Wet underpants

Yesterday, for most of the day I had wet underpants. No bladder problem to report though, it was weather related. For yesterday we set off for the North Somerset Show. 

Now I hadn't had the best preparation for a 5.45am start, the day job had me working late the three previous days with 3am, 5am and midnight finishes. That all meant that when we set off I think I was slurring my words and hallucinating slightly. The weather forecast was not good and we had been warned to bring our own shelter to keep the alpacas dry. The alpacas were dry at about 4pm on the afternoon of the show, momentarily, fat lot of good that was but hey ho we were all in the same boat, almost literally.

We took our four brown boys, Sherwood, Sultan, Roger and Rafiki and arrived to see that most of the show was made up of brown boys. It seems everyone has several in their show team these days! The junior boys were in a class of 9 and the intermediates were in a class of 8! Bearing in mind that there were only about 75 animals at the show (just over a hundred entered but some fair weather show teams stayed away) that works out that 22.66% of the animals being shown were brown males! How far have the colours come in the last five years? 

Anyway the junior boys did ok with Sultan and Sherwood picking up 3rd and 4th places respectively and Roger Resilient bagged a second place. Rafiki, who has been competing with Roger all year was unplaced which was surprising but never mind, the judge's word is final. We still love him...............Rafiki that is!

Actually I must take my hat off to the judge, Jay Holland. Bearing in mind that the weather varied from brief bouts of hot sunshine (and I mean brief, let's not get carried away it was a bloody awful day) to light drizzle, heavy rain and finally to horizontally propelled torrential thunder filled downpours he managed to get through the animals.

At one point as our gazebo had all but given up the ghost we dropped the legs on the show ring side to stop the rain driving through us and sheltered. The thunder rumbled and the rain pelting into the canvas was deafening, however, just above the noise of what I could describe as a tropical storm I heard the dulcet tones of our judge "This class of junior white males was a pleasure to judge......"

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, The show must go on. Hat raised to Jay and all the competitors who stood out in that, it is the stuff of legend

As you may imagine I didn't take many photographs. But to give you an idea, here are the brown Suri's being judged. I think you can see the rain lashing in.

We eventually left at around 5.15, well when I say left, we tried to leave. The ground had soaked up as much rain as it could and despite making a determined effort in the trusty Discovery the hill leading to the exit was too much and we sat for about 40 minutes bogged in awaiting rescue by tractor.

The judge, stewards, organisers and competitors did a great job of putting on a show but I sincerely hope that I never, ever have to go to a show as wet as that again!

Next up, in just ten days time is the Devon County Show and the brown boys will once again do battle in the ring. No doubt there will be plenty of competition! Bring it on, we've come through the North Somerset Show we can cope with anything now!