The Birthday present I gave to myself

Another reason why I didn't blog as much as I should/could, I had a pretty big, scary, round birthday comming on and on a saturday too and decided, that I needed to be far away from home for that. So, what better thing to do than treating myself to a dream vacation to (and on) my birthday. Organizing and actually taking that trip took up a bit of my free time.

I went horseback riding in Wales! (On Welsh Cobs of course). It was simply wonderful!

First I went to Cardiff for two nights:

The Bed and Breakfast:

Being a bit of a nerd (and a newhovian) I just had to go to the "Doctor Who Expirience", take a trip on the TARDIS (sorry for the sideway pix, no idea why blogger sometimes does that...)

and then help The Doctor fight off Cybermen and Daleks

The expo was nicely done and a lot of fun. I also booked the walking tour to some of the places where episodes of  Doctor Who and of  course Torchwood where shot.

 
After that I had some Cream Tea at Mrs. Pettigrew's Team Room

Then the real fun began. On saturday I went up into the Black Mountains to a farm where I would be spending the week exploring the mountains on trusty, homebred Welsh Cobs.

There where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these around:

For the first three days I got paired up with Julias

Who carried me around safely up and down steep mountain trails and rocky roads

The weather was lovely all week long and we had some spectacular views from the mountain tops

After three days Julias deserved a break and I got to ride another lovely pony called Ebony who was just as lovely to ride as Julias. Forward, responsive and amazingly sure-footed!

We even met some feral ponies on the welsh mountains

I had the most wonderful time, and enjoyed the Welsh mountains with their rough beauty very much.