A bit glum, but ending on a high!

I've been a bit down this week, mostly due to the ongoing livery yard saga. Amazing how something so good can break down so quickly and completely with only one toxic person. It's very sad, and has taken the shine off having horses at the minute. Thankfully we have only 4 weeks until we move.
With all of this in mind, my enthusiasm for riding has been waning. My flatwork appears to be going backwards, jumping isn't any fun on your own, and I have no one to hack with. Yes, woe is me.
So, with this in mind, I wasn't that enthusiastic about going xc schooling. It felt a bit like a pointless waste of time and money. But I am so glad I did!
It wasn't easy, I had to drop the kids at a friend's house at 7.30am armed with a packed breakfast, get to the yard and pretty much load straight up. Luckily I had S the super groom come along, and she really is pretty super!
The xc was at Ely Eventing Centre which is great for seeing everything. There are teeny jumps, and huge jumps, and everything inbetween. I wanted to do ditches and water, and a couple of other technical bits, and have a ping around some small jumps just to have a jolly and get some confidence.
There were 5 of us, which I think was a bit too many if I'm honest as it did mean a fair bit of standing around, but Ros the instructor was very good and took me aside for a few minutes to warm up, as she knows that is the bit I struggle with. She told the others to warm up over all the little jumps in that part of the field, changing gears as necessary. With me, she told me exactly what I needed to do, and kept me going continually between the two jumps until I had relaxed. She knows me so well! After that we were flying! We were definitely the least experienced pair out of the 5, the rest all doing/have done BE, but actually we didn't show ourselves up in the slightest and jumped everything (some even better than the experienced ones!) So proud of the little mare, she really is a star :-)