The second day riding was even more fabulous than the first, if you don't count the inevitable saddle sores. I could not justify buying half-chaps, because somewhere back home there is a pair in some trunk...yay for the pocketbook and boo for the leg skin :)
Really makes my want to start riding again when I get home . . . with more leg protection that is . . .
We went down to the dining room for breakfast. I am so happy that the chef has promised me the recipe for the dark grain soda bread of delight!
Then we did our best to get out the door, managing once again to be late to the stable alas, but of course they were still assigning hats and boots so it was fine. The weather was much less fine than the First Ride, there was the occasional bucket-dumoing rain - very glad for my REI raincoat :).
They gave Megan "Boots", not "Rocky", which was a step up as she could actually walk out. When they had taken Megan off the lead line on the first ride she had had a hard time helping Rocky keep up. I rode the patient mule-eared Bess again.
Our first event, after the riding skills test in which Megan wisely chose not to canter after all, was the monsoon-blown ride up the hill. Bess, like the other horses, did it in a sort of a half-pass, tail to the wind and face away. I took her advice and followed suit.
The Yellow Thing came out part of the long merry way to the beach, and shone intermittently thereafter, to our joy.
This was to be a three hour tour *wink* but ended up being much longer...ahhhh. The wide sand ithsmus between the main island and the smaller one was about a mile wide in places, and the kind wrangler would go trotting on ahead with the newer riders and leave the three of us more experienced riders far behind, and she was so far away across the sand that we could not even see her signal and had to guess when they had settled, before starting our whooping, glorious hand gallop across the water-packed golden sand. I shouted "Forth Eorlingas!" And the French co-riders didn't care:) Total glee. Nice Bess is so beach-patterned by now that she doesn't shy at bits of flotsam on the sand, only on the road.
Then we got to the island, about half the size of Iona, and wandered its lovely rocky roads with merry grins pasted on our faces, admiring the Connemara mare and foal and donkey friend in one rock-walled pasture (picture coming at the airport if not before, I promise!).
As we turned for the return trip I could not help singing, I was so happy. I sang "The Whistling Gypsy" and "The Parting Glass" (though Megan tried to stop me as it was Too Painful, so I sang it under my breath for just Bess) and "The Trees, They Grow High", and "The Golden Vanity"... The monsoon stopped my singing and thoroughly drenched us-ran down under us so that we were sitting in puddles- a new trail experience for me-and once again I followed Bess' lead and turned away from it.
At the barn we reluctantly dismounted with much dramatic groaning (it has been about 8 months since I have ridden, sadly) and then I had the joy of watching the beautiful Siobhan school her second-level warmblood in the driving monsoon. Poetry in motion. Later, after she was done, she told me that after schooling in a muddy-all-year monsoon-prone, windy little arena, when she goes to compete, her horse sails in indoor arenas and is thoroughly unflappable.
We tore ourselves from the place with great reluctance, and drove home through the second rainbow of the day.
In town we had pub grub Irish Stew again for Megan, Tikka Masala for me, then did a little light shopping (ahem) for presents before grinning our way home to Cashel House, where we went down to the sea by the hotel for some Ritual Moments with thistles at Magic Hour before retiring early.
Because we are about to go on the Aran Island Ferry this morning!!
Ah Megan is doing her baby noises about to wake up, and Irish Breakfast is imminent! Off again to the sea for our second-to-last day here:)
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