It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd pop a quick update of how things have been going recently. It's been a busy few weeks since SWAT show, which was the weekend we received an offer on our house. It led to negotiations on a house that we had our eye on, but didn't come to anything unfortunately. Wye Valley came at the end of that week and it showed - I was completely out of sorts and Ella doesn't appreciate my mind being elsewhere! The trouble with not getting that house was that it left us (me mainly!) in a bit of a panic about what to do, as our buyers wanted to get going quite quickly.
The following week saw many viewings, but none positive. They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do don't they?? I'd have to agree! When Lel & Hattie wanted to go to UKA Sands to work on their contacts, I felt I'd enjoy it more than going all the way to Thames show at Newbury showground by myself. We had a lovely day, and Ella and I won the Beginner Standard Agility and the Senior Standard Steeplechase - moving us up to Novice Performance, which had been rather elusive up to that point!
I missed running some of the great courses at Thames, but I think overall that I made the right decision. Wye Valley show had shown me that it's important to be in the right head space when attempting challenging G6/7 courses. So I was keen to be at Golden Valley this weekend, not least because Top Barn in Holt Heath is such a nice venue. Unfortunately this week has been fraught with our children playing musical beds from 4am in the morning, and further developments on the house front. Having found a nice local house with a great size garden and made a successful offer, when we actually looked at it down on paper we found it wasn't a great deal bigger than our current house.
After 10 house viewings, we've decided we've probably got quite a good handle on what our budget can stretch to and it's not going to get us much, if anything better than what we have already. So on Friday we decided to take our house off the market and let our buyers down, and withdraw our offer on the only house we had liked. Felt quite emotional as it didn't feel good to have to let these people down, but have to do what's right for us.
Set off for Golden Valley, a bit tired, but pleased we'd finally made a decision about what to do. We're going to have plans drawn up to extend over our converted garage, to make the space we want where we are now. Shame our little Callum didn't share our relief (teething pains) - not only did he not want to go off to sleep in the caravan on Friday evening, he also decided to get us all up at 4am-ish on Saturday morning. Parenting - not for the faint-hearted! :-)
Feeling very fuzzy, our first couple of rounds of the day didn't go quite to plan. Made silly errors in the Jumping, then Ella missed a weave entry in the Agility. Tired and very miserable, I decided I'd prefer to go home and try and get a good nights sleep. I am blessed with the most amazing parents who said they'd have our little cherubs overnight, so I did our last Agility run of the day with a bit more enthusiasm than I'd started the day with. Ella went beautifully, I just didn't react as quickly as I need to in order to give her adequate steering. But I was much happier with how we'd done, and I feel like we definitely deserve our spot in the G6 classes.
Today I went along to UKA Aldon to support Lel & Hattie in their contact proofing quest, and still wasn't really on top form. Managed to steer Elle round a Novice Agility for a 3rd place, but she could tell I wasn't really fully able, which messed up our other rounds. I'm also a little concerned with her weave entries again, but we have Smart Clinic tomorrow so she'll be checked over then which will put my mind at rest.
Wow, this was supposed to be a quick update - what would the long version be like, I ask myself?! Anyway, I think that gets me up-to-date, and with luck and a fair wind, I should be a bit more competitive in time for Lansdown weekend next week. As it's our joint club show with Clifton Agility Club its not traditionally a particularly successful weekend for me in terms of competing, but perhaps this is the year to end the drought?! :-)
Today I am grateful for my Ella, who would rather have me work her in a bad mood, than not have me work her at all. I don't deserve such a partner, but I hope I gave her some small reason to today. I went into the agility ring with Susan Garrett's words echoing around my head "When I look at my dogs, I see only greatness" - that's my girl :-)
