Three hoodies

Had my first group riding lesson this year today. From now on it's gonna be every Friday evening until end of June. And I tell you, it was hard! I didn't realize that three weeks with no riding, despite that I've done some sports in between, was gonna be so sweaty.

Ten minutes in, I had to stop trotting, go in the middle and just stop for a while, another ten minutes and I had to ask the teacher to hand me the bottle of water I brought. No saliva left. Even so, I enjoyed it immensely. Today we did slalom, when you ride between cones, and the exercise when you make the horse go forward and left/or right at the same time. No idea what it's called in English*. Or German. Or any other language for that matter.

Of course galloping is my fav, and I was rocking today. Was given "my" horse, Feri, and we were doing good. Had some friends coming by in the end of the lesson, and they said I looked the best (of three :).

But in the beginning of the session Feri was a bit slow, and my legs were not strong enough to make him go faster, so the teacher gave me a whip (which I don't think should be necessary), and funnily enough that got him going. Without me even using it. The carrot and the stick kind-of-like.

And the whip was long, so accidently when I was giving him the sign to gallop I touched his behind with it, and off we went at a very good speed. Fab fun!

The three hoodies? Well, after the lesson my friends took me for a drink, and I got to make horse-talk for an hour or so. It wasn't only me, one of them raised lots of questions and of course I was happy to answer.

Then they walked me to the bus stop, and it was raining. All three of us had hoodies, and I was looking at them raising theirs, like one-two-three and there were us, three people walking, well into our middle-ages, looking like suburbian kids. Well, if you have a bit of imagination i.e.

Good fun! Who would've thought that I would prefer horses to men on a Friday evening?

*googled, it's leg-yielding. Does it make you any wiser?