Another New Forest Show has been and gone, but this year saw beautiful blue skies for the whole 3 day period – not a wellington boot in sight (unless you count the gorgeous ones for sale on the array of stands!) The turnout was not surprisingly very high, with the gates even having to be closed on the second day and people turned away as crowd capacity had been temporarily reached. I would not have been happy if that had happened to me after queuing in traffic for an hour to get the last mile!
This year as last, Environmental Drain Services sponsored a class in the Horse and Pony competition. This year, however, we provided a new shiny trophy to present to the winner of our main event, the Horse In-hand. The gleaming trophy was presented by our own horse-owning Nicola, who thoroughly enjoyed her 5 minutes of fame in the presentation party, but flatly refused to wear a hat for the occasion!
Our thanks go to our trading partner Klargester, who kindly provided representatives to man our stand with us, enabling us to provide visitors to our stand not only with a beautiful yellow egg timer (thank you to Bradfords Building Supplies) but also specialist knowledge and advice about everything from planning their off mains drainage requirements to the technical specifications of each plant, and maintenance and emptying of each.
Taking it in turns to man the stand, when not on duty we each got chance to wander around the showground and take in all the sights, smells and sounds of the myriad of displays and stands – not forgetting the taste of the HUGE Belgian buns I found in the food hall, but carefully avoiding the taste of the beer in the beer tent! The highlight of my wanderings had to be the dancing sheep – yes, dancing sheep (special mention to the dreadlocked one which danced to, of course, Bob Marley!). Although most entertaining, the stand itself did have a serious message, as did the other live classes. I have never in my life seen dairy cows either as big or as small as two of those which were entered into one of the classes I watched – how could you possibly choose between the huge giant and the adorable little 4 foot high version with the longest eye lashes in the world? Obviously I know nothing about the ins and outs of what one should expect from these gentle beasts, but the pretty one came last which I suppose proves that looks aren’t everything!