Linzi's blog

Ok, here's the problem: I am in love.

No, before you start worrying about me, not with a bloke. I am inlove with a horse. Not that way in love either.

Her name is Chrissie. Yes, that's the same Chrissie who loves doing everything at 100 miles an hour that I have previously blogged about. I was riding her again on Saturday. The whole purpose of the lesson was to get our horses working in a nice relaxed outline, all cool, calm and collected. Yeah right. Not Chrissie. She was having none of that cool, and calm rubbish. On the odd occaision she consented to drop her head slightly and come into some semblance of an outline, but an the whole was entirely too tense to get any real benefit from the lesson. This has got me thinking as to how much I could achieve with her if I was able to school her more often and she was able to get used to me.

Of course, the only way for that to happen is for me to buy her. That's the slight problem. My main worry is that by the time I could get together the £2,500 asking price (That's probably what the riding school would want or slightly less.) Someone else who already has the money in place could put an offer in and buy her for their inexperienced, young daughter so that they can "learn together." That would be a waste of money and would ruin her development.
So the question is whether or not to take a loan out to buy her, or put in an offer that is below what the riding school would be asking and hope for the best?

When in Manchester, it pays to be a little insane as these Geography professors at Manchester University show:

We are not all like this - honest!

Nice little problem for you. How to go from London to New York:
Go to this link for your directions - but be warned, there is a slight problem , see if you can spot it:

Any offers?

Finally there is video proof of what SR staff REALLY get upto on a daily basis:

I have a serious problem when it comes to reading - an insatiable appitite for books. Buy me a book and in all liklihood, you won't hear another word from me until I have finished reading it. I have a reputation in my family for being able to read a 600 page book in under a week. My current record is 2 days. That's an average of 300 pages a day. Actually if you take the time that I was working and sleeping out of the equation (15 hours yesterday and today in work and about 12 hours of sleep Tuesday night and last night) it's less than a day. I didn't skim read either! The problem is, that, if the book happens to be very well written (which this one was) I don't really want to put it down until it's finished. That's what has happened to me this week. Sunday I went to town with mum and noticed in WH Smith that there was a book that looked a worthwhile read. It's called Quest by Wilbur Smith. The fact that it is set in the time of Ancient Egypt appealed to me. I had a bit of a nosy at is and founf out that it was the latest in a series. So on Tuesday I went back up town to try and get the first book of the series. I came back with the first three books - River God, Seventh Scroll and Warlock. That's only because Waterstones had them on a 3 for 2 offer and I couldn't say no (Well, yes, I suppose I could have, but they were books) I have just finished reading the first one and have had to drag myself forcibly away from the second in order to sort out the travel insurance. And of course to come and blog about it and work on my own book.
So that's what I am going to do now, work on my book.

So today is the Grand National. This is the one race where the form book can definately be thrown out the window. Forget favourites, they rarely win this race. Don't think that because everyone else is backing that horse, you should. I have scoured the papers and found 5 horses that I think are well worth an each way bet. None of these are likely to go off as the favourite, but they all have a good chance on winning or coming in the top 4. They are:

Please don't hold me to these choices, as they are only what I have picked out without looking at the form book. If any of them earn you a couple of quid then that's good, if they don't, then I never forced you top back them!

Since I am having trouble getting a vid of him onto the compeuter, here is a pic of Chacomo in Extended trot:

Totally amazing horse.

Well, Dad's great idea of hiding Mum's easter egg on the windowsill in the front room didn't work quite how he would have liked. Mum requested one of the Thornton's Dark collection ones from Asda (good thing it wasn't milk chocolate). Noon on Sunday, I'm only just getting up, and Dad puts my egg and mum's on the windowsill in the front room, behind the curtains. Only problem, Mum won't be home until about half six that evening. So it stays there until half six, when dad moves it. I notice that something doesn't seem quite right about the egg. Too right there's something wrong - it's three quarters melted. Slight problem. Mum comes home, finds out and says she's not too bothered. Dad feels a bit guilty anyway and goes out and buys an after eight egg to replace the melted one. Mum is in chocolate heaven.
Me? Silly question to ask about how my feelings are with my easter egg. Lindt gold bunny egg . Unfortuantely 2 of the three bunnies have been eaten (very nice) and the egg has been started on. In the upper echelons on chocolate heaven, with only one egg.
On a different note. 7-1 to United?! How the hell did they get that many goals? In the quarter finals as well! Actually, I'm very surprised. Not at the score, but at the fact that Solskjaer was on for about half an hour and didin't score a single goal!
I have tested myself on my insanity test for horse riders and come to the conclusion that:- I am a clinically insane rider, who loves the rush of adrenaline from riding uber-excitable horses. So if my riding instructor is reading this -  can I ride Gypsy or Henry this weekend please? I need my adrenaline fix and I can't wait until Infusion opens to get it.
Oh yes, almost forgot about that. You may or may not know that the log flume at Blackpool Pleasure Beach was demolished to make way for a new ride. This new ride, that is opening this spring is called Infusion. It is a suspended rollercoaster (something like Nemesis at Alton Towers) and I have been on their website and it looks brilliant. If they need someone to be a crash-test dummy on it, can I volunteer now? I want to be one of the first to go on it.

Just a quick test to disover just how insane a horse rider you are, I will give you your score later. (Also open to non-riders):

I am only doing this test because that was my lesson's experience today. I won't tell you what state I am in now.
The horse in question's name? Gypsy. He's a beautiful looking grey horse, about 16 hands high, Irish Draught. He loves jumping and normally does very well. His main problem is that he just happens to be a teeny bit excitable, Ok, very excitable and loves going at 100 mile an hour. The first time I rode him was in a dressage test a couple of years back, and until then, I never knew you could do a test that quickly.

Mum asks me to take her to Asda last night to get a few bits and bobs in. Suddenly she realises that she's forgotten to get Easter Eggs for great nices and great nephew. Disaster! Asda only have eggs from Kinnertons, mum's never heard of them, so refuses to buy them (bigger disaster!) So today I have had to fight the massed crowds of Manchester City Centre to try and find 3 smallish easter eggs for a reasonable price (less than £6 for the 3) Finally managed it. Thorntons, milk chocolate egg with buttons, £1.99 each. There is a God after all. One problem, one of great nices has gone to Wales for the weekend.

Interesting thought today. Most of the April Fools that I saw printed in the papers yesterday, are starting to become almost believable. Carbon tax on BBQs? Given the current green push by most parties, would you really put it past them? Motorized Mowers to have MoTs ad the ride-on ones to be fitted with seatbelts and airbags? Wouldn't surprise me. Then there was the one about them putting double yellow lines down the hard shoulder of the M6. Last year there was the story that the door of number 10 Downing street was being replaced with a red one.
The point I am making is that, the way this government is going, if those stories had been printed on any other day, would we really have been surprised or even suspicious? Probably not. Can we please come up with stories of things that we wouldn't expect this government to approve of. All the press seem to be doing on recent April Fools days is giving them ideas!

"What's this Nächster Halt they keep saying?" That was my mother's exasperated question on the U-Bahn in Cologne last year. The tram just happened to be fairly full, but this has never bothered Mum. We had been hearing it ever since we had gotten on the train in Dusseldorf and now Mum was getting just a bit peeved. Cue roll of eyes from me, "Try next stop. It's written above the electronic sign that tells you the name of the next stop." Was my reply. Mum was a bit surprised, and commented on the fact that it wasn't spelt how it was being said. But let's not even go into the rest of the conversation before we got off at Wiener Platz, the stop nearest the hotel. I am mentioning this because I, for reasons unknown to mankind, invited Mum and Dad to come over to Germany with me at the end of the month last night. Dad's probably more practical about it than Mum, wanting to know what dates we're going and coming back on and telling me to wait until he at least gets his holiday card from work. Mum just wants to know why I've invited them, and I'm not really sure myself. Maybe it's for the company, maybe it's because I don't really like going any where on holiday on my own, as peaceful as it is. Who knows, any way, the hotel reservation will possibly have to be changed and extra plane tickets booked. I'll leave it up to Mum and Dad if they want to come to the show on the Saturday, what the hell, I'll get them tickets, if they don't want to go, then fair enough, but the tickets will be there if they want to go.
Just listening to Guns 'n' Roses "Live and Let Die". Realised that there are a lot of Freestyle dressage tests out there that need a bit of updating. I haven't heard one with more modern music for quite a while. Most seem to be stuck in a time-warp, there's no Rock music, and hardly any modern pop music. Come on guys, let's have some modern music, we've had classical, fifties, sixties and some seventies. The younger ones of you must have more modern tastes in music. Stick the judges and have some Hip-Hop, Gwen Stefani, and the like if it fits your horse. Remember, you can't please everyone all of the time, so why bother?