Rather Good

First problem, breakfast. The landlady usually does it for 9am but I need to be at the show for 8.15 and it’s half an hours drive away. I request breakfast at 8am, which is still too late but I don’t want to push my luck too much. I’m happy to arrive late at the show if it gets me a full English. I’ve only got one early course, for MD, and we’ll just have to ‘wing and a prayer’ that without walking it beforehand.

We arrive at the show about an hour late but with a cooked breakfast inside us, well, just toast for the boys. They are competing after all. It’s hot outside and like a sauna inside the equestrian centre. I don’t think I’ve ever been here when it’s not been cold and raining, or snowing but it’s good to see some things don’t change and there’s still muddy puddles here even mid heatwave.

Things start well. 2 runs, 2 clears. One for each of the boys, including the one with MD that I didn’t arrive in time to walk. It all slides a bit downhill from there.

If that’s the old man’s last G6 before he hangs up his collar then it wasn’t the best. He missed his dog walk contact. We don’t want any of that in the team event tomorrow. Meanwhile MD has poles down in all three of his remaining runs.

The thing is though, MD’s first run, the one I didn’t recce beforehand because I valued by full English more, was rather good. A cracking run in fact. If we hadn’t done a rather unnecessary pirouette in front of the weaves because he really didn’t see them and I had to pull him round in a circle to launch him at them a second time, I’m sure we would have won. That must have cost us at least .6 of a second if not more. I mention .6 of a second because that is how much the winner beat us by. We came third.

And our prize is... one of the much derided glass paperweights that we keep getting from running races, only this one has an agility tunnel inside it.

Meanwhile L checks out Fleetwood, crowd free but an hour away by bus, although only 7 miles, so it would have been quicker to run, which she’s doing tomorrow by the way. She also hits the swimming pool, it's not long until her next open water swim, if it’s on.... Then she manages to find some room on the prom where she waits for us. This must be the lull before the evening rush, although it’s still heavily congested with orange shirts, mainly XXL, with Wonga on the front. Blackpool FC are clearly at home and doing far better today, a 5-0 win, than Derby, a 4-0 loss.


We don’t even attempt to do the sights tonight and head inland instead and find a decent pub about a mile in, with a good choice of beers and half decent food. Still a few orange shirts around but less tourists and no karaoke.



(Saturday 1st October)

Cricket Score

A drive down to Biggleswade this morning for a dog show, which is a fair old trip. Having looked at our schedule for the day I leave late. MD has no courses until mid morning at the earliest. Doggo has one, but I can wing and a prayer it with him without having to get there at 8.30 to walk around it before the class starts.

It is, as predicted, an uneventful morning. Doggo and I do our winging and a praying on his first course. We go clear and in a reasonable time but not quite fast enough to get a placing. Whereas despite the fact I get to walk three courses for MD, he doesn’t gets to run anything before lunch.

Back home though, L has. She’s been in motion. Finishing her Ian McEwan book and then going out for a run. You’d have thought somebody had disturbed her at some ridiculous hour this morning.

It’s hot down here. I’m getting a tan, well sunburn. I should have brought my shorts with me. MD does all four of his runs in the afternoon and makes one mistake in each of the first three. For some reason the weaves cause us a problem today but on the positive side, his tunnels fine. He doesn’t feel the need to bark at any of them today. He also only has one pole down.

His fourth course is a bit of a cricket score, faults wise, but it was hot and he was tired. Overall I’m very pleased with him. So no clears for the young pretender but the old maestro goes clear again in the second of his two runs, although again he’s outside the placings.

(Sunday 10th April)