Summer holidays (part 2)

Like in The Netherlands the weather in France was not great this summer, it rained quite a lot and it was much cooler than usual. The higher slopes were even regularly covered with snow, but this didn't stop us being outside most of the time. This poor weather spell coincided with the Tour de France and the visit by Mary’s parents. As usual we enjoy the few days of hectic activity surrounding the Tour and on the day walked up a few kilometers towards Alpe d’Huez to see the “caravane publicitaire” (advertisement or publicity caravan) and of course the cyclists. The great thing is to see the cyclists battling up the slope, so close that you can almost touch them. Piet saw all his heroes, but unfortunately the Dutch guys played second fiddle. At the end of the day we descended, loaded with goodies from the caravan, and to watch the taped recording of the whole stage: were we on television? A very brief shot in passing.......

Mary’s parents had a quiet time, sitting on the terrace, doing short walks and enjoying the horse show in the garden. Our neighbours, owners of the village mare Swallow, wanted to make use of Real’s presence to get her pregnant. Jacques came over to supervise the first “meeting”, a pretty violent affair where Real tried to jump Swallow for a few hours, and got kicked everywhere.... but no success. In the end they were separated to allow Swallow to get “on heat” before a second attempt. They were both left in our garden to stimulate this process and to allow them to get to know each other better; a thin electric wire effectively keeping them apart.

We spent a lot of time working in our patch of forest, cleaning out dead wood, and cutting firewood with all our noisy tools. We also took the girls on a bike ride to their first col: Col d’Ornon, 650 m above the valley. They managed without any problems and are already asking about Alpe d’Huez! However, they are looking forward even more to their horseback camping trip next week....

The whole family is ready for Col d'Ornon

Halfway at the climb at Pont d'Ornon

Proud to have reached the top!

Rob Ruigh and Robert Gesink are struggling up Alpe d'Huez

Dutch hero Johnny Hoogerland

Summer holidays (part 1)

During the last part of Mary’s recovery period from her back surgery her horsey itch started again. With Smook far away (see post of 10th of June) she investigated the possibility to get Mirinda, our horse in Egypt, over to The Netherlands. Unfortunately, in addition to the current unrest, there is at present a ban on exporting horses from Egypt, so the search quickly switched direction to France. Last year she met Jacques and his horse Real (pronounced Re-aal), a stallion that she really liked. So she hooked up with him again and drove over to Normandy to view this horse. It was agreed that we could have the horse on loan for a trial period, before we would make a final decision to buy. However, we had to get the horse ourselves… So now the search was re-directed to marktplaats.nl (a Dutch version of Ebay) to find a horse trailer, and Mary was successful within a few days.

Thus on our first day of the summer holidays we all drove over to Normandy, stayed overnight at Jacques’ farm and early in the morning loaded Real in the trailer. Then we drove all the way across France to our house in Bassey, a solid 12 hour drive as we had to keep our speed under control. On arrival we quickly had to make a small paddock with electric fence and let him out. The next days a much bigger space was set up in our garden and Real slowly calmed down. Then the trials started: he proved to be a handful, and although he picked up quickly on the exercises his fiery character kept playing up (not helped by a number of mares in the village!), and we had some entertaining rodeo scenes. After several days the opinion of Cecile, the local stable owner, was sought and she was very clear: this horse is not suitable for a stable in The Netherlands. After few more days Mary and the girls accepted the inevitable and the decision was made to decline.
Due to all this horse action our usual activities were at a lower level, but we had a few nice days with Hanneke (Smook’s owner) and her extended family, and Piet managed to get a number of bike rides under his belt.

Paula and Mary are training Real

Dorien riding in our paddock in the garden

Real is a very sweet horse, but not really suitable for us in The Netherlands

The crash

On the last weekend before the summer holidays Piet had his first ever real crash, after some 25 years on the bike. The weather was great and a long loop around the islands south of Rotterdam was nearly done. Piet was drafting behind his mate Renaat, speeding along a narrow cycling path with no one in sight, when suddenly some geese decided to cross. Renaat braked abruptly, bikes tangled and they were both on the ground. Piet had some bad roadrash (elbow, thigh, knee, lower leg) after sliding on the asphalt, Renaat tumbled in the grass and was fine. His bike however, was missing a 10 cm piece of carbon frame that had snapped off his rear fork. A total write-off for the frame, and stuck in the middle of nowhere… (east of Hellevoetsluis for the connaisseurs). So, Piet got back on his somewhat functioning bike, cycled 25 km back to the car, picked up Renaat, and together they drove back home, to the joy of cleaning wounds under the shower. We will spare you the photo’s of raw flesh! After a few unpleasant nights and 2 weeks of scabs he has a baby-pink skin again. There are a few upsides though: apparently you don’t become a real biker if you haven’t had a serious crash (and live to tell the tale!), and Renaat can start looking for a new bike…