Square Halt.

This morning the sun was shining but already there was a hint of the haze/ sea mist that closed in later in the afternoon bringing tiny speckles of damp chasing the holiday makers off the beach. (Can't really call them rain drops.)

There were only four of us in the riding lesson this morning which gave us more room to fit in lots of circles to encourage 'bend' in our horses. It also meant that we could do transitions on the track as well as across the school. I rode Hazel and she went so well. Hardly any head tossing and mostly on the bit on a very soft rein. A lot of this is due to the schooling other riders are doing but I feel my riding is improving too and I chose to do a great deal of sitting trot. The main exercise today was coming to a square halt inside four cones. With just four of us that meant we could take our time to try and nudge whichever leg was out of line into a better position. Hazel did have a couple of tiny spooks, once at either a water bottle or a swallow swooping past her and the second time at Katie holding the muck scoop. (Any droppings have to be picked up straight away to keep the school surface which is chopped up rubber (tyres?) clean.)

Afterwards I did the shopping and found these H&M sports leggings in the Oxfam shop for £5.50. They will be great for disco aerobics and maybe for other occasions too.

Once I get home on Fridays I don't tend to do much. I throw everything in the washing machine and have a large mug of tea out on the terrace. Today I also finally got round to planting the white lavender in the shingle and harvested one of our round 'courgettes'. I'd thought about making a courgette and cheese loaf but when I checked the recipe it only uses 200gms of courgette and this little beauty weighs seven times that! I may pass it on to someone and use the next courgette which is a little smaller.

Sunset last night. 

When I zoomed in I could see sun spots on the sun's surface. To make sure I wasn't just looking at dust on the camera lens I went to this site. I have no idea what the different categories of sun spot mean but I was impressed at seeing so many.