Summer Week 9 Blog
The first day of our marvellous adventure
Monday 12th August
This morning, at 8:15 am, when Grace woke us up, we got dressed to take our breakfast (toasted bread with butter, chocolate or biscoff paste, orange, apple juice and so on). To sum up, we had a lot to eat. Afterwards, we went back upstairs to brush our teeth and get ready for riding. Then we headed straight towards the stables while Jodie and Charlotte were already riding. We put our boots on and got ready to brush the horses. Clemence and Louise were taking care of Rubix, Clem of Brooke, Ava and Camille of Zulu, Berenice and Manon of Swing and Jodie and Charlotte of Albert. We were divided into four groups (Jodie and Charlotte in the first one, Ava, Clemence and Louise in the second one, Camille in the third one and Clemence, Manon and Berenice in the last one). We did some flat work. Jodie was riding George, Charlotte was riding Annie, Ava was riding Zulu, Clemence was riding Annie, Louise was riding Rubix, Camille was riding Buster, Berenice was riding Buster too, Clemence was riding Rubix and lastly Manon was riding Swing. As usual, we took care of the saddles after riding and we showered Zulu, Rubix, Rory with a lot of love. While some were showering Rubix, others were bringing back food bags to the stables for storage.
After that busy morning, we changed clothes and we went downstairs to have lunch. The sandwiches were really good. We had a little break and then we headed towards our English lessons. Clemence, Clemence😉, Manon, Berenice were with Grace and Ava and Louise with Leighton Rhys Evans. Once we had finished, we went to the swimming pool and had so much fun there! Among other games, we played chicken fights – Gueggelikampf in Swiss German – (teams of two people fighting against each other, one on the shoulders of the other), swam a lot, talked even more and laughed to death (fortunately, this is an expression).
We had so much fun in both cars. Clemence and Berenice stole Louise’s camera and literally used the camera’s storage by taking silly pictures (and they talked about sushi for hours. They are crazy about it. Really. Please send help). We went home late (at about 8:00 pm) and after putting our swimming clothes to dry, we went downstairs to write the blog. Now, we’re enjoying the shadow and the beautiful view on the fields. See you tomorrow for the pursuit of our adventures !
Tuesday 13th August
Today we woke up a bit earlier (at 8:00 am ⏰). As yesterday, we got dressed in riding clothes and went downstairs to take our breakfast. We had buns, toasts with either butter, chocolate or biscoff paste or peanut butter. Then, we went back upstairs to brush our teeth and get ready to go to the stables. Ava, Jodie and Charlotte went directly to the stables as they were the first ones riding. We came quickly after. Everyone put on their boots and we all brushed dozens of ponies and horses. We were divided into four groups again : Ava, Charlotte and Jodie in the first one (respectively riding Zulu, Rory and George), Manon, Clemence and Valentine in the second one (respectively riding Swing, Annie and Brooke), Camille riding apart on Buster with Louise translating and Berenice, Clemence and Louise in the fourth one (respectively riding Buster, Rubix and Annie). After taking care of the saddles, we bathed Brooke and Harry. We then headed back towards the house to get changed in normal clothes and rest a bit. After that, we went downstairs and had lunch together.
Once we had eaten, we had a bit of free time where we talked a lot with one another. At 2:45 pm, we went downstairs to have our English lessons (the same groups as yesterday). As Ava and Louise had finished a bit earlier, they went to the stables to shower Swing and Jamie while Charlotte and Jodie were taking their second lesson of the day with the same horses. We brushed and took care of all the horses again before leading them into the fields with their anti-flies rugs and masks.
It was already late when we finished so we went back home to take our showers and now we are here, enjoying the sunset with the horses passing by (we unfortunately couldn’t put any emojis due to a technical problem).
Wednesday 14th August
This morning we woke up at 9:30 am. We had breakfast (composed of apple juice, orange juice, hot chocolate, buns, bread with butter and chocolate paste). We then brushed our teeth and got ready for an English lesson with Berenice, Clem, Clemence, Ava, Manon and Louise with Leighton about equestrian vocabulary. After completing the paper, we went to the stable to see Swing’s different body parts in real life. We had lunch (sandwiches) and then had a bit of free time before preparing to go to an art crafting activity at Michelle’s friends’ house. We made some birthday cards : we had so much fun !! Steve (the husband) even showed some of us his WWII collection !! We then went back home and, while Jodie and Charlotte were hacking on Zulu and Annie. Meanwhile Berenice and Clemence were revising their galop 4 theory. The others were playing cards in the living room.
Now we’re doing the jobs while exchanging our phone numbers so as to keep in touch after this wonderful week here !! 📳
Thursday, 15th August
This morning Grace woke us up at 8:30 am. We then got dressed in riding clothes and went downstairs to have our breakfast (it was exactly the same as yesterday : delicious). Afterwards we went back upstairs to brush our teeth. Ava, Jodie and Charlotte had to rush because they were the first group riding: Ava on Zulu, Jodie on George and Charlotte on Rory while the others were brushing all the stables’ horses. Ava, Clemence and Manon showered and tried to plait Zulu. After, Clem, Louise and Berenice rode too. Berenice was on Buster, Louise was on Annie and Clem was on Rubix. Clem and Berenice trained for their galop 4’s dressage test. We then untacked the horses and took care of the equipment. Camille was on Swing and she was very excited to canter tomorrow. After she finished riding, the fourth and last group got ready : Clemence was riding Annie and Manon was riding Swing. We untacked all the horses and took care of all the saddles and the brides. We also helped Grace to feed the horses before going back to the house and changing in normal clothes. We had lunch and then went into the living room to play cards together. After that, we had our English lesson. We were separated between the same groups as the days before. Ava and Louise helped a beginner to saddle Buster while Jodie and Charlotte were jumping (respectively on Rubix and Annie). We then all took our showers and went downstairs to do the blog earlier because tonight is movie night ! We hope that we will watch “Mama Mia”. Clem, who is currently revising her theory, asked us to write that her favourite moment of the day will be carbonara ! See you tomorrow <3
Friday 18th August
Today we were woken up by Michelle at 8:30 am. We put on our riding clothes before going downstairs to have breakfast. Afterwards, we went back upstairs to brush our teeth and headed towards the stables. Camille prepared Buster for her lesson. She even had the chance to canter and to jump a small obstacle ! She was very excited about that !!!! Then, Ava, Louise and Clem prepared their horses (Zulu, Annie and Rubix) and tacked them up for their jumping lesson. After a small warm up with Leighton, they went into the jumping paddock. It was incredible ! Louise had a negligible fail and elegantly dismounted (obviously on purpose) Annie in order to nicely pet her. Then, the second group (Manon, Clemence and Berenice on Swing, Rubix and Buster) got ready to jump. Berenice also had a small fail with Buster as she jumped the wrong obstacles !! After having laughed a bit, the third group (Jodie on George and Charlotte on Rory) got ready for their dressage lesson. We brushed all the horses and took care of all their equipment.
It was about 2:15 pm when we went back to the house. We were all very hungry, so we were delighted to eat our sandwiches for lunch. We had a lot of free time : we talked a lot and some of us did some of their holiday homeworks. The afternoon activity was a surprise : we went to the lake all afternoon and had a picnic there. We had a lot of fun on the water slides, the swings, paddles, and so on. We rehearsed a small play and performed in front of Michelle and Grace.
It was already 10:00 pm when we went back home, so we hurried up to take our showers and go to sleep early. We talked a bit as we were sad to leave one another tomorrow. We were very tired so we went to sleep straight after everyone was showered.
(now it’s saturday and we’re writing the blog for Michelle to print it out. We are extremely sad to leave this place as we built incredible memories here. We love u <3)
