Just a bit of fun!

Its been a glorious day for Kington Show, the largest single day horse show in England, which made a nice change, especially as last years event was rained off completely. On arrival we soon found that Rocky would be facing some stiff competition. As he perched in the back of Fifi our filthy Ford Focus and waited patiently for us to finish picking out the bits of straw from his fur a huge dark blue air conditioned Winnebago type transporter cruised into the car park with Bernese Mountain Dogs emblazoned on the sides and a BMD personalised number plate. As the monster vehicle deposited its cargo of well turned out Berners in mobile grooming parlours with optional parasols the equally immaculately turned out driver flashed a far too white smile at me while his co driver bent down and cooed over Rocky. "Seems like we have a bit of extra competition today!" he was addressing his dogs, not me. I tried to think of something witty to say but failed miserably with "What sort of dogs have you got then?" which petered out under his blue eyed ice cold stare. He flashed the non smile again "Don't worry, its just a bit of fun" he snapped before ending our audience by disappearing into the fully upholstered interior of the van.

The show was huge, lots to see and do, we also established why we had a power cut last night which caused the technological hitch that stopped the video upload of the pigs and Berners fighting over me. Some poor chap had accidentally touched a 66,000 volt cable with a metal silo killing him and injuring his three work colleagues.

Rocky behaved perfectly in the show ring, standing when he should, allowing the judge to grope him and then completed his circuits properly. He came second, the winner was an inhabitant of the giant blue dog kennel on wheels. They also won best of breed in the Berner classes overall. Considering Rocky was shown by me who has no ring presence and he had had a piece of honeyed toast stuck to his backside an hour before the show he did very well.

Happy with our success we took in the rest of the show with Rocky at our side. He is an amazing dog, handling the noise, the crowds, the fun fair and hundreds of other dogs as if he encountered it everyday. In the blazing sunshine we found what we had been looking for, the beer tent. Here we spent a happy couple of hours watching the horse show and chatting to family and friends.

Back at the ranch Tracey's brother Stuart attacked the holly tree stump for several hours. There wasn't enough room for two of us to work on it and as I am likely to hurt myself with any form of sharp instrument completely sober I thought it best to sit and watch an axe wielder than try and join in after my stint in the beer tent. After two hours non stop slog he has definitely dented it, motivation permitting I hope to finish it off tomorrow.