Linzi's blog

That is all I am asking for. Just 5 minutes to think to myself is all I want. Do I get that? No. It's a case of Motty this, Motty that, and that's just at home. I have no idea what I have done to deserve this invasion of my privacy, but if it was in a former life then I think that I have definately suffered enough these past few years.
Work wasn't actually too bad tody. the work went through quickly, tanks in part to the dilligence and hard working of Kelly.
So what exactly is my problem?
Well, I can't sleep because of all the noise caused by our next-door neighbours. We have been in touch with the police and the council to no avail. Then I have to put up with people who think I'm an idiot because of my opinion of Anky Van Grunsven's use of roll kur.

So. all in all, I really do need some peace and quiet.

I can't agree with myself about how I feel at the moment. I should be feeling happy, because I will soon be taking yet another holiday (without Mum, dad or dog). Yet I feel a bit down and depressed tonight. I was almost in tears at work, so I suppose it must be something that was said to me that's making me feel like this.
Oh, yes, I remember now: Ian told me in no uncertain temrs that I'm stupid, without any need to do so. He has been making fun of me all week, saying that I'm an intellectually challenged individual who belongs in that group of idiots that think going on Big Brother is a step up the career ladder.
I have been working with this guy for almost 5 years now, so it just shows how little he really knows me for him to think that. It's just so upsetting to be told something like that almost day in and day out by your work colleagues. No wonder I don't tell people I know about who I am or what I've done in my life.
So let's see: I've been married and divorced to the biggest git in the world, worked at several different levels before taking this job, including a management position which I will not go into detail on at the moment. I also speak fluent German, which has helped me immensly in my working life. If I really was so stupid, I wouldn't have achieved half of what I have in my life. But then, if I had employed a bit more common sense when I was offered this job, I would have left well alone and gone back to one of my previous jobs. I know that, really, I should tell them where to stick their crappy job and quit, but I would suffer a guilt trip about leaving them short staffed. Ah well, I suppose everything will work out some day soon.
On a slightly different note, I have a different problem. I am in love. Not with a horse, but a bloke. I won't say his name for the time being, but I think he is absolutely gorgeous. He's the sort of guy that I could change my current stance on getting married for.
Ok, I'll put a photo of him on my blog at some date, so you can let me know what you think of him.

We are now at the weekend. I hope everyone enjoys theirs if they are not working. I only have the afternoons this weekend as I am working. So this afternoon, I have to rush from work to my riding and see what happens with the new layout of our lesson. I can't believe that we have to put up with people who are nowhere near our level of riding on our lesson, it's an abomination. Last week we were jumping and I was riding Jimmy, a fairly ancient pony who has a habit of bucking if another horse or pony gets too near his back end. The lesson went well enough, but I can't wait for some sense of normality to come over our lesson. Hopefully we will be doing flat work today and my horse won't be a trouble maker.

Click on the link below, follow the instructions and find out.
http://www.garfield.com/fungames/beanme.html

I am writing this now that my stomach has finally managed to cath up with the rest of me again.
I went opn Infusion for the first time today. OK, I went on it a second time as well, but that's another story.
So. Went to Blackpool with my official bag minder (mum) to go on Infusion and test out my theory about a ride being better if you couldn't see where you were going. Rubbish theory, well for me anyway, because I couldn't keep my eyes closed long enough to see if it was true. I'm not an eyes closed person, I like to be able to see, if possible, where I am going, and what is happening. Bought my £18 wristband (Only £18 because the schools are in, just wait till summer hols it'll be £28 then.) and set off with the intention of going on Infusion first. That didn't happen. I got as far as the Grand National and decided that Infusion could wait. Sat at the front laughing my head off and trying in vain to keep eyes closed. The eyes closed bit only lasted 5 seconds. From Grand National went to Infusion. Looks impressive - blue track, blue support poles, blue water and of course a matching set of cars all apainted this season's shade of blue. Hand bag and glasses to mum and set off to try it out.
There are no words to describe just how absolutely, mind-blowingly brilliant this ride is, although I think you may get the general idea from my description. I lost count of how many times It went upside down or corkscrewed, but apparantly that sort of information can be found on the Pleasure Beach website, I think. And then suddenly, it was finished! Why oh why are the bast rides always too short? OK, there probably isn't room for them to have made the ride any longer, but it's not fair. I need to go on it twice to get a decent adrenaline fix. Exited a bit (alright, very) happy and ready to go round again, but had some sense talked into me by mum and was persuaded to go on the Big Dipper. Big Dipper has lost it's appeal now. If you want to enjoy the Big Dipper, don't go on it straight from Infusion, it's a really bad idea, because you have no emotions to feel. From the Big Dipper I went on Avalanche, which made me feel loads better. Strange, being hurtled around a ride that technically doesn't have a track always gives me a happy feeling. From Avalanche, went on Stepplechase, and then for some unknown reason found myself going on Bling. Don't believe what you see when you're watching from the ground. Bling really isn't that bad. Honest. Although probably not a good idea to go on Infusion for your second time straight after. It does strange things with your stomach. Also, sitting at the back on Infusion isn't a great idea either. Your head gets sort of battered on the shoulder restraints at the same time that your stomach deserts you, thankfully it leaves it's contebts within the confines of your body before it leaves.
So that's my day. I need to go on Infusion again.

Ok, will get to point of post title later. I have 2 days off from work - Wednesday and Thursday and they are going to be put to good use this time, so I will NOT get up at midday, I will NOT just laze about the house all day, and I WILL go to Blackpool and go on Infusion. OH, yes, hopefully tomorrow, me and my bag minder (mum), will be going all 50 miles from Manchester to Blackpool, just so I can go on the new ride - Infusion. Alright, I will probably go on some other rides as well as I have atheory that I want to try out. I wondered whether, if you couldn't see where you were going on a ride, that made it any better. The theory revolves around an idea that, if your eyes are closed, or you are on a ride in pitch darkness, you feel that you are going faster than you would if you were able to see what was happening. I will report my findings at a later date.
Right onto Psycho. In my humble opinion, the board of Manchester City and the Players do not deserve to have a good manager. Pearce was not given the time or money to build a decent team. Yes he made some mistakes with his transfers, but so have Ferguson and Morinho and they are still in a job. Pearce was let down badly when it mattered by his players. They lacked commitment in many important games and many were complacent about being guaranteed a first team place. The board never gave Pearce the financial backing that is needed to form a side that could match their ambitions. If they had kept him on for next season, with extra money coming in from the take over, the chance to clear out under-performing players, he would have been able to start building a formidable Premiership side that could have pushed for a European place. Instead, they have decided that 18 months is long enough to perform miracles and got rid. I really hope that any potential manager they, approach is rightly cautious of taking the job and that they end up with some one who is just going to please the wishes of their players.
Note to All clubs in the Premiership (except Man City) - Pearce is someone who will make a great manager, given a chance and decent financial backing from the board.

You are now probably wondering where the Fergie part of the blog post comes in. Unfortunately for Man U fans, it doesn't relate to your manager, but the the Black Eyed Peas singer, Fergie. I have a slight problem, in that I am unsure whether or not Fergalicious is a good piece of music to use in a dressage test.

Update on the parking on the industrial estate road behind the CSB: Today My little KA parked itself on the same strip of road that I was told on Wednesday I had only one day of parking left there because the company was going "operational" a day later. (I didn't park there yesterday because there was no room and I spotted a space a bit further up - ever the opportunist!). Came out of work tonight half expecting to find yet another note on my car and - shock horror - nothing on the car. Not a thing done to it, no notes, no attempt to move it. Seems I may have them slightly worried over the cost to them of attempting to move my car. Current score: Motty 1 - Company 0.

You may recall that Yesterday, I blogged about some unintelligent person shoving a note under my windscreen wiper telling me that I couldn't park in front of a gate that had a distinct lack of no parking signs on it. So tday I parked next to a bit of pavement between their 2 sets of gates that I have been using for almost 3 years now. Parked up, reluctantly switched off radio (Well, it was Key 103!) and got out of car. Person from this company walks over to me and says (no kidding): "Make this your last day of parking there, we go operational tomorrow." What?! Anyway, saw through what he was trying to do fairly quickly. Realised that since I have applied my handbrake and locked the car door, they have no access to remove handbrake in order to move car. So I calmly replied: "If you attempt to move this car from where it's parked, operational or not, I will have you done for theft and send you the bill for any damage that you do to it." Bloke walks off in a bit of a huff realising that this young-looking girl isn't as sweet and innocent as she looks. (yes I am a bit of bitch when I want to be.) So anyway, back to the point I made about them moving my car. There would be a case of criminal damage as they would have to either break the lock on the door of smash one of the windows to gain access to the car. If they were trying to be clever, they could attempt to move the car while the handbrake was still on and damage the tyres. Basically, it's a no-win situation for them. Will keep you posted on developments.

I am sorry if anyone take offence at me getting on my dressage soapbox yet again, but I am truely disgusted with people who are making comments on perfectly good riders and their training methods for the sake of making a comment. Most of these people have no evidence to back up their comments, so they must be taken at face value. Unfortunately, all my evidence of my riding has been taken in the past couple of years and is not in video format, but hopefully that will change in the very near future. The ones that most disgust me are the ones who are tearing strips off Anky Van Grunsven. I know that I have commented on Salinero's seemingly artificial Piaffe and Passage, but I will not take anything away from Anky as a ridier. Salinero is a total hothead, and anyone who has ridden such a horse will know that if they bolt, a sumo wrestler would have trouble stopping them. Gypsy is the closest example of all the horses I currently ride. He is perfectly capable of being cool and calm, but it only takes the surrounding atmosphere to be charged with excitement, for example people doing a lot of canter work, and he becomes much harder to control. My only option when this happens is to remove him from the work that everyone else is doing, bring him back to walk and cricle him in Rollkur for a couple of minutes until he relaxes again. Then I can take him back into the work and he will not get excited again for a good length of time, normally we can get to the end of the lesson before he shows signs of excitement again, and that's only because he's thinking of food. There are people who will try and tell me that Rollkur does not relax the horse in any way. I would challenge them to try and ride Gypsy in a highly charged atmosphere without using it - they would not last 5 seconds, never mind 5 minutes. Another critiscism is the apparant over-use of the curb rein on Salinero. This is not so easy to explein to these people, except that, it may be that Salinero goes better for Anky and relaxes more with greater use of the curb. This does not deaden his mouth, I believe, as it is often easier to ruin a horse's mouth with continued pulling of a snaffle until the horse refuses the bit. What happens then, do we use a bitless bridle? All horses are different and as such, need to be ridden differently. I can normally tell within the first 5 minutes af my warm-up how the horse I am on will need to be ridden in that lesson. I could give you a run-down of every horse I have ever ridden and how they like to be ridden, but there would not be room in this post as there are that many of them. There is also talk of Anky driving Salinero forwards with the hips forcefully in the extended canter. One person said that this was because she was blocking his forwards movement and so had to drive more from the hip to compensate and that she only allowed the legs to extend, not his outline. It has been well-documented that Salinero is not a horse big on self-confidence. This is sometimes seen more in his flying changes when he pushes his backend up higher than his withers. This is not an over-reaction to the leg-aid, but a horse low on confidence saying that he is unsure of whether to go forwards or not. I would explain the driving from the hip as Anky reassuring Salinero to go forwards into the bit. The fact that he only extends through his legs and does not lengthen his outline is a problem of his low self-confidence, even though his rider is reassuring him, he isn't fully confident to go forwards so therefore only stretches his legs forwards, not the rest of his body.
I could go on and on about this all night, but regular readers of my blog are probably sick and tired of my drivel about dressage training by now, so I will leave it there.

I am sure that someone has got it in for me on the industrial estate where I park for work. The problem is, that as I am not in the parking scheme for the NHS trust I work for, I can't use the car park for CSB staff until weekends or after 3 in the afternoon. Therfore, I park on a side road on the industrial estate behind the CSB. Normally, I don't have any problems except one occasion when I got into an argument over who would technically be at fault in the case that a company's HGV went into my Dad's car. I won that one. Then today, I came out of work to find a note stuffed under the driver's side windscreen wiper which read thus:
TO THE OWNER
YOUR VEHICLE WILL BE REMOVED IF PARKED OUTSIDE THE GATES AGAIN.
WARNING.
This has now got me thinking as to whether or not I was legally parked. I will point out that there were no signs saying that parking was not allowed attached to the gates, and that there are no double yellow lines along the road. So do they really have the right to move my car and, if they did, could I possibly sue them in the event of any damage occuring to my car or prosecute them for theft?

Back from hol to Germany. Now tanked up on German Coffee and Chocolate for another few months. (Wonder if I can sneak another trip in about the end of August, start of September?)
So anyway, the holiday. Well, getting up at half four in the morning is not my idea of fun, but I had to be at the airport in time for the flight at eight. Checked in at the Lufthansa desk. Other side of walkway, there are around 1,000 chavs checking in with snotty kids in tow for their school -time trip to some tourist trap in the Med.
Please, don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with a holiday in the Med, it's just a tad too hot for me, but I wouldn't mind going on holiday there sometime in the future. It's the chavs that think they're rich bay taking the cheapest package on offer from the tour operator, getting sunburned to within an inch of their life, just so they can show all their mates that they've got the money t go abroad. (I know because there's someone similar where I work, only that person doesn't take their kids out of school in the middle of term.
So, finally checked in, we join the queue for the departure lounge, another 1,500 people, or so it seems in the queue at the same time. Not all of them are chavs, quite a few business people and a few idiots who think that the sings telling you to remove your jacket and have your boarding pass ready, don't apply to them, so hold the queue up. Got throught the security checks, into the departure lounge. It's now just coming upto seven, and we haven't had anyting to eat, so went and had some breakfast. Let me tell you, Airport cafe's must be in league with Motorway service stations, they charge over the top prices. All we wanted was 2 cups of tea, and 2 packets of cereal. Finally get on the plane, nothing spectacular to report there, got to Dusseldorf airport, took the SkyTrain to Dusseldorf Flughafen Bahnhof. The SkyTrain is basically a monorail train on a suspended track. Got to the Bahnhof, bought tickets to Cologne Hauptbahnhof (9.60 Euros for 2 people.) Train was late, (shdes of home there then) finally reached Cologne, went to the nearest McDonalds and had lunch. (2 hambugers, 2 mittel Pommes Frites, 1 klein orangeslaft, and 1 mittel CocaCola Light)
Got the U-Bahn from Breslauer Platz to Mulheim Wiener Platz on the other side of the Rhine to the HauptBahnhof. Walked from Wiener Platz to the hotel which should only take about 10 or 15 minutes. The hotel is on Clevischer Ring, which is busy anytime of the day, but living in a built up area of Manchester, the noise doesn't bother us in the slightest. Checked into the hotel, put our stuff away, and went back into the centre of Cologne for a couple of hours so we could find out how much the tickets would be to get to Natrup-Hagan the following day, and see if we could find a bank that Mum was prepared to use the cash point.
Memo to HSBC - if you are the World's local branch, where's your branch in Cologne?
Returned to the hotel and had dinner. (Smoked Salmon with Potatoe cakes for 2 and a bottle of water.) After dinner went to the bar and had a couple of drinks. I was on diet coke, mum was on Bicardi and coke. Went to bed with alarm set for half six following morning.
Following day got up, had breakfast and headed out back to Wiener Platz to get the U-Bahn to the train station. Got to the station, went to the Reise Zentrum (ticket office) to get the tickets to Natrup-Hagan. The girl behind the desk had never heard of it, so we went to one of the machines and got the tickets from there. (78 Euros on my card) Finally reached Natrup-Hagan which is basically 2 platforms with a ticket machine on each. Made way to other side to find out how to get to showground. Bloke waiting on approach to Osnabruck platform, looks promising (Ok he was cute, I admit it) Walk up to him and ask how we get to Am Borgberg. "Am Borgberg? Ah Hof Kasselmann? I am your taxi" He says. 5 minutes later, we arrive at Hof Kasselmann and set off to have a nosy round, well that's my idea, mum's is to get something to eat. lunch sorted we make our way to Turnierplatz to watch the showjumping, and see the last couple of riders in the Nations cup. Mum is disappointed that there are no British riders. I'm relieved in a way, at least there is no chance of us further damaging our standing in the World of Showjumping if we don't go to the competitions in the first place. Make our way over to the dressage arena to watch a couple of riders in the Prix St George class. There is a very high standard of dressage in this class and I really want to watch it to it's conclusion, but mum decides it's too hot, and that she want's a drink. You have probably by now realised that the trip, for the most part, centred on what mum wanted to do. I swear, next year, she is definately NOT coming, then I might be able to actually watch a class all the way through. Mum's main comment as we walk round revolves around comparing Horses and Dreams unfavourably to Olympia.

Does anyone want my oppinion? Really? Ok, then. In my very humble oppinion, Horses and Dreams is the best organised, well thought-out, presented show that I have ever been to. Maybe there aren't as many trade stall as at Olympia, but people like me aren't there to buy things, we're there to watch top class showjumping and dressage, and Horses and Dreams has that in abundance. I really commend the organisers and everyone involved in the show for their hard work in making this show as successful as it is. You know you are doing something right when the top riders want to come and compete at your show, and that is what happens with Horses and Dreams and all the other successful shows.

Note to the organisers of Horses and Dreams - Can I have my tickets for next year in advance please?