I should know better

Well, of course I got to the show. And the wind blew and the rain was horizontal. The English, fresh from the heat wave of the south, huddled like King Penguins in an Antarctic June, and we natives braved it out.

The judge, bless her, probably blinded by flying sleet, didn`t notice Tomato`s fault and gave her a 2nd, while the Young Lad, once he had overcome his innate distaste for a rising gale blowing right up his fundament, managed a 3rd.

I doged a friend giving a novice advice on beginning to show in a numerically small breed owned mainly by dear little old ladies...... ("Yes, these are vicious backstabbing old bags, and you will have to defer to them and politely ask for their advice and smile when you get it but don`t trust it if you are going to get on......") and waded on down to the GS ring where three of us sat in abject misery on a wet bench under one umbrella and watched the winning bitch attempt to lacerate the rump of the winning dog, if once she could catch him. I think the low point of the day was when I stood up and discovered how wet my bottom was.....

But the company was good, and the dogs did well. On the journey home, relieved by a functioning heater and amusing chat, I seem to have committed myself somehow to taking on an unspecified number of shetland ponies otherwise destined for the meat trade. I know nothing about loking after said animals, apart from a vague notion that a horse vet`s bill can always be recognised instantly because it contains a string of noughts at the end........

Ah well, it`ll probably never happen. Hey nonny nonny, the wind and the rain, for the rain it raineth every day........