TRANS WALES TRAILS

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Christmas Newsletter 2007

Season’s Greetings 
Happy Christmas everybody! We hope this Newsletter finds you all very well and happy with your lot. This year has seen many changes here at Cwmfforest but the main one is in our approach to life. With Pip & Owain’s kids quietly growing up and Paul having found a new lady things look rosy for the future at Trans Wales Trails.

 2007 Year Overview
This year we have strangely been quieter than previous years which could be a worry or perhaps it is because of the crap summer weather that we had. Anyway the quality of guest certainly made up for the lack of quantity with many really nice folks visiting us. Because of the lower number of guests coming on the rides we have majored a bit more on selling horses… Overall we are still moving forwards and look towards 2008 to bring lots more folks back and many more good times ‘down on the ranch’… 

Guests 
Many guests, old and new came and enjoyed riding our horses. March, April and May were lovely months but despite this promising start to the year the summer months of June and July proved to be a washout. Luckily things improved with a beautiful Indian summer and we’ve been busy throughout the autumn and even into December.

This year we have seen many regulars this year as well as many new customers. Martin and Lizzie as well as Jean and Mary visited early in the year on their annual pilgrimage as did Berti, Jan & Karen & the Moorhouses who also came back in October for a second dose of the good stuff.

Regulars Mary and Margaret sadly missed their first visit in 10 years as Mary had an accident during a trail ride in Italy in May, but is now fully recovered and we hope to see them back again in 2008. Other missing faces included Kesri and Paul although we did get to see them for a fleeting weekend at the start of the year, and Tim & Jan who are busy building their house.

In 2007 we have had few visitors from across the Atlantic, but what they lost in number they made up for in quality with all being fun folks and great to lead. Emily Esterson from Arizona came in February, followed by the Mitchell crew from Toronto Canada on the TWT in June. Then in August came Jan Price from Texas as well as Rachel Buchman and her daughter Judith. Finally there was Barbara Alexander from NYC who had an enjoyable week in August.

We entertained 2 large groups of Japanese folks this year courtesy of Tanaka San’s Freedom Riding Club as well as Kikuchi San’s group later on in May. We also had several groups of independent Japanese riders coming alone this year due to a magazine article in the February ‘Johba Life’ riding magazine.

The European quota was down on the year with many fewer Germans but we had some nice Swedish folks to bolster the numbers later in September.

Karen Thake train driver extraordinaire joined us on the wet TWT at the end of June and we are unlikely to see her for another year or so as she is now off to drive the bullet train in Taiwan! On a similarly foreign note Mike Hedge brought his daughter Jacqueline for her first trail with us in August before returning to Borat country Kazakhstan for another long winter of oil exploration!

Throughout the latter months of the year we have had a steady flow of guests visiting over the weekends and sometimes mid-week. Many have been new to Trans Wales whilst a few have been very old guests such as Sandra who hadn’t been for 4 years. Similarly we had our annual visit from Karla, Julia and Christian from Germany on their shopping spree around Wales – not horses this time luckily! Other guests who put in an appearance this autumn were – obviously everybody’s fave man Stuey, Helen Hayes, Ruth Benton and the girls, as well as Alison Wattie and Carl Stapleton who came earlier in the year too.

Similarly the Quedgley crew came along and had great fun, as well as Michelle who made a welcome return after an absence of nearly 4 years too.

Amy and Gerry Stroud came in their usual autumn half term spot towards the end of October on a quiet weekend and ended up coming on a ‘try and buy’ day’s ride – walking away with Gwenny a month later… See below for more details. The last weekend of October saw us welcoming back Jester’s very proud new owner Annabel Thomas as well as Rachel & Louise, and a very old customer Rosie Sumner, whose house our brother Owain has just purchased off her ex-husband…

Into November the weekends remained popular with Richard and Miriam from Worcester, Mette from Denmark, Louise from Sweden, and Jane from Kenya via Borth coming on the first one. The second weekend featured a strange but interesting mix of Kiwi vet Kate, Lesley and Angela from Derby as well as 5 lasses from Malaysia! Fun was had by all!

The third weekend featured Maddie, Ann & Dan as well as Surfer Dude Dave and his Facebook-found girl Flora as well as 2 more Cambridge vets in the form of Sarah & Rebecca who we hope to see more of in the future as Sarah’s Dad has just bought a place down the road!

Finally over the last weekend in November we had 2 credit brokers, 2 Doctors, an environmentalist and a custom car spray painter lassie from Western Australia! We only had to rename 1 ditch and 1 rock that week – Jess’s Ditch and Tanya’s Rock!

Trans Wales Trail Riders hits Facebook.com!
We have started a new campaign to get people in touch and keep them all informed. Since mid October we have set up a Facebook (FB) interest group entitled Trans Wales Trail Riders and you are all welcome to join the group if you get on FB so that we can all keep in touch with each other and send you any news as it happens. Each weekend folks who enjoy themselves here are encouraged to become members… I think they call it Web 2.0 Similarly on the same front we are working on sending out e-newsletters once we get the broadband thing sorted here at Cwmfforest.

New Brochure
During the whole of the year Paul has been asking people about their favourite colours and for design ideas in order that he could make the best possible new brochure. Eventually 7 or 8 months later than required the new brochure is NOW OUT and hopefully you like it! Please let us know if you’d like any extra copies to hand around.

Horse News

Sales
This year 6 of our horses have found new homes. First to go was Gem, a 3 year old palomino mare to Dawn from Worcester, in March before she foaled, followed by Tomos to Jackie Wilson and Tecwin to Denise Smith in April. We then sold 4 year old Frankie to Hannah in August once we’d broken him in. Then went Willy Nilly at the end of September to Marianne & Dan in Colchester. Finally 6 year old chestnut mare Gwenny went to Amy & Gerry in Leicestershire towards the end of November. We wish them all luck… horses and people! It is always hard to say goodbye to the horses that have been born & bred on the farm but we are reassured by hearing how happy they are at their new residences.

Breeding
We expected 7 foals this year and indeed we had 7 in total… However we lost one in the spring when Polly gave birth in the stream but she did then go on to help raise a racehorse foal through the year due to some quick phoning up of the foal bank. She spent the year in Worcester living with the Chugg family and their TB’s! So we had 5 live foals in the spring and then a further 2 in the autumn – 1 expected to Mel and 1 totally unexpected to Myfanwy who had been working hard all summer!

 Loaned Out
This autumn term we have loaned out 11 horses to colleges. These are 7 to Hartpury College, 4 to Holm Lacy College near Hereford, and Trefor is with Jane Anscombe.

The 2 late foals are currently away with Smoothie John and Ann in west Wales and they have been Christened ‘Vanda’ for the youngest filly as well as ‘Viking’ for the larger colt.

Training
In the spring months we got Myfanwy up to speed riding and she became a stalwart of the riding herd until her little surprise present to us on October the 6^th! Similarly Snip and Trefor continued their education throughout the year. Snip is now at Hartpury while Trefor is staying with Jane the vet. Frankie was also broken in during April and May before being sold on to live in Gloucester with Hannah at Summerhouse Equitation Centre.

During November we have broken-in the 3 year old ‘Passion’ who is Hank’s half sister and she is going really nicely. We are currently working on breaking her to drive so that she can help work in the forest with us!

Competitions
With the wet summer we have not had much time to compete. Paul did compete in a hunt team at the Team Chasing Championships back in April while Murphy, Ogmore, Pugh, Cardi (& Amy) all enjoyed a bit of steeple-chasing at the end of August. Similarly Gwenny jumped a stormer of a round at the Berkley Hunt Team Chase mid-October while Louise enjoyed herself jumping a Team Chase course for the first time at the Cotswold while Paul and Magic and Julie on Prichard jumped the Open there and all completed… Now we just need to get a permanent team and up the pace… (against all these retired race horses!).

Paul also did a couple of National Championships at TREC with Magic and hired out 2 or 3 horses each time. Results were not the best but certainly fun was had down in Carmarthenshire and up on Cannock Chase…

Farm News
Hay making was delayed right until the August Bank Holiday although then the weather was very nice and we did get most of the hay in and it was good quality stuff in the end. Well done Simon! Got the manure all spread too.

Family News
Mike & Maria are still looking after the farming and house parts of the business and have been much more relaxed this year! They have been to Germany a couple of times as well as to Mike & Anny’s wedding in May as well as taking their annual trip to South Africa at the end of November.

Owain & Pip still just have the 2 boys Tim & Theo although Tim is now walking and talking whilst young Theo was walking well before his first birthday on October the 13^th. They have also just purchased a house to be renovated – so it looks like they’ve got their hands full for the foreseeable future!

We’ve seen Randal down here quite often when he hasn’t been having weekends dancing in Southport or weeks in Spain practicing his Spanish language skills!

Paul & Julie amicably separated in June and she now helps out part time at Cwmfforest when not busy working elsewhere.  So Julz is now staff as well as honorary family. Paul has been enjoying the company of Emily who came riding here for the first time in April and is crossing his fingers for the future – watch this space!

Staff News
Rowena has been helping on several occasions throughout the year – as long as there hasn’t been rugby played! As ever she likes riding Cardi.

In May we had a South African man called Wian who helped for a month before returning back to London in time to nearly be nail-bombed up at the nightclub Tiger Tiger…

In August we welcomed on board Tamson who has helped out a lot during the back end of summer. She was up to riding Mr Pugh and took him on as her pet project!

Other News
Paul spent 10 days busily promoting at the biennial Equitana in Essen where he not only had fun but also made many good contacts for the future. We have also been busy meeting Indian travel agents – so maybe we’ll be selling coal to the Saudi’s shortly… Watch this space! We can dream! We are currently working on getting a new info email system up and running – so soon there will be no need for you all to read my ramblings about the past 12 months and you can get regular updates every month per email.

Trail Extras
Paul is thinking of reviving an old trail for 2008. Having ridden over to Llanthony Abbey as a special deal at the start of October we reckon that it’d be great to ride over there again and stay at the Abbey Hotel again and guests can get the chance to stay in a medieval abbey cloister house with a pub in the crypt. Also the added bonus is that there are some awesome four-poster beds and a spiral staircase to negotiate on the way there too! We’ll try to run this ride a few times early spring (March / April time) and also again in the autumn… We reckon to run this from Sunday evening through to Tuesday afternoon… The pricing for this ride will be £300 including hotel accommodation and meals… Sign up now to make a go of it…

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Last modified: 12-06-08

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