Even more snow!

We've had even more snow, and we were down the yard a little later in the day, so there was some daylight for some better pictures than last time!

Sneaky sneaky, having some of Solie's hay

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Weather has really dropped recently, and as forecast, it's snowing.

So, we promptly got Assuan out to play in the snow, here's a few pictures and a video.....

Getting comfortable

Ok, so it has been a few weeks now since the blog has been updated. This is mainly because Assuan has been slowly settling in, making friends, getting used to his surroundings and just getting comfortable.

There's a batch load of photos and videos from the last few weeks that need to be uploaded, and I will get around to it soon (along with some captions)

So, the important stuff, what's been going on. We've stared to do some training with him using the training halter; not pushing him too hard, he is still a baby after all. It's taking time, few steps forward, few steps back.

He's been going on some nice walks, around the track, down through the woods and around the yard. Sometimes a little stubborn when we're leading him, decides he wants to stop and occasional gets himself stuck, but we're getting there. Jo's started doing some walk, trot and canter with him and he's starting to respond to the voice commands really well.

We think maybe he things that Chloe is a foal, he keeps trying to play with her; it has resulted in the odd nip and some tears!

The fireworks didn't seem to bother him too much, although we were told they really upset him before we had arrived. Our presence must have settled him, when another large show started up the road, he had a few looks and then decided it was all just too much - so he decided to hit the deck and have a nap!

Vet is coming down tomorrow to give him so more vaccinations; got a few questions we need to ask them too. Assuan still has a little cough and the occasional runny nose, plus we need to sort out a worming plan, etc.

Oh, he's 7 months old today!

Test results are in!

Got the results back from the ring worm test yesterday afternoon, negative as expected, same as the result from the swab taken from Assuan's nose for strangles.

So clean bill of health, apart from still a bit of travel fever. Nose is still running a little bit, but will hopefully get over it soon.

As for the feed situation, got some maintenance cubes yesterday, used them in a feed which he immediately started to nibble on and was all finished this morning. He ate all his breakfast quite quickly this morning which is good, we can slowly weene him over to the stud mix now.

The hardfeed has appqrently given him some 'spark' this morning, so I will see later when I go down the yard. All things seem to be going ok now (touch wood!)

Oh so lonely

Assuan has been going out in an isolation field so he can eat lots of good grass, we're restricting his grazing to be safe.

He's been a bit lonely in the field on his own, calling out to all of the nearby horses trying to make friends. So much so that he decided to jump through a barbed wire fence and get stuck between paddocks.....

Managed to get him out without any further injuries; he's cut all his legs and his chest quite badly, my main concern was tetanus, what with not being sure about his vaccinations. I managed to call Tolo and discuss if Assuan had been vaccinated against anything, he hadn't. I immediately called the vets, explained the situation and they come down to give him a couple of shots, one to start the tetanus and another to attack anything he'd caught from the barbed wire. Next few days we're going have to clean out the wounds and put wound cream on until they start to heal up. Poor little thing, I felt really guilty as though I'd let him down.

The Vets visit.

Vet come down today, taken a few skins samples to make sure they're not ring worm and taken a swab from his nose to make sure it's not strangles. It's all precautionary and we're going to put Assuan in a precautionary quarantine until the results are back - best be safe than sorry.

Assuan arrives

First thing this morning we prepared his bed and then we dashed out to buy a rug! Didn't need anything too thick as it's not that cold yet.

ETA's driver called, said he was about 90 minutes away, I managed to stall him for enough time for Jo to finish work and get to the stables with 10 minutes to spare. So exciting to see the big ETA truck pull in.

Assuan Delivery!

The driver handed me all his paperwork and told us that Assuan had been fantastic and was a lovely little guy, he had loaded on and off the lorry several times without the slightest problem. Jo made a comment about not wanting him and taking him back, to which the driver said that he would love to take him home and keep him!

He had a little bit of a runny nose; we suspected this to be due to the journey. We've bedded him down for the night! We noticed that the heard back in Minorca had clearly been trying to teach him some manners......a few nips on the skin to prove it. We've got the vet coming down tomorrow to give him a check over!

Assuan exploring his new home

Have a look around for the neighbours (no pun intended)

Erm....why am I wearing a jumper?

The delivery date moves forward

When I last spoke to ETA, they said that Assuan would most likely be delivered this Thursday 7th.

So, I have all of the 6th to get last few things ready in the stable, run down to Robinsons and change the rug we got for one his size (if we'd guessed wrong) then on the 7th, put the bed down and wait for him to arrive.

Oh dear...... rung ETA today to check if they'd asked the driver about the rug size, they had and also told me that Assuan was coming into the UK today and will be with us tomorrow - a day earlier than we were expecting.

Better get a shift on I guess, lots to do now if he's coming tomorrow.

Manresa to UK

ETA were to collect Assuan from Manresa yesterday and I was nervous all day that they were going to call and say there was some kind of problem, but I didn't hear anything.

I called ETA today and they confirmed that he had been picked up and was on the way. I asked them if they could speak with the driver to get an idea of the size of rug Assuan will need, it's very cold here at the moment and we don't want him getting cold.

Minorca to Manresa

I received an email from Tolo this morning confirming that Assuan had arrived safely in Manresa and that everything is ok.

Just have to wait until Sunday now for ETA to collect him.

On a personal note, just finished doing some work in Simon Cowell's office at Sony. It's almost as big as the downstairs at home!

The journey begins

I got an email last night from Tolo saying that all the papers are in order and that Assuan will be starting his journey this morning.

He's going to be in Manresa by tonight and will be staying there until Sunday when ETA collect him.

Hopefully Tolo will be notified when he arrives safely there and he will let me know.

Photos from Tolo

Received two emails from Tolo today, the first one worried me because there was a problem with the paperwork required to export Assuan. Later that day I spoke with Tolo who told me he'd spent 2 hours on the phone in the morning and has now sorted the problem with the papers and everything should be in order.

His second email was a few photos of Assuan and his mum. So here they are: 

 

Stables preperations

Spent the entire weekend, de-cobwebbing, cleaning, disinfecting and re-painting the stable that Assuan will have as his new home. I've actually really enjoyed doing it, working out in the fresh air but also under cover.

Pictures of the newly decorated stable and the yard coming shortly!

Shopping spree......

Jo had today off of work and the three of us (Jo, Chloe and I) spent the entire day driving from tack shop to pet shop, to DIY shops, checking prices and buying things we needed, feeds, head collars, wheel barrows, bins, brooms, grooming kit........

Chloe was interested to know why (as far as she was still concerned we weren't getting Assuan) so we told her that we were picking things up for other people at the yard.

We had our first trip to Robinsons in Basingstoke, my word, what a shop. Everything in the shop was screaming buy me, buy me  - or maybe that was just Chloe......

So, now we've got to store all this stuff and try and invent a good reason why we weren't taking all these things to the people at the yard. I'd better use next week to get the stable and tack rooms ready I guess.

Making the arrangements.

Today has been a total nightmare.

I tried to have a conversation with the transport company that we were hoping to use, they didn't return my call. There wasn't a great deal of time between now and when they said they would be in Barcelona to make the collection. My concerns were that the paperwork just wasn't going to be ready in-time and that it would be the right paperwork to start with!

As the original transporters didn't call me back, I decided to make further enquiries with alternative providers. I called Equine Travel Agency (ETA) to get a price from them. I had a brief conversation about the paperwork but I couldn't ascertain what the Export Certificate would be called in Menorca for me to be able to ensure that Tolo would have the correct paperwork ready.

So, I called Defra, no help there, they just confirmed what the documents were called in the UK. They suggested I called the Spanish embassy, so I called them -- they had no idea
I called the British embassy in Spain -- they had no idea
I called the Spanish version of Defra -- they couldn't speak English......
I eventually found a really helpful lady in Spain who I talked to for about 30 minutes, she explained a lot, but again only confirmed what I already knew and said that 'the people you are buying from should know what they need'   -- I wasn't sure (probably because of my awful Spanish trying to communicate with them, not fault of theirs)

I also received an email from Tolo saying that Assuan was going to start his journey in the next couple of days.....ahhhhh panic stations. I decided to call ETA back, I was passed onto Graham, who to cut a long story short, put up with my ramblings and 'stupid' questions, assured me that everything would be fine and said that he'd sort it all out for me. Phew...... He took Tolo's details and I left it with him.

On a side note: I can't recommend ETA more, if you need to transport a horse, use ETA. I won't be using anyone else in the future. Their website is: http://www.eta.uk.com more about ETA later!

So, it was now just a case of sitting back, relaxing and getting the stable ready.

Foal hunting!

We met with Samantha's dad in the morning who introduced us to Chisco. Chisco agreed to come to Santa Rita to have a look at Assuan and tell us what he though of him and also show us various other foals that were available. He would have to make some arrangements and it was decided that we should meet him at 3pm at the Vimpy in Ferreries.

At 3pm he met us again, jumped into our hire car and headed off to Santa Rita. He and Tolo had a chat (not sure what they were saying) but I think that maybe Tolo was worried that he would show us some better foals to buy, I could be wrong. They both went in a looked at Assuan, then we went back to the car to go to the next place. His comments about Assuan were 'he's nice, he has good feet' not quite sure what he meant by that myself.

The first place we arrived at was not too far down the road, no hang on, the entrance wasn't too far down the road, the farm was a 15 minutes drive down a dusty rocky road, massive stones kicking up under the car. The thought 'Maybe I should have paid the 25 Euro at the car hire company to protect the underneath of the car' oh dear!

We arrived at the self-contained little farm, it was beautiful. Fully self-contained, wind and solar generators for electricity, I don't think they had mains electric or waste, possibly had mains water being a farm. They had some cats and dogs and the sweetest little puppy, at one point it jumped one of the cats backs and was play fighting with it, the car was clearly used to it and ignored it. The owner lead us around the back of his farm to the paddock where the foals were roaming, we walked past a cow laying on the floor with four little hooves sticking out the back, clearly in labour.

His foals were lovely, older than Assuan and coming from some winning blood lines, but it has to be said, they just weren't Assuan and were clearly not as handled. Suddenly everyone burst into action, the owner run to a shed and pulled out a big metal t-bar, went across to the cow that was in labour who had now moved off of the floor. He put the t-bar onto it's behind, had a rope around the calves hooves which attached to the device and he started to winch the calf out of the mum. I've seen it on television before, but being just 3 metres away is quite and experience; Chloe was bemused. Chisco mucked in and helped grab the calf as it was born and lowered it to the floor, he was covered in blood; the farms wife gave him some fresh clothes to wear and took his off to be washed.

After this we headed off to some other farms to see some more foals. All very nice, but not handled and you can hardly get near them. We thanked Chisco for his time, asked how much we owed him for his time and he refused to take anything, his answer was 'I'm just helping out some of my friends'.

It has to be said, the sense of community in Menorca is amazing.

We went back to tell Tolo that we wanted to buy Assuan, but he was out on a ride, so we decided to go back to the apartment, get changed to go out for dinner and then go back to see him later. When we returned later in the evening, we sat down and had a long chat with him about everything. There was a distinct proud look on his face when we told him that after seeing all these foals, Assuan was the best. We made various arrangements and said that we would fine tune the details over email. Tolo said that he would like some pictures of him when he grows up, we said we be sending him pictures all the time. This also gave us a lot of confidence in Tolo; we were originally a bit nervous of purchasing a foal from someone that we couldn't communicate with 100% in case something got lost in translation.

Follow-up and transport costs

I called the transport companies we found on the internet and got some quotes; I was surprised, whilst they're still expensive to transport a horse, it isn't as expensive as I'd expected it to be.

Samantha's dad also agreed to meet and introduce us to Chisco the following morning.

We decided to spend the rest of today enjoying the sunshine, so we headed to the Aqua Centre in Callen Blanes. Lots of water slides, lots of sun. We had hours of fun before heading back to the apartment for the evening.

Okapi

I had a look through a Minorca guide book and found a tapas and cocktail bar that advertised free wifi, it was in Playa Fornells and I think it was called Okapi .

That evening we headed over there for a research dinner, laptop in hand. We got there to find a fantastic little bar, friendly staff, good drinks and the food was some of the best we'd had in Minorca; and yes it did have free WiFi.

So whilst we sat and sipped cocktails (Jo and Chloe had ones without alcohol) we searched the internet for transport companies, rescue ponies and foals for sale in the uk, quarantine information, import information and lots more.

Our general conclusions were that there are many rescue animals available in the uk, but we would be unsure of what had been done with it, it's background and so on. Also there were lots of foals available but were several thousands of pounds for a pure bred, but there were none of this breed available except in Europe.

I found a website that had the contact details for a lady called Samantha who owned a Menorquina. Her website said she could help people who were interested in purchasing and importing themselves. I left her a voice mail and shortly after she returned my call. We chatted for about 15 minutes, discussing the options and involved process.Sam gave me the number for her step-father who lived in Minorca and suggested that I give him a call the following day. He would arrange for us to meet with a guy called Chisco, one of the island's farriers and trainer who knows of various places on the island that had other Menorquina foals for sale.

I also noted down various telephone numbers for equine transport companies who I could call the following day to get a quote for transporting the any foal back to England.

Daddyo'

We promptly arrived at Equisport (those of you who don't know Menorca, it's not a massive island), parked up and wandered around to the school where several people were waiting for riding lessons. I wandered over to a guy standing at the side and, in my very limited Spanish asked 'Hola. ¿Dónde está Bep Lluís por favor?' (Hello, where is Bep Lluis please?). He immediately started talking away and lost me after Hola! We established that my Spanish was awful and that he couldn't speak a word of English except 'there Milán' pointing to a stunning stallion being worked in the school.


Milán was breath taking (and I'm not usually the one that gets that excited about how horses look) and.....wow!


After watching him move for some time, we decided to try and get the opinion of other people. I sent some text's and tried to make a few calls - surprise surprise didn't get through to anyone. The people who did reply to the texts had various opinions and thoughts, the word quarantine being most common, followed by 'get one from England' and then 'You're mad'. (I''ll come back to these thoughts later)


I must question my judgement at the time though because for some strange reason I tried to get hold of two guys from our yard Gary and Dan....... (I question my judgement because they are both total mad and would have said go for it regardless, those of you who know them will understand where I'm coming from with that). They didn't answer, they were asleep.........


So, we've seen Mum, we've seen Dad, with seen the foal.......Next question, how much is it going to cost us to get it home, what's the process and what paperwork is required. Time to find a free Wi-fi connection I think.

The day we met Assuan.

We got up bright and early to go and met Tolo at his yard by 8am. When we arrived many of the horses were just standing in the drive way munching at the bushes (as you can imagine, not much green grass available at this time of year). We looked into the field on the left to see a mare and her foal across the field; this is where Tolo told us that his foal was in this field, so this must have been Assuan.

We walked up the drive way, past the horses and up to the yard, the gates were still closed but we could see that there was a lot of things going on. The horses were being fed their breakfast and hearded into order by the two dogs. Both of them appeared to love their jobs, barking at the horses to get them to go where they were supposed to be, quite a sight.

Tolo coming strolling up the yard towards us and said good morning. One thing you will notice about Tolo if you ever meet him is his smile, very warm, friendly and welcoming. He took us down to the field to introduce us to Laila and her foal Assuan.

(For those of you that were wondering, Assuan is the original spelling of Aswan, the big lack and damn in Egypt)

Assuan was a little nervous to meet us, afterall he was only 5 months old and still very close to mum. We asked if he had been put in a head collar and were told he had. Tolo said he was going to take Assuan and mum upto the stable and he would show us, so we left the paddock closely followed by the two horses. We were impressed up at the yard when not only did Assuan accept the head collar with ease he also picked up all four hooves on request. Jo also gently lent across him and rubbed both his sides, he didn't mind at all.

Tolo asked if we'd like to see dad and promptly called Bep Lluis the owner of Milano, the stallion. He gave us directions to.Equisport near Citudela and said that Bep would be there for us to meet him.

The Story Begins!

The story beings on a 'cheap' holiday to Menorca in August 2010. After having an expensive trip to Egypt last year, the holiday pot was running a little dry, so we decided to have a cheap holiday this year in Menorca. We were offered to stay in Sue and Roy's (Jo's Aunt and Uncle) apparment and just as we were about to book the flights Thomson had a massive discount flying from Gatwick into Mahon. So off we went.

During our stay, what with Jo and Chloe's horse riding, we thought it would be quite nice to see a bit of Menorca on horse back. So we had a look around and found a riding stables called Santa Rita, they're on the interner at www.menorcaacavall.com. I gave them a call and booked us in for a beach ride the Friday evening before we come home.

We arrvied on the Friday ready to go for our ride. The plan was to sort out hats and boots when we arrived whilst they loaded the horses into a box and trailer. We'd then follow them to a car park where we would start our ride.

Jo and Chloe were wandering around looking at the horses when Chloe happened to notice a little foal in one of the stables. 'look Jo Jo a little foal' followed shortly after by 'we could take that home in our suitcase'. At this point Sarah (An English lady who works there) said 'I think he might be for sale if you're interested, you'll hvae to speak to Tolo'. Tolo was the owner of the stables and accompanied us on the ride. Being that he was preparing for the ride, I thought I'd wait until later.We set out for the ride and it was amazing, Chloe got a little scared at times as there were some steep rocky areas the we had to go up and down. We ended up having to have her on a lead rope for most of the journey for there on.We went along the beach, into the sea and through some wooded areas around the coast. (I'll put some pictures up later).

On the return journey, back to where we'd left the box and trailer, I held back to have a chat with Tolo. I asked if the foal we had seen was for sale and he told me that it wasn't. It was a friends that he was looking after and it wasn't for sale, but he did have another one of his own if we were interested. He explained that it 'is not as black colour but it has better body'. We arranged that we would go back to his yard first thing in the morning to have a look at this other foal. That night Jo and I spent some time talking about this potential souvenir!


To make this blog make a little more sense, I've created the first entries on the days they occured to bring us up to date and keep the story flowing and in order.