I haven’t done one of these in ages, but everyone’s jumped on the bandwagon with Rocking E’s Summer Blog Hop Series and it looked too good to miss out on.

(Technically, us being in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s winter, but I’m a rebel.)

1. What is your earliest, clearest horse memory? Definitely coming off a pony for the first time. I was four and taking lessons at a local riding school (the same one where I bought Lullaby for our own riding school, some fifteen years later). The pony, Prinsie (“little prince”), was a small, hairy brown object of indeterminate age or breed. It was trotting along in one of their odd little double-fenced lunging rings and I just sort of poppled off. As you do.
2. Describe the perfect summer day. A self-confessed hater of hacking, I find myself forced to admit that it would be one of those fly-ridden, deep green hacks that you only ever get to have in summer, with the horses’ coats all on fire from that relentlessly bright sunshine that is characteristic of Africa. The green world thrown wide before us; pools of still water, watched by dragonflies, to splash in; the birdsong so prevalent it’s practically deafening. But then again, when I think of summer I think of HOY – all the spotless summer coats and the  green, green Bob Charter and the horses all surrounded by a cloud of mixed hairspray and bug repellent – and that’s pretty perfect too.
3. Are you reading anything right now? Tell me about it!  The British Horse Society’s “Coaching and Teaching Riding” and the German Equestrian Federation’s “Principles of Riding”. #nerd Also the Bible, although I guess that’s pretty obvious.
4. Do you follow a celebrity (horsey or non) that you’re embarrassed to say fascinates you? Tell me. NOW. Well, I wouldn’t say follow, but I also cannot confirm nor deny that when Chris Hemsworth pops up onto any screen anywhere, I am not able to look away.
5. What is your single most biggest horsey dream or goal?  Oh, we all know I leave the dreaming up to God most days, but there’s something in equine-assisted psychotherapy that won’t stop calling my name. Probably God, too. I start my course in 2018 and I can’t wait. Dressage too, obviously. I have no delusions of riding overseas someday, but I sure would love to go down centreline in a Grand Prix test. I just want to feel what that feels like – I want to know how it is to dance like that.
6. If you were at Starbucks right now, what would you order? I’ll just slink away in embarrassment because, once again, Africa. Never been to Starbucks. But if I did, there would be chocolate in it.
7. What is your biggest equine pet peeve? Evolution. Need I say more?
8. With everything going on politically and in the media, tell me, do you follow it religiously? Tune it out? Or something in between?  Y’all Americans think you’re having political fun, try Africa sometime. I avoid reading about politics like the plague, beyond the essential basics. My entire country appears to be addicted to whining about our politic situation, usually on social media, using their freedom of speech, their privilege, and their literacy. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t achieve anything and things could be a whole lot worse. Whining (especially from Christians) is in very poor taste when people are getting their heads blown off in public for what they believe in elsewhere.
9. If you had to show your horse to a song, what would you choose?  Just covered that… for all of them, here.
10. What are you most looking forward to this summer? Well, it’s winter now, but for this upcoming summer, definitely the SANESA Nationals if some of the kiddos go through. They’ve got a fighting chance!

Glory to the King.