We have spent the last two days at the North Devon and Honiton Shows. We had to be towed into North Devon but it turned out to be a lovely day with NO RAIN. The main roadways at the show were still a sea of mud. Chas lost a Wellington boot at one point and was hopping about while we tried not to laugh. Gaia Dakalo was judging and whizzed though it all in no time so that we could all toddle into the Grand Parade dwarfed by gigantic beef cattle in front of us and horses behind us. We were probably the last alpaca people to arrive at the show as we had a lot of trouble getting out of bed.
We were much better at Honiton and were positively early. This time it did rain slap bang in the middle of showing. The animals were all penned outside so we stuck the white boys, who had not had their turn in the ring, into the trailer in the hope of staying dry. The animal who was Show Champion, our fawn intermediate male Caliph, we ignored as the fawns had been done so he was very damp when we got to the Show Champion line up. The alpacas were pretty well behaved and all walked well although two of our girls got distinctly arsey when the judge, Ian Waldron, went right down their legs looking at fleece. Gary Sanders had brought a very good looking daughter with him so when we went into the ring for the Livestock Parade the photographer instantly homed in on her. The rest of us, ancient saddos, were ignored, far too ugly for the picture. Richard Gubb, obviously a proper farmer, was with us and while we were standing around waiting for all the cups to be presented, he gave us a full run down on all the cattle and sheep breeds in the ring.
It is an absolutely beautiful day so Chas is ignoring the giant heap of ‘stuff’ on his desk and has gone off on the tractor to commune with something, probably hay fever, by the time he has finished.