Show time part the last

Sorry, the Holsworthy show was over a week ago and no post. To be honest getting a bit bored reporting on the shows as they are much of a muchness, if we didn't go to them for work I think I would probably only go to one a year!

The weather for the show was not as good as Okehampton but better than North Devon. It had rained a lot just before the show and the ground was a bit boggy but you could have managed without wellies. The day was windy and overcast and it set in with really serious drizzle just at the end of the show (just about the time we were sampling a small beer in the beer tent!). Holsworthy Show beer tent is very well run but a local landlord who would never run out of beer unlike Okehampton and the beer tent is probably the biggest of all the ones at the 4 shows we went to. I can thoroughly recommend the beer tent at this show (hoping for a free pint for commission!).

We had a huge stand at the show and managed to fill most of it up with a fantastic 12 foot long walk banquet walk through table. It got lots of interest and really is a fab piece of garden furniture, good value too, but probably heavy so you would want to put it somewhere where you weren't likely to need to move it. We put one outside the beer tent too!.

Entertainment at the show; pretty standard stuff really. Good amount and diverse range of stock including some wonderful different sheep varieties. My favorite has to be these wooley white ones not sure if they are Devon and Cornwall Longwool or Dartmoor, but aren't they brilliant, mind you wouldn't want to keep them in a wet field, imagine the shampoo you would need to get through! This blackface is also rather nice but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of those horns!!!! It is troubling when you start looking at sheep and think how pretty they are mind you!

Again we were in a good position next to the main general entertainment ring and the one display that caught my eye was the falconry. Now I found this a tricky subject as the birds are kept in captivity and fly for displays and I suppose for exercise too. I have looked up falconry and feel a bit better now. It seems that in this country falconers can only work birds that are bred in captivity (I recall the falconer at the show saying that some of his birds were rescues?) and it is illegal to take feral birds for falconry (or for anything actually). It is such an ancient sport and I must say watching the birds fly and swoop past your ear at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour with their long talons and vicious looking beaks was really fantastic. The birds and the falconer put on a great display and encouraged folks from the crowd to come into the ring and hold our their (heavily) gloved hand for a bird to perch on. This Golden Eagle was looking right at me, I hope he wasn't thinking I would make a good dinner!

That is the end of show season for us now, but it not a time to rest. We need to plan our marketing for this coming winter and will need to start thinking sooner rather than later about which shows we want to do next year. No rest for the wicked!