lunedì 28 novembre 2011

Carlotta's first riding competition

Also Carlotta has become a horse girl now. She had her first little club competition at the riding school where she started riding in October. She had such a good time that she would have liked to do do the whole day again. She does something called pony games or mounted games where you do different games together with the pony and compete against another team. I think it's a really good way for small children to start riding. An important part of the lesson is also taking care of the pony and Carlotta loves these sweet ponies with their soft coat and long mane.
Thanks to maybemej for the nice template!

Lovely Week-end in Tuscany

Last year Sofia got a week-end in an agriturismo as her birthday present from me and we had such nice memories from it, so she wanted to do it again this year. So for her 11th birthday she got the same present. This year she wanted to try another place. I had been doing some reserach in the internet and when I saw that the weather forecast for the week-end 12-13 of November was very good, I booked one night for us in an agriturismo in Manciano in Tuscany. Of course this place also had horses and hot thermal springs nearby.

We left early Saturday morning and in about two hours we got to our agriturismo out in the beautiful Tuscan contryside. It was called "Agriturismo Le Macchie Alte". We made a very good choice and I really hope that we can go back there soon again. After all it's not so far away. We got a nice little apartment and the whole place was so beautiful. In summer they even have a little pool. When we arrived there we were welcomed by Maya, the sweetest Maremma dog I have ever met.

For the afternoon we had booked a horse ride. First we went to the thermal springs of Saturnia I had heard about and seen photos of, but had never been there. Lovely, although the water was not as warm as it was last year in Viterbo, but it was very relaxing and the weather was warm, too for November. There were quite a lot of people, but I guess you can't find days with less people there as it's a very popular place. It's free of charge and you have to change your clothes in the car or somewhere outside.
 
After our bath we sat with our bathrobes on our towel, ate some pizza we had with us and just relaxed. All of a sudden I saw an animal under my knees and I soon realised that it was... A RAT!!! This brown rat was walking towards Sofia and I told her to get up fast and when she did it, she put her hands on the ground to get up and the rat bit her in the finger before it disappeared in a hole in the stones. We went back to our agriturismo and looked for someone to ask where to go and what to do and finally we found someone who could tell us where the hospital was. There was a little hospital in Manciano, so we went there and fortunately enough, in this little village, you didn't have to wait long to get examined by a doctor. She said that these rats here in the countryside probably don't live in filthy sewers, but can of course carry diseases, so she gave her antibiotics. The wound also was very small so she told us not to worry, but I must say I had a few sleepless nights after having read in the internet of all the terrible things that rats can transmit.
Anyway after having been to the doctor we managed to relax again and before it got dark we went out for a ride with the horses in the agriturismo. My horse was called Trottolina and Sofia's Yuma. They were quite small maremma-arabian horses. We couldn't canter because they hadn't been ridden for some time so they could get too excited. The ground was very stony and there were lots of steep slopes so you couldn't ride too fast anyway.

In the evening we had a lovely dinner together with the other guests. There was a couple without children from Piemonte and another one with three children from Florence and we had a very nice evening eating good food, drinking some wine and sharing experiences and telling what we have done and seen here. Outside it got really cold in the evening.
Next morning Sofia did her home work in the lobby together with the other children. It was really cozy there with the fireplace. When she was ready we left this beautiful place and went to see the medieval village of Montemerano.

We had booked a riding tour in another agriturismo called Le Vigne. It was nice, but next time we will surely go back to Macchie Alte again. The man who probably was the owner of the riding school wasn't too talkative. The horses were quite skinny and he didn't care to brush them or let us brush them before our riding tour. It was a bit better here anyway, as we got to canter a few times and the scenery was beautiful. I rode a grey horse again called Doje and Sofia Aurora.

Then we went to Manciano to look for something to eat in a bar and in the evening we were back in Rome again.

giovedì 17 novembre 2011

venerdì 11 novembre 2011

Witches and sweets

Halloween has become very important for my children and they had all been waiting for the evening when you can go out to get sweets. This time Daniele went to the cinema with his friends and me and my friends went out with the girls. First a friend of Sofia's came to us and they took a little tour to the neighbours with Carlotta. Then we met up with other friends and they continued trick-or-treating and afterwards we went to a cafe where you got free cornettos for Halloween (croissants with different fillings that Italians eat for breakfast with their cappuccino). Very nice. The day after we had to get up early for our riding lesson and Carlotta was really tired after all this excitement, so we didn't stay out too late. We went trick-or-treating in a residential area where all the houses and gates were very nicely dekorated and people were having Halloween parties and there was a nice athmosphere, but we started a bit late, so many houses already had run out of sweets. Anyway, they got quite a lot of sweets and had a nice evening.