Day 12 – Horseback Riding

The girls had seen the ability to ride horses in Richmond Park so I looked into some horse riding lessons. We found a stable, close to the park and reachable via one of the buses near us and given that it was not supposed to rain until later, we booked lessons for that day. Since we had never been there, we decided to leave extra early which was a very lucky thing. We got to the bus stop and just missed a bus but given that they come every 8-14 minutes, and we had given ourselves plenty of time, I figured we’d be ok. Well we waited and waited and waited. Then the schools got out and a flock of kids in uniforms joined us. And then we waited and waited and waited. Finally, after 45 minutes, the bus came. No explanation and no one seemed that phased by its lateness. We got off the bus at 3:20 for our 3:30 lesson and ran the 5 blocks to the stables. Then we quickly got suited up (riding hat & boots) and got our horses with 30 seconds to spare.

The girls had a blast – a very expensive blast at that for only a ½ hour. Both girls had 1 on 1 lessons with separate instructors in the outside rink. Both had ponies, not horses and Ainsley’s looked like a Shetland pony so it was smaller than Emily’s. They learned how to mount and dismount, get the pony to turn, they trotted, and learned to get up & down on the horse – that was amusing as they each had 2 laps with the instructor saying – “Stand up, sit-down, stand up, sit-down”

We lucked out because as they were bringing the ponies back to the stables, it started to lightly rain. Then we ran to bus stop which was covered. And we waited and waited and waited for another bus. At some point, we heard the reason for the delay. Apparently, there was a house fire on the bus route and traffic was at a standstill so no buses could continue on their routes. Instead of going around the street with the fire, the buses had to wait because the streets are so narrow that a side street was really not an option. Finally a bus came (only waited 20 minutes this time) and then we went home instead of going to the park as had been our intention. Even with the rain and the long bus waiting, it was by far the girls favorite day here.