Next on the horsey calendar...

If the Olympics has made me realise one very important thing in my life, it's that there just aren't enough horses in it.

I am not in the fortunate position of owning my own horse, and whilst I am lucky enough to have a full-time job in a day and age where people are scraping by on three part-time positions, I still don't earn enough to make this a reality, along with living expenses and running a car. Instead, I have one riding lesson a week, and put all of my money aside at the start of the month to be able to afford this, but the reality is, with the way my confidence has taken an almighty knock over the past year or so (for reasons I am still trying to figure out, incidentally. The human brain is a wondrous yet equally frustrating thing), I could do with at least two a week to get me back to where I was such a short time ago. At £22 an hour, however, this just isn't realistic. Horses are expensive, even when they're not yours! This is a work in progress, but in the meantime, I've been thinking of other ways to satisfy my horsey needs.

For my birthday this year (and I won't embarrass myself by admitting exactly which birthday. It's about five years further on than I would really like, but at least still the right side of thirty), my mum bought me Burghley tickets. For all the years I have been riding, and considering the relatively close proximity (well, within a two hour radius anyway) of Burghley Horse Trials, I consider it pretty shameful that I have never once been. I don't think my mum perhaps expected to come with me, not being a rider herself and only having a slight interest in horses because of me, but it was her I invited, and it seems the prospect of the shopping village actually has her quite excited now about the whole thing (oh, simple things!). It is now a mere two weeks away, and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about it. Our four-day tickets and Sunday grandstand tickets arrived in the post a few weeks ago, and although it means cancelling my beloved weekend riding lesson that week, I suppose it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for this particular event.

Never having been before, I can feel I will try to pack everything, from vastly inappropriate footwear to three hundred extra pairs of socks (because you never know!), but what I am sure about is that whatever the weather, I still feel like I need a pair of these in my life:

Joules.com

Because there is always space for pink striped wellies in your life, Burghley or no Burghley.