Flamin' Flamenco!

Yesterday Merrill and I had a girl bonding day. We went to see The Dance of the White Stallions by El Caballo Blanco. Not all the horses were white, but that was totally forgivable as the black ones were my favourites. However, the flamenco dancing I could have done without. I mean, I've seen flamenco before and enjoyed it. This seemed.... well... boring. Maybe it was cause I was there to see the horses, not some flamin' foot stomping, hand clapping, frill furling dance. And that was just the man!

Honestly, I think the show would have benefitted from more stallion dancing and less human dancing.

Anyway, we did enjoy it mostly, especially seeing the man and the bond he had with his horses. That part was incredible. Plus we learned something new by way of the origin of some of the moves. Made me wish I had the choice to come back and live another life, one in which I could train under someone like him and work with horses.

But this is this life and we make the best of what we have, right? What Merrill and I did was watch the show then go have a gourmet pizza, over which we dissected the show, marvelling at the beauty of the horses and discussing at length at which point in the show we wished we'd had a snipper riffle to take out the dancers.

We then went for ice cream (cause what girl day out is complete without it?) then rented a dvd and watched it on Merrill's the couch, warm throws over our legs, a warm dog with bad breath between us. A real girl's day out.

And somewhere in the middle of washing dishes this morning, daydreaming about spanish riding and spanish men, I started to think about the language. Spanish, english, greek, french and italian to be specific.

I started to think about the differences in languages and how we perceive them. For instance, why is it that anything said in french sounds so romantic? A guy whispering in italian, with its musical cadence, is seductive, in spanish its passionate. In english its ho-hum. In german its castigating.

My first big love was with a gorgeous guy called Bruno, a crossbreed of italian, french and tunisian ancestry. Yep. He was gorgeous. He spoke italian and french. I spoke greek and english. We held hands and stared into eachother's eyes a lot by way of communication. But when he whispered in my ear I melted into a quivering pool of desire.

Something about certain languages is just ... suggestive.

I've seen what Merrill can do to a man with her rusty spanish. She's had men transfixed, hanging on her every word, cause anything said in such a passionate language must be something special. For all they know she's reciting her shopping list, but it sure sounds good!

Somehow, though so close in proximity to italian, greek just doesn't have that thing that makes it send shivers up a spine. Its not musical like italian, its not suggestive like french. In fact, most of the time greek is spoken in the high decibel range as people try to talk over eachother at the dinner table.

Anyway, thats enough of the silly ponderings for today. Its been a gorgeous sunny day so I got out and took in some rays as I worked in the yard (pooperscoopnig is such a romantic way to spend the day...). Wayne got Wally saddled up and had a short ride and then let me get up and have a go. It was great.

Again... after I managed to get up! This time I didn't need the box. The stirrup leathers were nice and long. I managed to get my foot in without the helping hand, then found myself with the saddle at about waist height. Then I had to haul myself up into the saddle from there. Thats not easy! And its a western saddle. That means that when I had to get off I couldn't bend forward to get the impetus to swing my leg over the back of the saddle. Not to mention the height of the back of the saddle... I'm used to riding in general purpose and dressage saddles, they're like pancakes compared to a western saddle.

The ride was a quiet one. It had to be. I had no stirrups. My legs seem to be about 3 inches shorter than Wayne's which is odd cause he's not that much taller than me... or maybe it just seems that way as I tend to stare him down a lot.... hmmm...

Since Wayne didn't want to adjust the leathers, I rode without the benefit of stirrups. Which means I walked and did a few sitting trots. Both planned and unplanned. Surprisingly, Wally has a comfortable trot, easy to sit to. But I felt much higher up on him than I did on Monique. One of them is not 16hh!

I did enjoy it though. I'd been so scared of getting on Wally cause I've seen him playing in the paddock! Wayne was happy about it too. He said I was good on him and he liked the way I didn't panic easily.

I thanked Wayne for letting me ride his horse. He thanked me for staying on him.

z