The Thorne Family had an exciting July planned - a very big trip to England to visit family! So off we headed to Auckland to board the plane bound for London. I was excited to catch up with family and friends we hadn't seen for 12 years, but also sad that I would be missing out on a month of Techy time! But I left him in fantastic hands with my amazing crew, and knew he would be looked after like a king. I also had a very exciting horsey date while I was in England - a trip to Hartpury Dressage Festival with all the big guns of the dressage world in action!! Yay!
We stopped en-route in Vancouver for 4 days to break up the flight, and also do a bit of exploring in a country we'd never been to before. It's fair to say we loved Vancouver! It's such a lovely city and the weather was great - just what we ordered after leaving a cold, wet Auckland!
All too soon it was time to get back on the plane and finish our journey to London. I haven't flown long haul since my FSHD has progressed, and was dreading the flight to be honest. But apart from the complete lack of sleep, the logistics of getting on, off and around in the plane itself were not as bad as I'd imagined so that was a bonus!
We had a great couple of weeks catching up with family and friends and visiting all our old haunts. We haven't miss the traffic though that's for sure! We're lucky that our family and friends all live around the South Coast, so we got to spend a lot of time in the cute country and seaside villages around Devon and Dorset. We had a day trip to Dartmoor and got inundated by the cute Dartmoor ponies as soon as we parked up in the car park! A mare and her foal made a beeline for me - she came trotting over as soon as I'd landed in my wheelchair and pretty much had her head in my lap with her foal right next to her. It was so cool! There was a very fresh foal amongst the pack too which was so gorgeous.
Then came time to travel to Glouctershire for the Hartpury Festival of Dressage! I'd found out that the Para Freestyles were on in the morning, and the first Grand Prix tests in the afternoon so it was going to be a great day! I had to brave it on my own though as none of the family were into dressage, but I didn't care... I wasn't going to miss out on this opportunity! Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro were riding, as were Carl Hester and Nip Tuck. No way was I missing that!
So Darren dropped me off at the centre and I found my way into the indoor where the Para freestyles were just getting underway. I parked up in a primo viewing spot with a cuppa and had a lovely couple of hours watching all the riders I'd only ever seen on YouTube compete in the flesh. It was awesome! I made lots of notes and have lots to think about for my own freestyle now :)
After lunch the Grand Prix tests were on, so I went out to the warm up to watch Carl Hester and the other riders warming up. That was really cool too! Then I parked up to watch Carl's test. He is such an amazing rider - it all just flowed and seemed so effortless. I had an hour before Valegro's test so had a quick look around the shopping marquees and then found a good spot to watch Charlotte and Valegro in action. It turned out it was a great position as I could watch them in the warm up arena next to the main arena where they were riding while the test before was going on. So double Valegro time hehe! Wow - he is just a machine! It's amazing how calm and settled he looked, at the same time as being so powerful and electric. He really is an amazing horse. I was so stoked to be able to watch them both in action - it was one of their last rides before heading over to Rio and we all know what happened next :)
We spent our last few days in London exploring and doing all the touristy things, like watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, going to a show (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was great!), doing the London Eye and Madame Tussauds Waxworks, and taking lots of walks through Hyde Park on our way out and back from our hotel. It was a really good family trip!
We stopped off in Los Angeles for two days on the way home, just to break up the dreaded flight again. Hanging out in Hollywood was a bit of an eye opener for James hehe! We had fun walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame hunting out our favourite stars, and also had a fun trip around in a Celebrity Homes tour of the Hollywood Hills seeing the huge mansions of stars like Katy Perry, Bruno Mars and Elvis Presley.
It was a really fun trip but after a month away, I was really looking forward to getting home and back to my cow pony. I was just hoping having a month out of the saddle wasn't going to affect my riding too much... I was entered into the Rotorua and Taupo Winter Dressage days 3 weeks after I arrived home!!! :)