Moving on now.

First of all may I say thank you for all the lovely comments on my last blog post. I have been very excited all week and have just about calmed down, finally.

I would also like to apologise for perhaps not paying enough attention to what other people were doing at the SWAG Show. In case you are interested, here's why. I was totally consumed with what I was doing. Including the three championships I was in the ring 10 times last Saturday and that was whilst I was in ever increasing pain from gout in my big toe. Now it may interest you to know that I always get gout in the big toe of my left foot, my good foot. My right foot, ankle and shin have been operated on many times following a sporting injury many years ago that I now have arthritis in my foot and ankle. In other words my right foot is my 'bad' foot and I sometimes limp as a result of it. As I had gout in the 'good' foot I was standing on my 'bad' foot a lot. Consequently by the end of Saturday I hobbled out of the show ring for the last time, limped (which foot to limp on?) to the car and that was the end of me. Home, drugs, foot up, rest. Sadly no hope of making it back for the second day of the show. I understand it all went very well.

So I had that on my mind and the fact that it was a big weekend because it was Qjori's first UK show outing. Now I know I have said this already but it was important that he did well. I know he has tremendous qualities, my faith in him has never waivered. Others have said he looks great and has a fabulous fleece but I needed a judge to see him and say it in competition. We have committed to using Qjori over all our best females this summer, all of them, that is how highly we rate him. So the tension I was feeling when we were in the ring together was amazing. I really could have peed myself quite easily. I didn't obviously, what do you think I am? So the relief when Kathy Lloyd said all those wondeful things about him was overwhelming (hence the 'big fairy cake' tears). She actually said, and I didn't put this in the last post, that 'putting your hands into his fleece was like putting your hands into butter'. Bless you Kathy, very kind words. Right, that is my final word on the occasion, honestly, no more. Finito.

So moving on, we are starting to look forward to this summers birthing. And as a result we move onto the forgotten boy of the Mighty Patou herd, The Clumpmeister himself, Cambridge Columbus. Columbus was a busy boy last year and we have nine females due to give birth to little Clumps over this summer. It is his time to shine. He has been used over blacks, browns, fawns and whites so the results could be quite interesting. He only had four cria last year who were all either brown or dark fawn so fingers crossed there will be a wave of brownness at The Mighty Patou this year.  We have also got three of our top girls pregnant to the awesome Jack of Spades, so this year is looking good here in Patouland.

Anyway as The Clumpmeister was feeling a bit left out I took some photographs of him yesterday. He is a bit of a poser as you can see.