Going to the ridge where the West commences

Well..we are off, have been for some time but the weather wasn`t suitable for blogging..freezing, raining WINDY..my fingers froze and everything blew away and ..awful. Also the signal for the computer.. which vodaphone assured me was no worse than their telephone network is actually much worse.. Also I tried to download more tunes but seemed impossible will try now . Have failed. Please to get the right music go to You tube and play "Don`t fence me in" by Gene Autry to get my signature tune alongside my blog.

I keep writing these amazingly wonderful posts, and then, because of stinking vodaphone I get messages saying things like unable to contact blogger, your stuff may not be saved or published. That is to say lost for ever, not once, not twice but five times. AND don`t tell me to save it..HOW? its when I try to save that it tells me it can`t.

Anyway here`s photos of the stuff I took on the first trip (lower photo) and then what I`ve got on this trip. You`ll see two extra illegal items (featured above) which the arms dealer fairy left there. The arms dealer fairy works like this: She tempts you with a pepper spray and a taser and next thing you know you`ve just GOTTA have nuclear submarines.. well thats how the authorities say it happens with drugs..you start with one toke and you end up craving horse tranquillizers..and we all know how true THAT is..

So there are some problems with weapons at all..why do I feel less safe than Idid six years ago? why do any of us feel less safe? Because they tell us its less safe thats why. But who but an idiot reacts to feeling less safe by making themselves even LESS safe? Take the pepper spray.. tested it by spraying out of the window. Immediately the room was less inhabitable than downtown Thessaloniki after a harmless group of protestors has annoyed the police and they have responded with teargas. Isn`t the pepper spray just a bit, well, nonspecific, as a weapon?

And the STUNGUN. Well it does crackle excitingly and makes adorable blue electric lightening, just like when FRankenstein awakens his monster. Is awakening monsters REALLY what I want to do.? Wouldn`t it be safer to just give the attackers what little money I have on me?

The answer to both those questions is obvious, so I have got both illegal items with me.

Next a photo of George inexpertly packed to set off. However dreadful it looks this packing style was good enough to keep all our stuff on board when we got attacked by a bull on Mt Aegelio. That mountain is the first we crossed and is VERY lovely.Though not notable for its excellent weather. As I was saying Aegelio is also not notable for its docile bulls. There we were, riding along, when on a hillside, what should I see but a cow...or in the words of the famous Scottish poet Mcgonagall...'a cow - a bull , by God!" This animal..a member of the normally good tempered Limousin breed, charged. We galloped, luckily it was coming downhill but we were going uphill to get away, which gave us an advantage. WE went on with all speed for what seemed like a long way, but when we slowed down and looked back, what should we see but the animal, now joined by a few other excited bovines, was still on our trail. FUCK!!! I thought, and George obviously thought the same. Bling was wildly excited and thought it was all a game. We continued for another kilometre after which the beasta gave best. But I was still shaking hours later. When we got to lovely, flowery, non windy, non rainy, grass filled SELA we stopped for the nnight. and we didnt set off at all early the next day.

I`m going to post this blog while I still can!!

If I can add more on Blingsblog or about George I will. Please have a look there as well.

gone gone gone -really gone?

First -click the link below for sound effects vital to the whole GeorgePenny Bling blog experience. It will open a new page, and you need to minimise that page, so you hear it , but can still read the blog. Thats because embedding one song into the blog is complicated ....and I don`t know how else to do it...


You can repeat that process if you want to play it again...


Robert Plant Krauss- Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)





Next: look at the photo. This shows Artur and Jesus from Poland who are going to drive George, Penny and Bling down to near Pylos on Saturday. HURRAY!!!




After nearly 3 weeks of grinding my teeth and kicking Bling regularly finally transport has arrived. Artur has often transported horses for me, and the horses are never tired or stressed after a journey. Which makes Artur worth waiting for.




It is a two horse lorry , but George will travel in solitary splendour. He is rather afraid of horses he doesn`t know, so I really didnt want him to have to travel in a big lorry full of horses and reach Pylos tired and stressed. We also had to wait because I didnt want to get big horse transporter as far as Athens, then wait for another lorry to take us to the Peloponese. There was also a risk that George might pick up some kind of bug from meeting lots of new horses in enclosed spaces. He lives outdoors and with his two friends and may well not be resistant to germs from new horses, especially if he is stressed.




So I decided to wait for Artur. Even though I have been biting bits out of the carpet every time anything else goes wrong.




One thing that has gone VERY wrong is my ankle. Incredibly I woke up one morning to find it twice its usual size and hurting a lot. Who`d have thought you could sprain your ankle while asleep in bed? you can though.




I`ll spare you the sight of a photograph of my luridly coloured revoltingly bloated ankle as proof that you can lame yourself without even waking up. But I really DIDN¬T want to be lame before I even started the journey. Too bad.




Jiannis Valtis started to make a documentary about - I don`t really know what exactly- but it was to do with the travels in Greece with George,


He is going to join us on Saturday..at least to film George being picked up from Katerini and starting out for the South.


Jiannis is famous amongst George fans for a remark he made when George was being a stinker by refusing to stand still so I could get on. (In full view of cameras and strangers for thorough humiliation of his owner, natch.)




Jianni "Is he doing that on purpose?"



Penny (through gritted teeth) "yes of course he bloody is"



"To poustiiii ..."

essential kit arrives just in time

SO... vital equipment has arrived. A new saddle pad to keep George`s back in shape.
The new one..obviously - is the black one. SMART. I pictured it with the old one. Its the same make, a PROPAD PLUS from Griffin NUUMED. The old one was FABULOUS and has actually gone most of the 6,000kms or so I have travelled with George. You can see that it looks less, well, NEW, than the new one. SO NUUMED sent me a new one. I am so happy. These are top of the range, and I`d have had to go without food (no bad thing) to buy one.
Whenever people ask me about numnahs and saddle pads I always mention these. (are you listening Marianna?) because..they last, the don`t slip, and the make sure your horse carry rider and loads of saddle bags without getting a bad back. George hasn`t even one white hair on his back.
Oh, one other thing -Griffin-NuuMed supply the British Equestrian team with saddle pads and numnahs which means it isn`t just me that`s noticed how good they are. And George is in pretty exhaulted equine company.
Beneath the saddle pads are the newly created saddle bags.. made out of cycle panniers and two small rucksacks that were supposed to be school bags.. lets see what happens...
Th next photo is of more essential kit, but for me.
On the last ride my sunglasses got lost. that was bad.
So I had to get new ones. I usually get CEBE glacier type ones, but they weren`t available. So I looked at the reviews. Surprisingly North Face Summit glasses came out best- I didnt even know they MADE sunglasses. Anyway I ordered them from Action Outdoors. I was really afraid they wouldnt make it in time, as I had made some previous attempts to order that failed to work out..but here they are, and me still waiting for the lorry.So many thanks to Action Outdoors for being so efficent.They also sent the knickers-
The knickers? they are Paramo. Who, you might ask, would pay 18 quid (or 16 in the sale) for knickers? We all know knickers are £10 for 4 pairs. The answer is anyone who has had saddle sores and rotting feet at the same time.. can`t walk, can`t ride, can`t sit down and cry because everything hurts..is willing to pay almost any money for this not to happen.
A friend once sent me a pair of "sports knickers" and I sent a note to thank her - "I`ll wear them fo riding, walking, skiing.." I wrote.
She replied "Penny. These knickers are NOT for running and riding. These knickers are for seduction..The same applies,now I look at them more closely, to these. Don`t they exude allure?

getting ready.

OK any time now the next adventure will start. I am going to repeat the ride I made in 2004 from Southern Greece to Northern Greece. My plan is to try and chronicle the changes that have happened since the last ride. Obviously the fires of two years ago will have made a big difference. The floods that are happening now are obviously connected with the destruction caused by the fires then.. though...as I know, those are not the only reasons that the landscape is changeing so much.
George is gearing up for the start by eating as much as he can.
WELCOME newcomer... BLING. Bling has been on one long ride already. It was the experience she enjoyed most in her wholelife. When she saw me with the saddle bags (I`m making new ones for on the saddle, and patching up the old ones for in front of the saddle)she was filled with joy, and sits near them all the time, so I can`t remove them without her knowing.
Above is a photo that says it all about the relationship between Bling and George. George LOVES Bling because she isnt afraid of anything and runs ahead clearing the route of dangers- or at least proving that what he perceives as dangers aren`t THAT bad. Wildboar? Turkeys? spookey paper bags? Bling fears none of them. So our progress has many less halts and spinning round from George, and we get along much more smoothly and efficiently.
The other photo shows some new kit: my old thermarest mattress, which was the most wonderful thing in the world has been replaced by the featured thermarest neoair - which is VERY light, but the reviews all said it was easy to puff up.. NOT my experience, but - too late now. It cost arm and leg, and I`ll just have to get dizzy everyday.
Next to it is a JackWolfskin gossamer (isn`t gossamer a kind of condom?) tent which weighs hardly anything, is impressively waterproof - easy to put up and has a mosquito net, which you can use alone if it is a beautiful night and you want to look at the stars. It - at 1/2 the price of a new bivvy bag and weighing very little more than my now leaky OLD bivvy bag- will give me more flexibility about camping in rotten weather than I had with the bivvy.
Also featured in the picture is a NEW Anavasi map of Giona. I bought a whole load of maps from a shop called "Traveller" in Thessaloniki. The people in there were unexpectedly wonderful. They didn`t patronise me by pretending that maps that I KNOW are hopelessly inaccurate are any use. They gave me some interesting pointers about how to tell if a map actually has been properly updated, and someone has actually CHECKED stuff, or whether it is just a copy of an old map.
Last time I was on Giona I did get lost even though I had a map, and, I am sure, even armed with Anavasi`s latest best effort, I will get lost this time too.Anyway I`m OK with being lost on mountains. BUT what I said to "Traveller" and I also say to blog readers is that if you don`t like being lost, then your best chance of NOT being lost in Greece IS an Anavasi map. Some people mention that the layout of "Road "maps is very clear - and this is true.. but if they lead you to a dead end or a ravine because they havent been checked...then you are ****ed - albeit clearly ****ed. The photo of the end of a clearly marked road from a "Road" map makes this point -clearly.