Seventy four days...: Day 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 & 46

Okay, so I've been terrible with updates again! There's been a fair bit going on!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal days, working at the ranch during the day and chilling out in the evening. We've had a few new reining horses come in which are keeping Chuy busy. It also means that Tegan and I have been given all the "problem" horses!

Wednesday was slightly odd, as I babysat Alli and Brendon's 8 month old son for a few hours. It was so stressful! I didn't take my eyes off him the entire time, and he's at the stage of bumping into everything so there were a few tantrums. Tegan bailed on helping me, as she claims she doesn't know what to do with kids. Eventually the main babysitter arrived (40 mins late!) and I could get to the ranch. Tegan and Chuy were already riding, so I got on Albert. Tegan saw me and cantered over yelling "So... how did it go!?" and I slumped on Albert's neck going "I'm so tired..." She laughed, yelled "so glad I didn't go!", stuck her tongue out at me and got back to working the horse. So much for sympathy!

Thursday was more of the same - another morning babysitting Casyn (including a crash course in changing nappies and how to dress a wriggling baby) then off to the ranch. That night was Tegan's farewell dinner. She was annoyed that Chuy couldn't make it at the last minute, but he had to supervise a client picking up her horse from his place. All in all it was Robyn and her parents, Alli, Casyn and the two of us. It was a really nice dinner, with great food. We all arrived separately, so Robyn went home with her parents, and Alli took Casyn back. Tegan and I sat in the bar (I drank Black Russians as per usual) until it closed, swapping stories. It was a little bittersweet as we both kept remembering that she was about to leave, but it was a really nice evening.

Friday had a similar emotional theme. Chuy was taking Abby to a friend's place for the weekend (this friend trains exotic animals like elephants, monkeys, tigers, etc. for stunt and TV work) so it was Tegan's last chance to see him. We mucked around with the horses all morning, then went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant before he had to leave. They hugged goodbye in the car park and as we walked away Tegan threw me the keys to the truck. The tears came almost immediately, and she kept cursing and saying "I told myself I wouldn't cry!". I did feel really sorry for her - she and Chuy have a real brother/sister friendship and have got really close in 6 months.

Fortunately, we had the ultimate distraction, as it was Halloween that evening. I dragged Tegan to the Halloween store as soon as we got back, and we picked up the last few things for our costumes. We bought a child size police outfit and put it on Oaky (one of the dogs), and I bought some face paint. It was absolutely pouring with rain that evening (the first time since February) but it didn't put off the trick or treater's! We answered the door in costumes and got lots of laughs. Our first stop was Brendon and Alli's, where we had a couple of drinks before meeting Tyler and his friends who took us to a party. On the way we stopped at the supermarket for me to buy alcohol (which was obviously not for the underage kids. Nope. No way.) That was pretty hilarious - handing the cashier my English ID, which they struggle with anyway, when I was almost unrecognisable in face paint. Anyway, we eventually got to the party, despite some lunatic driving by Tyler. He stayed sober all night but still acted like an idiot - nearly drove the wrong way down a freeway, stopped in the middle of an intersection to steal a traffic cone, forgot to turn his lights on, tried to slide the massive car on the wet road with 8 of us in it, all with cops nearby. I was one more stupid move away from lecturing him on the possibility of crashing and/or getting us all arrested. The party itself was pretty funny. It was full of trying-to-be-cool 17 year olds, smoking weed and drinking liquor from bottles, but also standing outside their parent's house in the rain because they had nowhere better to go! There were about 50 people there though, so predictably, it got busted by the cops after a couple of hours. We were all kicked out, and a few people sat in the back of cop cars. My first thought was "go on then, ID me!" before I remembered that I was leaving with kids who'd got drunk on alcohol I'd bought, and thought better of it. After some more crazy driving, we ended up sat in McDonalds at midnight. Tyler was laughing and saying this was a standard night, and wasn't it awesome, but all I could do was thank my lucky stars that my awesome nights usually ended at 7am, because we could all drink, had our own places, a plethora of clubs to choose from and none of us had curfews! I humoured him though, and to be fair, it was a very entertaining night.

Saturday was a slightly more relaxed affair. Tegan and I worked horses all morning, then went out to dinner with Robyn that evening. We went to the cinema afterwards to see Before I Go To Sleep (Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth). It's another trippy, psychological thriller like Gone Girl. It may have been scientifically wobbly (it involves a rather convenient amnesia where you forget everything that happens the previous day), but the plot was really good and it was certainly tense towards the end! Tegan turned to me at one point and mouthed "what the hell!?" as we weren't really expecting it to be quite so intense!

Sunday was spent relaxing and helping Tegan pack. We ran a couple of errands then just chilled out at the house until it was time to go. She took the same minibus shuttle that I used to get here, so we had to drive a little way to the nearest pick up point. It was sad saying goodbye (I had to try hard not to get emotional!) but she said over and over that I am always welcome at her place in Australia, and she is planning a Europe tour as soon as she can afford it. It'd be good to see her again. That evening I moved all my stuff out of the tiny room upstairs and into the guest room downstairs. It was weird initially - seeing it so empty and feeling like I was in Tegan's room! It's a lot nicer than having to duck under flags and being deafened by Tyler's music though. Tegan was bored at San Fran airport, so we chatted on Facebook til her plane boarded. She had to go via Los Angeles, so it was quite a trek. We talked again on her first day back in Sydney, and she was absolutely shattered!

Monday was weird, especially having breakfast in silence and leaving the house before anyone else was up. Luckily, I was kept really busy at the ranch. Obviously I now have double the work load, so I'm rushing around from feeding at 7.30 to leaving at around 3. I love it though. Chuy has given Monty to me as a project, so I'm doing all the work with him and he's coming on well. He's a typical Dutch warmblood. He's cocky and forward going when he knows what he's doing, but if anything unsettles him, or he didn't know the answer to something, he goes absolutely nuts. He's getting better though, and is generally a big softy to handle.

Today is Tuesday, and was pretty hectic (or "bloody hekkers" as Tegan says! I'm probably going to have a half-Australian accent when I get back!). Monty's owner arrived at 8am to see his progress. Apparently he's a Grand Prix dressage horse, and I'm more than welcome to play with him once we start riding, which is awesome! She was pleased with how he was doing, and asked me to give her as lesson sometime soon. My next rode was Coastal, who was fresh to say the least! She's had some time off, so her first canter under saddle (luckily with me on the ground) consisted of 5 solid laps of bucking and leaping around. Eventually I got her settled again, and rode her around for a little while working on her flexion and suppleness. We were in the indoor arena, which was crowded and good practice for her as she easily distracted. She improved a lot over the session, so I ended on a good note. 3rd up was Emmy, who gave me a great ride. Having got into the swing of things with Coastal, I was relaxed and confident with Emmy. I've started working on dressage stuff with her - getting her to move in an outline. It's amazing how easy it is when they're started well. She's been ridden for 2/3 months and no one before me had ever touched both reins at the same time. She's super soft to the left, and super soft to the right because they've been taught well and independently. When I eventually did apply pressure on both sides by picking up the reins, she automatically held herself in a beautiful soft outline in walk, true and canter. Unlike a lot of dressage youngsters, she wasn't being forced with side reins or nosebands, so her mouth was soft and shut the whole time, and she was perfectly balanced and relaxed. I got 3 big powerful strides where she really pushed over her back, so I eased her to a stop and jumped off as that was the perfect place to end the session.