Idlan had to miss his swimming lesson today - we would be taking him there tomorrow. Instead, we were in Denai Alam, attending the boys' friend's birthday. It was a party with a difference.
It was held at a horse-riding club - Denai Alam Riding Centre (DARC). We were not exactly familiar with the place, but the GPS helped us out. Although it did sent us through too many traffic lights. We were sure we would have got lost without the maps. But it was worth the search.
DARC is a family-orientated riding club, where the owner took up unwanted horses and raising them, often nursing them along the way. Most of them had been turned into rides, and the members could take ownership by way of sponsorship of individual horses or even come in as volunteers. But I would blog more about DARC later.
We started off all excited about the horses. My boys had never been up close with horses before, and the only time they had a ride was at Fraser's Hill a few years back. After being showed around, Idlan especially wanted to have a ride but he had to wait until the party started. That was after they had a pat and fed the horses some carrots.
I was starving by then, and even though it wasn't really a sunny day, it was still very warm and humid. The boys had some ice-cream to cool down while waiting for the party. The food was prepared by DARC, and the roast lamb was especially good.
The birthday boy was brought in on a pony for the cake-cutting. Then came the horse-ride for all the kids - when Idlan and Irfan got their first taste of riding on the back of a horse. They wanted more. And they persuaded me enough to become a member of the Centre.
I then had to leave DARC to attend to an admission at the hospital, with the rest continuing with the party. They were still dancing by the time I comeback, drenched in sweat, needing to take a shower. I was with the Dads watching football instead - Man City getting beat by Everton.
We finally called it the night at around 10. Our host would be spending the night at DARC - they have rooms for rent for those who wanted to ride early the next morning. All in all, it was an interesting party, and with us now being a member of DARC, we would definitely be coming here again and hopefully would be starting riding lessons soon.
