best of my knowledge the Mayan civilization died out rather a long time ago.
Anyhow I'm pleased along with you all that ...
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and welcome  to some new recruits!
As I said in my last post most of the things I spoke about there are the same topics I planned to speak of here. Unfortunately a lot of them are from a very different angle.

By far the hardest thing I had to do this year was part with my dear friend Rog, to say I was heartbroken doesn't really cover it. He has been such a mate to me through thick and thin, well never thin for him! (He was on a constant battle of the bulge regime).
Dear old fat Rog, he loved th...
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So bye bye Blighty........



I'm back in France,back in business, with all the cobs and their jobs..........



(lots of cheesy feet to trim!!).

 We're also finally back with an internet connection courtesy of a flash new satellite dish and very expensive new satellite broadband connection. It's been ever such a long break from the blog spot,but I feel I should catch up my news even if it hasn't been such a good year it's definitely been far more successful than the year before, even if the weather w...
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Dear Queen Elizabeth,
Thank you very much for the success and longevity of your sixty year reign, you continue to provide pleasure and excitement for a great many people.
At this moment in time, I am still unsure as to whether I support the continuation of the Monarchy in Great Britain or not.I can see the arguments both for and against, there can be no doubt that you and your family cost the country a great deal of money but also that you all generate a far greater amount of wealth for the cou...
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Okay guys you've not come forward with many pig homing offers, so we've  had to take another route as we really don't have a pig pen suitable for raising nine pigs.

Firstly we ran the pigs past the tray looking for suitably sized candidates;



Then we picked a pig;



Double take, is this the right pig?



Then we stunned the pig, eewwh!



Killed the pig;

(NOT PICTURED.)

Prepared the pig for cooking;


And cooked the pig;



Yummy Yummy!

Not really, not yet, but we are considering this as a course of action as it doe...
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I had planned to boast to you of the wonderful weekend I had jumping Turnip and Red at Brecey. However as I frequently find it's best not to make predictions of success.

Last Monday Red and Turnip visited Gavray and jumped very well, I arrived home glowing not just because of their perfomances but because Mr Gavray had invited me to use his holiday gite and stabling in exchange for working some hours once I have relocated back to England.
By Wednesday morning I  had truly lost that glow as I c...
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Okay so now I'm going to do a little bit of the catching up as promised..........
Firstly Le Haras du Pin, after several hundred phonecalls the dogsbody finally managed to discover that every tuesday  throughout February and March a young horse clear round showjumping day is held, from 4yo's in the morning to 6yo's in the afternoon. But noone checks the age or passport of your horse, so it basically means the jumps go from smaller to bigger. They informed us on entering that  the height of the...
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Favourite pig;

was busy rooting pig;

so not available for kissing pig;

Which was lucky, as it caused jealous pig;

to be chasing pig
;
 which led to wrestling pig;

squealing pig;

fighting pig;

serious fighting pig;

even victorious pig;

Sadly this left a pooped pig;

which turned to dead pig!;


JUST KIDDING!!

Was only sleeping pig;

leaving favourite pig all forlorn;


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Last week was busy in terms of very big decisions but I didn't do particularly much apart from deciding said decisions. I will come to talk about all this deciding but not now, that can wait for next week.
If I don't get on with a posting shortly I'll be in to next week anyhow and I'm really trying my hardest to be good and keep on top of news for you and memories for me.
Yes we have pigs- lot of pigs, we went from two pigs to ten pigs in just a couple of hours.It all began on friday morning wi...

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Don't know what's been happening round your parts but “Oh my!” the sun has brought out everyone's loving round these parts. Turnip is always your man for a lick if you're after affection, trouble being his licks lead to nips, lead to bites,lead to full on head lock grabs. This bullock is soon to experience this delight but I left the photos here, it just gets ugly. Turnip tries to drag him through our very safe and sturdy garden boundary fence so we'll finish here, all sweetness and ligh...
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It may be necessary for you to refer to last week's post to really get this photo and realise I haven't lost my marbles just yet. You may recall on my first day of breaking Monty I introduced him to being ridden by a bear, it just happened the bear was to hand. I have a decent selection of large fluffy toys used for breaking and jumping and lots else besides. Most purchased for a pound a piece, well a euro actually at the local junk shop.
Since Monty was accustomed to bears it only seemed ...

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About a week, ten days ago I was busy minding my own business mucking out the stables in the dark, about nine at night.(The horses are all living out at night in an effort to maintain all round sanity, sense for them, less work for me). Suddenly there was an almighty crash that made the very rafters shiver and had me running for the door, scanning the skies for evidence of the burning inferno from the bomb just dropped. But no, nothing to be seen.

We are informed by those that know, if inde...

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It's that time of year when hitting the beach is one of my favourite past times. Must be the weather for it!

I guess during the summer it's a drive too far and the days are too full of other more constructive activities. I do like the young horses to go to the beach a couple of times because they usually get to see a string or two of racehorses and they get to experience wide open nothingness which I guess surprises a lot of modern day domesticated horses so used to having close boundaries a...

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Does my bum look big in the this?

Answers on a postcard NOT required, or desired.

(Is it actual possible my backside is the same size as that of a fat horse, it must surely be a trick of the light.)

Other exciting news about the place aside from the apparent expansion of my derriere.

Are;

The dogsbody has now completed work on the hangar, started in the snow( spy Pete under the tape).

He will commence work on the kit plane over the summer so that we intend to be able to offer rock...

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So we got to ride at Le Lion after all..................

Okay, okay so it's not in quite in the capacity we all dream of but I can still say in all honesty that I got to ride at Le Lion d'Angers with a young horse.

It all came about by chance, I had been trawling the internet to find evidence of some “entrainement” show jumping classes at the Haras du Pin which someone told me about over a year ago. Entrainement in France means' a training class' for a young horse or rider wanting...

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I knew a little angel once..................

are the words that come to mind when I see this picture of Pete as a little pup.It's the first line of a poem I read as a kid, I can't remember much past the first few lines but the general gist of it was that the little angel bought the ugliest kitten to love incase it didn't get loved at all.

So it's a sad, happy poem which kind of describes this last week because on monday poor little Pongo Pete managed to get hit and killed by the truck...

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I just felt I ought to share this old fashioned wonder treatment in the hope someone else may find it handy and in an effort to remember it myself for the future.Copper Sulphate seems handy for a remarkable number of problems.

Copper sulphate for treatment of Thrush and seedy toe.

My farrier had recommended that I use a copper sulphate solution in the frog for years to help kill thrush but to be honest I found it totally non effective, at best it kept the surface thrush at bay. Roger w...

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               Neddy posing infront of the house

 I feel I have to say a little something about the demise of Longleat Horse trials though I know nothing of the circumstances of their decision, ( I didn’t go last year). It seems a terrible shame that it is no longer running even if it is rescheduled for another another tiptop venue who plan to have an equally super xc course. I would love to tell you that Longleat was a horse trials dear to my heart because of the incredible international ...

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So I’m going to forget all that Happy New Year nonsense I began with last year, because it didn’t really get me anywhere at all. I had all these hopes, dreams and aspirations that didn’t even get to flutter on my horizon let alone get anywhere close to  being fulfilled. I shall try the new theatrical approach as practiced by Mini in the photo above. No Mini hadn’t broken her leg just removed a dew claw swiftly and painfully in the seat of the truck whilst making a speedy exit afte...

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Here's wishing everyone a very happy and successful 2011. Especially dear Neddy we are all still missing you so we wish you lots of luck in the coming season. We'll keep our ears pricked for your results and our eyes open, hopefully we will bump into you for a quick 'catch up' when we're out and about.
Work has begun in earnest here for the approaching competitions. We're busy slogging up lots of hills feeling fat and flabby , wishing we'd taken things a bit easier over the christmas period of...
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Everyone here is hoping you are all enjoying a very jolly Christmas.
Rog is feeling a bit pooped, he had to stand in for Rudolph last night and help Santa so he's in today with his legs all bandaged with cool packs.It was pretty tough going in the deep snow apparently.

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So I have been sloppy and idle and off the ball in not posting in a very long time. Infact all the time I've had good stuff to talk about I haven't bothered!
It has been a long year in many parts, I feel exhausted from being here there and back here again, over and over.
BUT NOW I'M BACK HOME, HOSED AND VERY HAPPY.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to take a little while to catch up on the blogs, a little bit for you, if you are so kind as to be reading it- THANK YOU. A little bit for me, so I c...
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So I haven't managed to pull myself together enough of an evening to post on here for ages. This is mostly because I've been back and forth across the channel with and without horses like a flipping yo yo.
AND before I left the first time I had a huge push to try and do as much local homework as possible,(local being a rather hazy term in France, up to 2 hrs away; which by standards over here would be a pretty decent trek).

The final push was the 'GRAND NATIONAL DE DRESSAGE' up at Auvers, not q...

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Turnip has another name, (Mr. Potato Head) due to his rather lumpy head with rather a shortage of brain cells. or that's how it seemed to be the first year we had him. He has a rather elegant head now, it never grew with his body and it even look  like some of the cogs in his brain have begun to turn.
   He jumped his first clear at the Renarderie on thursday and he wasn't mad either. I expected him to have a paddy as the Renarderie is practically home turf to him. I expected all  the new jump...
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I had bit of a confidence failure the weekend before last,took Neddy down to Avranches to do 1m05 preparatoire. Had one look at the jumps under lights on slippy ground with a water jumpa and lost my bottle. I swear my shoulder was throbbing in anticipation of another tumble.
Being too scared to ride is not a good place to be but it obviously shouldn't have been as I'd only jumped once since my crash and Ned has never seen a water jump.
I needn't have worried; as luck would have it when I took N...
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Since I've still been hurting from my crash it seemed a good reason to get some dressage practice in, I can't imagine another scenario where I would willingly forfeit an event or even showjumping to spend an entire weekend doing dressage.( I'm not knocking dressage? I'm sure I'd be hooked if I could pull off all the fancy moves.°

So a fortnight ago we set off early saturday to Brittany with Turnip and Charlie for a premier annee dressage class. I had rather high hopes for Turnip as he was so ...
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     As you can see from the photo we have been doing other handy stuff despite feeling sorry for ourselves. Pearl (rather late in the day) has become a lead rein pony, poor dear she hasn't been ridden more than a bareback hike from the field in more than ten years!
 
She finds it very puff making but she enjoys all the brushing and pats she gets from Corrine. Corrine has taken a shine, for the moment to riding or maybe she caught the bug. Poor old doughnut had to be a makeshift pony and do jum...
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Last weekend we were lucky enough to leave these guys at home doing this:

So we could go here:

with these:

and it was all because of this;

Yep sorry everyone for the rather ghastly picture of my purple thunder thigh, but I feel I ought to share some of my pain.
Infact my leg although painful was not a patch on my shoulder; so all horse activity last week (of the riding kind) was knocked on the head and the horses were all turned out as I couldn't even muck out.Thankfully the weather has been,`oh s...
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No, the stag's not real, but he works pretty well from a distance. I'm sure he would more than do the job of spooking the horses on the cross country course which I suppose is the aim of him as he is positioned in the thick of it, amidst the very beautiful undulating parkland of the Haras du Pin.
Poor old Muddy was fooled even close up but then she hasn't the sharpest eyes, poor love. There is a distinct lack of Mini in the picture, our black and tan Jack Russell as she, little cow had disappe...
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It's not all bad being poor, sometimes it makes you a little more creative.
As we came to the end of our haylage it seemed an awful shame and waste to be throwing away all that plastic wrap,so with a few bits of black and green wrap, some Alfa-A bags, old rubble sacks, salvaged pallets and a stapler we got into Blue Peter mode;Turnip and Neddy really appreciated 'these ones we made earlier'!

It all paid off, Ned and Turnip went showjumping at Gavray last weekend and I was very pleased with both...
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 I write this post, even though it was over a week ago that Neddy let me down, quite literally. 
Last sunday Neddy went to Brix with Turnip. Brix never was my place for pot hunting and I really shouldn't go, but since it hardly ever has any competitiors being stuck way up the Cherbourg peninsula and they put in such a lot of effort to host the competition it seems a shame not to put in my bit of effort and go. I should have known better last week though, nothing was going to plan, I think my b...
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Why is Neddy looking all flashy and dressed up on the beach?
Aahh uurrr Well............... Neddy was supposed to be competing again on sunday but it errh didn't turn out to much, just past Avranches Mick put the address in his sat nav (on the new all singing all dancing phone to replace the one Doughnut chewed up) and discovered a second 'La Fleche'.
All my niggles fell into place and the bizarre disjointed conversation I'd had with Mr. Fagnen regarding the competition. Yes, we were headed out...
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So although we got to spend a luxury night in a fancy Chateau last weekend I was feeling a bit depressed come sunday morning after the dressage with Ned.To be fair I was still a bit pooped even after such a comfy night, it had taken quite a lot of preparation to get all the horses ready here to leave for 36 hours even thiugh we did have friends coming in to check and feed them,' Thank you Ian' (x2) and 'Thank you Bob and Leslie' even if you didn't make it, sorry for causing such a fiasco for ...
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Weyhey, we won the lottery and this is our new house!

JOKE!

Unfortunately we didn't win the lottery and this isn't our new house but we were lucky enough to spend a night in the beautiful Chateau de Bezonnais by trading in this:

Yes we have managed to find homes for all these cutesy (and pooey people) and as a little reward to ourselves for all our hard work we decided to treat ourselves to a luxury night at Neddy's first competition.
Ned's competition was at St. Mars D'outille just outside Le ma...
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I know it's a little late, but this is just to thank you Marie for coming to the beach with Neddy, Rog and me.
AND also thank you for bringing along tea and yummy cake and biscuits it was a welcome surprise!
Sometime towards the end of last week Marie agreed to come down to the beach with us braving a chilly March evening to give Neddy a feel of speed in deep sand. It was Neddy's first visit to the beach so I rode him a little bit to start giving him a canter round the sand gallop in the dunes....
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At least some of us round here are enjoying the snow, most of us have well and truly had enough and want to get on with it. Thankfully we did get a passage from the snow plough so today I bravely wrapped up Rog and Ned and took them for a totter round the lanes. On the whole the roads were free of ice and slush which was lucky as Neddy was leaping about like  a spring lamb after his few days of unplanned holiday.
We've had a rather up and down week. I've lost my favourite schooling spot at Vi...

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Seems a long winter this time around but I guess every cloud has a silver lining should we be bothered to seek it. So on to the latest cold snap and dump of snow with all its associated business. We actually saw along our little lane this morning a snow plough. Better late than never but where it was during the last couple of  sessions nobody knows. It did however wait untill I had scraped and swept a large portion of the hill before sweeping past in a flurry of noise and jollity as the drive...
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 At the weekend I decided to show my dedication by driving 65miles to Rennes to take part in a dressage 'entrainement' competition. Along the lines of a local unaffiliated dressage comp you'd have to drive twenty minutes down the road for in England. BUT this is France and training competitions are not come by easily.
We really went for Ned as I was rather hoping he would go to his first trial in a fortnight and I thought he could practice his fancy new moves in an actual arena.I showed him th...
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Monty and I would like to say thank you for our Christmas and Birthday pressies.They might be a bit late but the pink rug and matching leg warmers more than make up for it. Just the right moment too as we're in for ANOTHER cold snap.
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So I've got the ball rolling......
 It's a little tedious in France at the beginning of every year.
 Once you get going with your competition licence and get you foreign horses on the books it all rolls along very simply. Much more easily than in England really as all entries are done on the internet from a competing account that is held with the FFE or someone affiliated to them. Anyhow all your entry fees are taken from it and all winnings paid to it. Entries only close a week before too whic...
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Some sparkly spring  type stuff has happened though, two tubby mummies have produced seven podgy pups. We are hoping to get a run on black and tan pups as we are well stocked in every variation of black and tan jack russell pup you could possibly imagine.

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It's very pretty but will it go?
 We were all raring to go, started giving everyone a trim and a polish.
 Surfed the FFE Compet site to see where were first headed,started to bother about all the various tasks involved in getting the youngsters ready to compete here, signalements and registrations, all that jazz.
 Started practicing my squat thrusts to get my competition medical, competition licence etc.
 Then the snow returns, what's more; it's still here and we're back at the grindstone just p...
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Chucking our tuppence worth into the Plus size Model debate, we thought it a good idea to show off our very own candidate with a view to possibly being spotted by a top modelling agency and signed up for a hefty fee. Muddy Dog, sporting a two piece fit for Miss Moss, is looking forward to her imminent pups and  wondering what all the fuss is about...     
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Monty would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2010.
He wears a gold crown from Gathemo bakers. A little french or maybe normand tradition where sweet breads and galettes or cakes are sold containing a hidden porcelain figure or disc, anyway a teeny gift. Whoever is lucky enough to break a tooth finding said treasure in their mouthful gets to wear the crown for the day,(the crown is complimentary).
Not sure what this tradition is all about but it seems to last for most of Jan.
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Roger and Blackjack get held up in daylight robbery as they help us get on with fixing up a new home for Monty to be weaned in.
Blackjack has been playing big brother too little Monty who's a bit upset since we took his mum away a couple of days ago.They took over Rog's house for a few nights but since the weather turned wet again Rog wants his house back.
So we've been rigging up a little shelter at the bottom beside him for the two boys to go into until Monty is settled enough to go back out ...
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Red says,"oh no" to more snow.
Thankfully it seems we might have reached the end of our snowy patch as poor Red has had enough of chilly feet.
He'd also like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas with lots of scrummy, yummy stuff to eat.
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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ;THE DOGSBODY WATER PUMP.
Shows fantastic performance despite the ongoing cold snap, no sign of freezing up yet!
(snowboarding injuries could threaten to slow output though)

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Hey powder hound, posted these dust dogs catching some gnarly air just for you!
Is London this happenin?

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Alright for some, some might say. Today of all days, as the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen has passed its deadline for agreement with suprise suprise, no agreement, we're suffering the concequences (some might say) of climate change. Fancy that, it's the winter and we've got snow!
In our efforts to be ecologically aware we thought maybe it would be sound to go and check out if out current spot of "freak weather" was up to scratch and proper winter snow or just the globaly warme...
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 Because we haven't got enough to do we thought we'd infill today teaching the horses to snowboard. Ned was pretty in to it, as you can see. We won't have the money to afford the real thing for a while so it was a wee taster, trudging up hills and bumping back down, grating over rocks and other debris!
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All of a sudden the weather has dropped to sub zero temperatures at night.Days are pretty chilly too, but at least they are sunny. I thought I ought to make sure Monty was nice and cosy so I made him a little under rug.
Looks like I should have taken some measurements first as he's bigger than I recalled!
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It's kind of lucky that Doughnut is beautiful as she has been an especially bad                                                                                             dog and chewed up the all singing all dancing mobile phone my mum bought us for sending photos and images back to her.

...

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