Impromptu Inspections [O]

[Anne McDermot]

It was cold outside, and Anne was well wrapped up in a dark coat and a tartan scarf as she made her way through the barn, nodding to the few people that she passed, before heading into the tack room. She was hardly dressed for excursions into the barns, in a suit and heels, but the surfaces were not atrocious on the way over, and she'd thought that she ought to get away with it. It had suddenly struck her that it had been a while since she'd had a look at some of the student tack, and whilst she had full confidence in the barn staff's abilities to take care of such things, you could never be too careful, after all. Besides... the tack room was warm, cosy, and it didn't have a phone.

[Victoria Greco]

It was days like today that Tori felt extremely lucky that her western saddle was synthetic, as the wet saddle would have weighed a ton had it been made of leather. She was also glad that she knew there were dry clean clothes in her tack room locker, as she wasn't either right now.

Laughing to herself about today's events, she headed into the tack room, where she would need to give the gelding's gear a thorough clean before the mud on it dried, which meant that her comfort was going to have to wait, at least until all the mud was gone.

[Anne McDermot]

Anne turned sharply as the door swung open, raising an eyebrow as a girl whom she vaguely recognised as being a member of Green Ribbon House, and whose name she was sure she would be able to recall after a moment or two of thought, made her way in with what she assumed was a saddle, although it had to be said that she was having a certain degree of difficulty in being certain of that considering the amount of mud in which the item was coated.

"Victoria, I trust that I am correct in assuming that you intend to clean that?" she enquired.

[Victoria Greco]

Tori drew in a deep breath at the question, knowing the rolling her eyes right now was going to be very obvious. "Nah, thought I'd leave the mud to dry on it and then polish it with my butt the next time I ride." She closed her eyes as soon as the words had left her mouth, kind of regretting them instantly, and unceremoniously dumping the saddle into the tub - another bonus of having a synthetic saddle - and hanging the bridle onto a hook on the wall.

Turning to face the woman, she gave a strained smile. I apologise for my words, Ms McDermot." She said. "Poe and I had a slight disagreement near the cross country course. I would never leave a saddle looking like this." Now she was really going to have to make sure it was completely clean before she went and got changed, rather than just removing the worst of the mud.

[Anne McDermot]

Anne's eyebrows shot skywards at the response and she set down the length of stirrup leather which she had been examining, turning to face the Green Ribbon girl and folding her arms across her chest as she leaned back against the wall. By the time that she'd accomplished that, however, the brunette was already apologising, and the Scot nodded curtly. "You would be well advised to consider your words before you utter them in future," she commented pointedly. "Since it's Christmas, I'll let you off. What kind of disagreement was this?"

[Victoria Greco]

Tori bowed her head. "Yes, Ma'am. My padre would be horrified with me." The man wouldn't have been able to hear her, but her body language would have given away how she was feeling. "Thank you." She wondered how much jurisdiction the woman had in the barns, but she wasn't going to voice that question.

She turned back toward the tub and turned on the hose to get the worst of the mud from the saddle, before shaking it and carrying it over to a saddle rack to clean. "Poe wanted to go through a paddle, that was about the size of a small swimming pool, I wanted him to go around it. I asked too firmly, so he dumped me. He then went and had a really close look at the puddle, and felt that he wasn't close enough until he rolled in it." She laughed and shrugged. "I didn't want to walk home, so I mounted up, thus my being as damp as my horse."

[Anne McDermot]

"Quite," Anne commented, somewhat neutrally. She had, it had to be said, been fairly horrified herself, but she would not go so far as to point out the fact, making the assumption that any girl who had progressed in the educational system as far as Victoria had must have acquired some degree of common sense along the way, though it did have to be said that it didn't always follow.

She raised an eyebrow at the description of events. "Sounds as though your horse has quite the character." Certainly, Anne had had her fair share of tumbles at the school's cross-country course, though mostly whilst going over it rather than past it, but in any case, she was in no place to judge, and so she confined herself to a vaguely sympathetic smile and the advice to, "Make sure that you get yourself properly dried out and warmed up. I should imagine that Ms Leclerc might prescribe a hot shower and a hot chocolate."

[Victoria Greco]

Tori smiled and nodded as she began to clean the saddle properly, removing the stirrup leathers and hooking them on the end of the rack the saddle was sitting on, they would need to be left out to dry properly, so she would put her spare leathers on for now. "I plan to do exactly that when I finish here." She checked her watch, mentally calculating if she would actually have time for a proper shower before she was needed in the cheer studio for practice - as she hadn't been expecting this kind of clean up after her ride.

"Did you have a good Christmas?" She would normally put her bluetooth earphones in while cleaning tack, but felt that would be rude with the woman in the room with her.

[Anne McDermot]

The brunette nodded with a slight smile. "Good." She returned her attention to the various pieces of tack arrayed around the room. Most, it had to be said, was in fairly good order, but there were always one or two people who just couldn't quite be bothered to do what was necessary, and that, in Anne's opinion, was absolutely unacceptable. Tack was expensive, and good care ought to be taken of it. Quite aside from which, it could be entirely unsafe to ride with tack which was in bad condition. Still... some would never learn, and there was nothing to be done but keep pulling them out on it.

She glanced up from an inspection of a Western saddle at the question, half surprised to have been asked. "Yes, I suppose I did." Anne smiled. "Rather different, of course, being in America... and did you?"

[Victoria Greco]

Tori smiled at the answer, as she could imagine the difference from the woman's place of origin. There again though, the weather here was different enough from Philly, that she could just as well be in another country too. "I would have preferred to have gone home, but I can understand why Madre felt it was better for me to remain here." Her father had been in hospital due to the carelessness of another mechanic, and she would have been in the way.

She finished with the saddle and left it on the cleaning rack for now, as she was sure that it was still going to be dirty-looking once it dried, and turned her attention to the bridle, taking all the leather apart.

[Anne McDermot]

"That's a shame," Anne remarked. Of course, she liked to think that most of her students enjoyed being here at Blue Ridge; certainly, she and the rest of the staff did their best to make the experience as pleasant as possible whilst still maintaining an educational element and a semblance of discipline. Even so, she didn't think that many people would ever choose to remain at school over the holidays, and whilst there were one or two who did, whether because of circumstances at home, relationships at the Academy or any of a hundred other possibilities, the vast majority tended to up sticks and leave, which must leave Victoria feeling pretty lonely.