Ice skating

This winter temperatures in The Netherlands dropped to a 15-year low, which allowed the Dutch people one of their favourite pastimes: ice skating. They were even close organising the most famous race of all: "De Elfstedentocht" (11 cities tour), a 220 km race in the north of the country. The race was held last in 1997, as thick ice is needed across the whole route. Only 16.000 participants are allowed, but there are probably a million people who want to join. A complicated membership-lottery combination is used to select the happy few. Anyway, the race was cancelled due to limited ice thickness and approaching warmer weather.

For the girls it was their first opportunity to have a go at it themselves, as growing up in Malaysia and Egypt didn't include ice skating... Mary still had a pair of skates, and Paula went out a few times with her friends, and enjoyed it a lot. One day after school Paula and Dorien joined forces at a nearby canal, swopping skates and making pictures.

And on the horse front: Beau is in a horse clinic at the moment to get his hoof fixed, and now needs 10 days of absolute rest. Visiting is only allowed on weekdays, so Mary had a long weekend...

Paula skating near our house

Dorien on the ice at sunset

Rio (II) and horse matters

Piet had another short trip to Rio de Janeiro for the project he is working on in the office (see post of Nov. 26^th 2011). The pattern was very similar: after one and a half day of meetings in a windowless room there was some time for sightseeing before taking the plane back. This time Piet and his two colleagues went to Pao de Açucar (Sugerloaf Mountain), the famous rock in the bay of Rio, also well known from James Bond’s Moonraker movie. The weather was great (it is summer in Brazil), and they enjoyed the views over the town and the beer afterwards on Copacabana Beach. When the plane landed next morning there was a minor snowstorm, with an almost 40 degrees C drop in temperature! No sympathy for Piet though, especially after he mentioned a morning swim in the Atlantic Ocean…….

Beau is having a bad time, not because of the weather, but due to an injury. Mary started a horse sports massage course and she wanted to take Beau along for one of the lessons. He has always been very good in trailers, so we didn’t expect any problems. He stepped into our trailer easily, but when Mary drove off he panicked almost immediately. Mary stopped, called the girls and had to unload him and leave him back in his stable. What apparently happened is that he got one of his hooves stuck below a divider we build ourselves (to allow some storage space for boxes with food and equipment), and his skin was stripped off just above. The vet was called because it looked quite nasty, and the injury was cleaned and bandaged. To allow quicker healing he cannot do any exercise, and Beau has been confined to his 3x3 m box for 10 days now. Twice a day he gets out to walk for 10 minutes, which is more a mental than a physical exercise. And for the rest the ladies keep him company as much as possible, because Beau is obviously very bored. To be continued……

Early morning exercise class on Ipanema Beach

Sugerloaf Mountain, from the middle cable car station

View over Copacabana Beach, from Sugerloaf Mountain

Beau's bandaged rear leg