It is hot. Very hot.  Even for Shetland.

Snati hates the water and put up a good fight.  Jo was wetter by the end.

The girls came round to play gymnastics and riding.  I am most impressed.  I never saw Haakon as this kind of horse, ever.

Iacs was a dear boy and contentedly went round and round.  I said I was owed £1 for ever cone Amber missed!

BeAnne, meanwhile, was busy.  Very busy.   In the muckheap.  Looking for fings!

Then Beeble joined in to help.

And it was deemed that they were both revolting

Very revolting!

So the horses were put back into their big 25 acre field.

They had been waiting happily together in the small paddock.

And we took everyone down to the stream for a swim.

and a paddle

  and a quick roll.

Snati was better about water this time.

I apologise that this blog entry being so short but I have had one helluva time getting to know my new camera which has been driving me mad. I took some amazing RWL shots (RAW by any other name) and can I get them to appear onto my computer?  Can I buggery.

Anywho, I have eventually but lost all the preset pretty filters that came with the RWL setting.  Here they are without being pretty.  Enjoy.  I am in a foul mood now soI can’t say anything nice about them except that I am still very worried about Jack, but perhaps it was just a very hot day and he is not his best in the heat.

But, on a good note, I have discovered that BeAnne has this amazing talent to work out exactly which flower you want to photograph and then go and sits in it!

A skill, none the less.

“Flink” is Norwegian for good.  I know a few other words but that is the main one I hear from Taktur’s Norwegian trainer, Bjørn.  He is very pleased with my 4 year old stallion, Taktur frå Velli II – IS2009180242.  Not one to boast, but this horse is only 4 years old and superb.

I have learned my lesson from yesterday’s excursion and, apart from this morning, where I caught Taktur and led him into the school, watched his training, gave him his food and put him back, I have spent the rest of the day in bed.  Now some of you might think that just catching and leading a 4 yo stallion is not a good idea.  But Taktur is different.  I lead him with a loose rope and if he wanted to bugger off, he could and never has.  He just follows me everywhere, standing patiently, never moving without my say-so.

(I have cut off Bjørn’s head off on purpose for not wearing a hat – he knows better.  My kids will tell you that if I have one thing, apart from trotting downhill, wet cotton wool on the side of a basin or bath, liars and the word “moist”, it is folk who ride without a riding hat – that just shows how rotten I was feeling this morning that I didn’t even notice or say anything.)

Amina, Bjørn’s gorgeous German Shepherd Dog, was a good girl.  She waited politely and is the nicest GSD that I know.  Her behaviour is exemplary and she only needs telling once to go and lie down out of the way while Taktur is being trained (even BeAnne has begun to like her which is a huge complement after recent form).

My rest so far consists of watching Star Trek V (not the best imho), Herbie (the one with Lindsay Lohan as she went off the rails for her “un-Disney-like behaviour) and now Great St Trinians Train Robbery.  I am holding out for Eurovision later on this evening – and yes, I love Eurovision and I won’t hear a word against it.

The best bit of my afternoon has to be a Skype call (if brief) from The Old Georgians of 1981 who had just had a rousing lunch at our school, St George’s Ascot.  It was lovely to see some familiar faces and everyone looked fabulous,  just like we did when we were 18.  I wish I had been there. I had my air tickets booked back in November but had to cancel due to obvious spinal reasons.  I was there in spirit.

You see, I is dead posh really! 

I drove into town today to see if I could.

The 45 minute drive was ok.  We pottered along chatting to my OH.  We did “the street” first, which was almost completely deserted.  I will put this down the weather.

Next, I went into The Camera Centre to say a huge thank you for getting me my new camera.  Did I mention, I have a new Leica camera?

These independent shops must be supported.  They kindly gave me a superb Tamrac camera bag, which will be very useful.  I was very chuffed (sorry for crap photo, see later).

We traipsed up and down the Street.  I love this shop. It makes me smile every time I go past, just because it is like shops from my childhood.

Then off for crappy fish and chips from a Take-Away that should know better.  We were very disappointed and scored their chips, on a scale of 1-10, as being a meagre 4.  I haven’t had chips since probably December and this totally un-made my day.

But the view from the car while we ate was nice, if rainy.

A quick Tramadol and off to Tesco’s where I came over all funny and had to sit down.  All I could hear was Pink Floyd Money track into playing in my head as the tills went kerching amidst endless tannoys saying “could so-and-so come to the tills”.

A friend’s husband came up to me and said I looked awful which made me feel a whole lot worse.  So I left OH to pack and pay while I went back to the car, put the seat back, wrapped my head in my comforting Middlesex Hospital scarf and lay comotosed on the way home drifting off listening to Rumpole on my iPod.

When we got home, 45 minutes later, I am sorry to say I left OH to unpack the car while I went straight to bed and to sleep.

I think, no, I know, I did too much.  Far too much.  Never again.  I want to be a hermit.

Well I bought myself a new in-between camera.  A Leica.  This is my work space last night, trying to find out how it works. It took me 2 hours just to attach the lens hood string to the camera body.

The result of Day 1 – Wussums who was the only victim, sorry, model available.  That’s his face of pure loathing with a smidgen of condescension.

Today, I went out and about with my new Leica dangling around my neck at a very low angle (I must get used to that or doctor the neck strap).

The usual chore has to be done.  My camera is set on Automatic at present, ie point and squirt mode, as I have still to understand Page 1 of the Manual which is written for those who already attended university studying photography (or is that Medja Studies?)

The usual audience was watching me carefully to check I was doing it right.  Helpers, I like to think of them as helpers.

Bozz-Bozz was overly keen to say Cheeeeeeeeese (endlessly)!

Here are a few snaps of my surroundings while Taktur ate his stallion food to make him big-and-strong.

It was a stunning Shetland Spring day, perfect for taking photos so that is what I did all afternoon, finding new buttons to press and just generally playing. Obviously I took you-know-who. She entertained herself by playing in the burn (stream).

This is how good the lens is.  Taktur visible.

Taktur where he actually is (the black dot in the distance – no, on the horizon distance in the middle!)

Then I photographed my flowers and scenery in the field.  Now I am very proud of that daisy.   A test of a good camera, imho, is the single daisy shot.

And then I found this button marked C for Colours and I went mad experimenting.  Knocks the socks of Instagram and I can make my house look very scary indeed.  I like this button!  Loads of potential there.

I see endless mileage with this camera.  Small, easy to hold, fun and I need to RTFM!  No more mediocrity when it is raining and I can’t take my big camera out.  Now I have this Leica (imagery to denote banging my head against a wall here) the world is out there.

But one thing this camera cannot do, which I am very disappointed with and may well be writing to Leica about, is to make BeAnne look beautiful when she has been swimming and then rolled in something unmentionable (depressed, again).

When he was caught, it was very evident that Hammie was in a bouncy mood and in no frame of mind to be ridden

Jo and Fiona harnessed him up instead.

We used an Icelandic rubber saddle pad thingy to go under the “saddle” of the harness because this set is not designed for his non-Shetland frame (Jo has a better one at her house which she will remember to bring next time).

Today’s training was getting Hammie used to the feel of shafts on his sides, especially when turning corners.  He went in both directions and was made to do small circles.

Then Jo rattled the “shafts” on his sides and Hammie thought that was fairly scary so she did it some more until he was bored.

Next, the dragging wood which, having just become bearable, made things worse again.

Plus some more “shaft” rattling by his sides.

And then, relief, a carrot for the bravery.  Phew!

and off they went again.

We let Hammie see the rattling things as he is not in blinkers and not the type of pony who would go well in blinkers either at the moment, if ever.

Jo decided to show him the crashing and the banging of the shafts being lifted up and down over his back, as if the cart was being put to.

A few scared moments but he got used to it.

As long as Fiona told him he was speshul!

We are getting there. It is a very slow process, and Hammy needs constant reassurance and time. We don’t rush him and often go back a stage to go forward one, if you see what I mean.

The next step of the cart should be fun.  Look at his face?  OMG!  It is all about trust.  We will keep working away and take it at a speed Hammie’s little pea-like brain can cope with.