Day 10 ~

Today, the weather could be described as very "England". Gray, cloudy, breezy, rainy, blah. Nevertheless, there is still work to be done. After grabbing breakfast in one of the cafeterias I went to work cleaning stalls and prepping horses for the day. Ding's parents came to see him so he and his stall needed to be immaculate. I got him looking all shiny and pretty, and his parents were very pleased to see him and all the progress he's made on the treadmills. He will actually be going home next week! After having the rest of the summer off, he will begin training for the steeple chases again in the fall. Good for him! Nero was let out to pasture today for an entire 2 hours, however it ended up being about 3 after it took 4 people to catch him and bring him in, that was eventful! Then we cleaned tack and swept out the facilities before going to lunch. After lunch I took Nero for a walk and a graze. Then we painted some of the walls and doors in the therapy center until I went to my riding lesson today with Instructor Jason. I rode a very nice, gentle, bay gelding named Dillon. We worked on a lot of flat dressage work such as straight lines down the center line, yielding off of the inside leg, bending into corners and on half circles, and cantering 20 meter circles. I very much like the no-nonsense teaching styles of the instructors here. They provide very valuable information such as the whats, hows, and most importantly, WHYS!!! This makes riding understandable and art-like. After my lesson I rejoined the girls in the therapy center who were scrubbing down the highspeed treadmill. Tilly upset a ladder that was propped up on the wall and Fiz (our fearless, scottish manager) shouted, "If that ladder falls on the American you're all dead!" then Vicky shouted back, "It's OK! It hit Tilly instead!" This was the funniest thing I've heard all day! Supper tonight was very good - chicken with mushrooms and tomatoes with with broccoli florets and some really good cheesy scalloped potatoes. For the rest of the night I'm just going to relax, read a book, watch Bones on my laptop, and talk to Brad later. I might hit up one of my new American friends named Katie to see if I can borrow a DVD! I hope you all had a great day! Thanks for reading!

P.S. I had a good time going out to Gloucester last night. We ended up traveling to three different night clubs throughout the night, but I didn't stay out past 1:30 - I had to get up at 8 AM today. Still, the kids are crazy over here, but all the people I have met have been very nice and welcoming. Some stayed out until 4 AM today! That's crazy! I'm not much of a dancer unless its swing or line dancing, and the atmosphere was really loud, flashy, and smokey, so I won't be at a loss if I never go back :)