It has been a busy week for me with RDA activites.

Thursday  12th September.
Today I had some calls to make to sort out a few Problems that a group had with Instructors and riders, which after some discussions of the various solutions possible, were sorted.

In the evening I drove to Ilton which is near to Ilminster to teach the chard RDA ride there, they are a group of teenagers, that I have been teaching for several years now,
they were all their normal chatty selves tonight.
I am working on getting them off the lead rein in walk and trot at the moment,which
can be a bit hair raising at times. I got them to stop between poles on the ground and steer between blocks off the lead rein. One or two of them were having 'brake' problems.
Jamie, which is one of riders, wanted to know why there was a 'x' marked on the wall of the arena when it is in the middle of the arena, I explained to him that it was there for people that didn't know where 'x' was, to help them find it when they were riding down the centre line.
It was nearly dark when I got home, just a fortnight ago it had been light when I got home just goes to show that the nights are drawing in and winters just around the corner.

Monday 16th September.
Today I went back up to Ilton to teach Lauren and Jason, these are my two riders from chard RDA, who went to the Paralympics last year and got inspired to do more, so over the winter I went up and did extra coaching with them, they went to the regionals in Cornwall in June and came 1st and 2nd in their dressage class, which everyone in the group was very pleased with. next years aim is to qualify for the RDA nationals.
I got them working hard this evening on their trotting and circles.
Tonight it was dark when I arrived back home, it was very cloudy tonight which didn't help.

Tuesday 17th September.
Today I was meant to go and take the chard RDA session at Forde abbey, unfortunately it was raining and as we are outside and the riders are not very old, the decision was to cancel it as the ponies even though they are very good wouldn't be happy with the wind and rain, It has only been the second one that we have cancelled this summer so far.

Wednesday 18th September.
Acorn and squirrels ride in Exeter this lunch time, all the riders were there today, it was a busy session at 12.30pm, as we had Matt Woodley from radio Devon, come to see what we do in the riding sessions, he also interviewed some of the riders, carers and  the helpers for his radio programme the next day, as radio Devon are supporting a charity that had just recently given our group some money. It was a bit daunting attempting to teach riders with someone holding a microphone close beside you, still I managed it, hopefully it will show everyone what RDA is all about.
We have a space now in our 12.30 session as one of our riders is now not able to ride with us due to other commitments, we do have a waiting list of people wishing to ride with us, so it will soon be filled, Sue who has the list is going to get in contact with them, one or two have been waiting for some time so it will be a case of seeing if they still wish to ride or are still able too.

Thursday 19th September.
Got up to listen to Radio Devon, turned the radio on only to hear the last few minutes of the interviews,I could just make myself out in the back ground, thank goodness for BBC iplayer, I was able to listen later in the day, it was a good article hopefully something will come from it for both the group and the charity the radio is supporting.