County show

It was Freya’s birthday today. One year old. I don’t think she knew though she did get a lot fuss. In order to celebrate her birthday properly, we went to the Surrey County Show. And this year we did it the right way.

We booked ages ago into the member’s enclosure. What a difference to previous years.

The members enclosure meant we had an oasis in the hurly burly; somewhere to go and sit and recover and watch the events in the main arena.

We actually managed to leave the house early (for us) and we stayed almost all day. This has never happened before.

We saw all the usual livestock including the world biggest pig…

…and the smallest goats.

At one point the handlers took the pygmy goats for a walk on leads. It was hilarious and immediately made me want to take one into Farnham Park.

We also saw a lot of the show jumping, something we’ve only ever glimpsed before because of the public stand always being full. Not so in the member’s enclosure.

We weren’t that bothered about the motorcycle stunt team (personally I don’t see the connection between noisy, smelly, ground chewing trail bikes and the countryside and any connection there is should be done away with) but we loved the double harness scurry.

Emma was universally admired while Freya spent most of the day in a state of bewilderment…well, when she wasn’t asleep with exhaustion.

There were lots of other dogs at the show making it an absolute delight. Though it was rather scary in the food hall and I had to pick Emma up.

And, of course, a County Show wouldn’t be a proper County Show without Morris dancing.

This was a Morris Side from Guildford who were very entertaining. They even sang. And while on the subject of singing. On our way out, we happened upon a group of chaps singing and playing up a storm in the best Gatsby style possible. They were delightfully funny and well worth a listen to. There’s a few videos here.

Possibly the weirdest thing all day was when the vicar blessed the cattle and sheep. Seems particularly odd when most of them would have been sacrificed in the Old Testament. To be honest the animals didn’t seem to care one way or the other. I still think it was weird. It’s not like some random god made them. They have all been genetically engineered by generations of dedicated farmers clearly intent on improving them from the original. And how come the pigs and goats weren’t blessed? Or the horses? I reckon they’d have a case for discrimination… I’ll shut up now…

Ahem…All in all, it was a perfect day.