Lansdown

It makes such a difference when one is permitted to arrive at a show around noon as the earlier one sets out on a Friday the lighter the traffic, I arrived at Lansdown after a couple of hours to secure pitches against the racetrack rails. Once set up I took the dogs for a long walk through the racetrack and out along the Cotswold Walk to Round Hill which affords the most spectacular views of Bath on one side, Bristol and the Welsh hills on the other, I could just see the Severn Bridge on the horizon, being white it really stands out.
At 5 am it was so misty that I could only see the caravan immediately in front of me, this cleared a couple of hours later to reveal a miserable day which was cold and drizzly. I did not run well and in fact managed to get Keeto eliminated in one of his two runs by getting him to execute a very difficult manoeuvre which was not in the course at all! Apart from Kai's clear round in jumping this was not a successful day and I only had myself to blame! At least it cleared up towards the end of the day when Breda and I went on a long walk before supper.
Again the mist descended and was somewhat tardier to disperse, so much so that people were asking for the start of judging to be delayed, however as it was perfectly possible to see all the obstacles in the courses even if the adjacent rings did not appear to exist so we started as usual at 8.30. Brigg's first run was agility, I was so disappointed to see the judge's hand go up after the A frame so as a result I really held his contacts on both the dog walk and see saw adding at least a second to our time. It was an hour later when someone told me that I was in the lead, I was sure that they were mistaken so I returned to the ring to check and sure enough Brigg's 5 faults had been cancelled (judges error) and I saw that his was the top slip on the pile. He led right until the end when the second to last dog just pipped him at the post! We would undoubtedly had won into grade 4 had I not trained those 2 contacts but mistakes are made and Brigg is very young and has plenty of time, I was still delighted to receive his 2nd place award. Chart excelled himself to get 9th place in jumping, I will draw a veil over his agility run and again I made mistakes with Keets and Kai. Brigg's 2nd place earned him enough points to qualify for his Bronze Agility Warrant.