Rugby

Rugby is one of my favourite shows you can walk for miles through the fields the hedgerows bursting with birdsong.The dogs as usual applied their water divining skills and soon found a stream to quench their thirst.Evidence of the May / June drought showed in the cracked and fissured pathways and the corn which was half the height it usually grows. We were fortunate to have three two hour walks in fine weather during the show!
Saturday and the drumming overhead told of serious rain, this was not good news especially as I had several courses to walk and some eight early runs. This show has increased in size since I first started coming when there were only 6 rings, this time there were 9 and there was barely room to fit in all the day parking! It was not long before the first set of waterproofs were completely sodden and I had to change all my clothing before donning the next set! I cannot say that I ran my best and my right leg started playing up again. Keets, Chart and Kai had clear rounds in jumping but Brigg was unlucky to have a pole down but did a nice agility round to take 13th place. As the morning wore on the weather gradually improved and by the time I finished my runs the sun was shining. My leg was very sore by the end of the day but Rosie gave me some really good tips on how to alleviate the problem involving sitting on a tennis ball to stretch the muscles which worked pretty well and enabled me to run the following day when I had almost given up hope of competing!
Sunday was a mixture of the odd shower, brief glimpses of the sun but a great deal of cloud. Chart was his usual uncooperative self and I messed up Kai's agility by not running him properly. Despite knocking a pole Brigg came 20th in agility, I was not expecting him to be placed so had to collect his rosette after the presentation, I don't usually check on my dog's times if they have faults but on seeing the results sheet when claiming his rosette I found he had one of the fastest times! Thanks to an error on my part when we lost time hesitating over a jump I thought was in the course, but was not, Brigg came 13th in jumping! Keets went clear in all his runs taking 18th place in Agility. My leg was so sore that I did not do Kai's last jumping. At least walking was not a real problem so the dogs had a good run in the fields before I packed up and hit the M1 with it's usual miseries and hold ups!