Diamond Show

I had intended leaving for Gloucestershire around noon, all was ready for departure so I decided to take the dogs for a quick walk before I left forgetting that the Hampton Court Flower Show was on as a consequence it took me 45 minutes to get home instead of my usual 7 minutes! However I was in luck as for once the motorways were clear and I made it to the venue before 3pm to find Sue setting up, she had saved good pitches close to the Old Down woods which was the main exercise area. The ground in the venue was extremely hard, there was not a blade of green grass to be seen and it took a great deal of energy to hammer in the fencing poles which was not ideal on a seriously hot day. This was a new show and with it a few teething problems, there was only one water tap a good walk from our camp, I drove over as soon as I had unhitched and once I had filled my Aquaroll I hitched it on my tow bar to drive back. Glenda arrived shortly afterwards and disregarded my advice about getting water straight away, by the time she set up and had trundled her Aquaroll over to the tap there was an almighty queue and it was almost an hour and a half before she returned by which time Sue and I were enjoying our second refreshing glass of Pimms! The dogs loved the cool walk through the shady wood which is on an Iron Age site 4000 years old. We had fantastic views of the two Severn Bridges in the distance across the fields.
At least Saturday was cooler thanks to a great deal of cloud cover which made things so much nicer. The dogs went pretty well Keets being the star of the day getting 6th place in his Agility run, neither Sue nor Glenda had any great success but we all enjoyed the day and once the dogs had been walked and fed we enjoyed relaxing outside.
Quite a wild night with some heavy squally showers and a blustery wind which rocked the caravan however Sunday was hot. This was a really good day for Sue who came first and second in her two runs with Hoochie, she just needs one more jumping win to win into grade 5. Brigg did a nice training round when I held him on all his contacts in the agility to get 18th place. Keets and Chart both went clear in the jumping as did Brigg who was placed 8th (in a class of 170) just 1 second behind the winner.
As I said earlier there were a few problems with this show, the camping was not sensibly arranged with units backing on to each other and no real roadways in between, should there have been a fire the Brigade would had had problems getting to the source. They had failed to order enough 'place' rosettes and in some classes there were even no trophies, this no one could understand, the organisers knew in advance how many were running in each class and as they were placing to ten per cent it was a simple matter to order the correct amount of place rosettes so they are having to send these on through the post which will cost them! They put the large grade 3 classes on at the same time at the end of the day so people were dashing from one queue to another, the afternoon presentations were not done until judging was over at the end of the day which meant despite a late finish hanging on even later only to find they had no rosette for you!!.

I finally left around 5.30 and apart from a few hold ups on both motorways made it home just before 8 pm. Glenda had to drop her caravan off in storage which put an extra 2 hours on her journey and did not get home until 9.45! Sue who had completed both her runs during the morning was already home and walking her dogs by the time I left! Despite the teething problems, we all thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.