TJ sent me a link the other day to a short film about having no regrets. It may seem like our trip is all rosy, and it is for the most of the time, we are having a fantastic experience. The kids are having the time of their life, they are getting on well with their school work and we are having a shed load of quality time together, it’s pretty wonderful. However there have been some tough times, bad luck and uncertainties along the way. But that’s life, right? Social media is set up to enable people to share the best things in their lives, and often its only the positive stuff that gets posted. It’s not real life. It’s often considered not cool to share the shitty stuff too, most people don’t want to admit life is not that great or fear being considered a failure.
Luckily for me I have an amazing hubby who I can talk to when things aren’t going as well as we had hoped. I also have a great family and friend network I can call on for support or just to be able to vent my frustrations. But like many others I don’t want to share the sh*t on Facebook or Instagram….who wants to hear the crap stuff or maybe people think I’m fishing for sympathy or attention.
Anyway enough of that, nothing drastic has happened, just a big issue with our caravan 😔….however all 4 of us are fit (well…the kids are, don’t know about me and TJ 🤣) and healthy and what we are doing is an experience of a lifetime…the shitty parts are just part and parcel of the experience.
So….no regrets!!
On to more positive stuff, a lot has happened over the last few weeks! After our house sitting stint in Tuakau we arrived at Mick and Sue’s farm in Hastings on Sunday 13th January. We very quickly felt at home and yet again we were made so very welcome. We parked our caravan in the yard and very soon the kids were making themselves at home in Mick and Sue’s house. Most mornings they could be found in their PJ’s sitting on their sofa right at home. It has been my turn to get up early to help out, I have been going to the race track with Sue each morning to help with the training of the race horses. A whole new world for me and I love it!! Each morning we would take a bunch of horses to the track (10 mins down the road) and I would help tackup, throw on a rider then help wash off etc after their training. It’s a production line down to a fine art!
After the track training it’s back to the yard and a few of the young horses need to be trained too. I got to ride one of the more sensible horses (a gorgeous 3* Eventer) along side Jake who was the brave one on the young horses. Horses done ✅ …..mostly all done before lunchtime then it was time for the kids, school work!!
Once all the work is done we had some fun trips out to either the beach, waterslide park or to a rodeo or two, a polo match and even helping one of Sue’s riders with her warm up for the show jumping. It’s been bloody hot! Not that I’m complaining, I love it, although TJ is not a fan 😊
Of course a have a favourite horse at Mick and Sue’s, her name is Squeak. She is a very moody chestnut mare who kicks and squeals at any opportunity, hence the name. I love her! She reminds me of a certain bitchy mare back home ❤️. But we have a click and she let’s me scratch her neck for a bit (then she tells me to bugger off) and after she has trained she is pretty chilled out.
TJ has his favourites too, he has been lunging some of the horses and has a penchant for a few of the horses who all are bred by the same stallion (Zed) and have a bit of a sharp side (one in particular is the copy of Capello). He loves working with them and getting some good work out of them on the lunge. He has even been looking for some frozen semen to take home 😯😆.
We had another house sitting stint lined up for this weekend so after 2 weeks at the race horse farm we were a bit sad to leave, but we have decided to go back afterwards! I am also helping Sue out one day this week as Squeak and one of the other horses have a race, so I’m off to race day tomorrow (exciting!). Will report back on that later! Really looking forward to helping out behind the scenes on race day.
So for now we have another “holiday” while we house sit for a family of 5 who own an beautiful farm near Patoka, also in Hawks Bay region. They are off for 10 days and we are staying on their 380 acre farm looking after 2 horses, 6 dogs, 2 cats and a bunch of chickens, ducks, sheep and goats. It’s great fun! Luckily there is a farm help looking after the 100s of bulls out in the land. The dogs are all lovely and I get to ride Sally’s Show Hunter horse Diddi for her as she has a competition soon after her return. It’s a beautiful house, with a swimming pool for the kids and even a separate appartment that Rose seems to want to sleep in herself (she’s pretending she has her own house ha ha). TJ has a few days planned out helping out a farrier again so I will be having lots of time with the kids on the farm. Niiiiice.
I don’t mind sleeping in the caravan, but wow I do appreciate a real bed in a real house for a while! It’s also so nice to have a bit more space to do the kids school work, the kids continue to make me so proud how they are getting on.
Anyway, time for dinner so I’m going to sign off for today, TJ is making meatballs, potatoes and carrots…..yummers! Just one more photo to add, with a map of where we’ve been lately for those of you who are interested.
Kelly xxx