You have to feel sorry for Walter

We 'knead' to do this properly!

Well you can't say that our Blog is mundane, it has humour, sadness, laughter, joy, frustration, philosophy and a glimpse at the life we Southwellski's lead.  In fact if it wasn't our blog I would still read it!

Coco and I have been busy this weekend, we had a baking session yesterday and made a whole farmyard of gingerbread animals and some home baked bread as well. 
 
Today has been no different to any other Southwellski day in as much as we didn't do the things we thought we were going to, and did something different altogether.

Today was the Wayland Show, the 137th as the banner above the livestock stalls reliably and proudly informed us.

A character?

It's a small show with a lot of character and a lot of characters.  We saw Knights on horseback, show-jumping, sheep judging, the West Norfolk hounds, carriages and brewers drays being drawn by wonderfully huge shire horses.  Makes you want to go back to those simpler times doesn't it?

Coco particularly liked the sheep, and the pigs because these were asleep and not snorting loudly like the Old Spots we saw when we visited Kadesh (an independent school we work alongside) a few weeks back.

Most of all Coco liked the fairground ride and we spent the rest of the afternoon going the long way round so that we avoided the rides and Coco pointing longingly at them and saying "this".

This is wheely great!

Coco's other favourite thing was the tractors, there were loads of them, more than you could point at and say 'this'.

So, poor Walter!  We stayed on until the end to see the 'Champion of Champions' our appetite whetted by the promise of a closely fought battle for best in show between the duck and the lop-eared rabbit!

Part of the pre amble to this ultimate event was the awarding of the trophies for 'Best Ginger Cake', Champion Grower from the horticultural show, Best Stand etc etc etc.

Then the MC got quite excited, he had something good to tell us about, would you believe of all things 'Young People'! How much more 'down with the kids' could he get?

He interviewed a teenage girl who was raising turkeys; another teenage girl who showed poultry; and then there was Walter a young man who worked as a gamekeeper on a local farm.

"What did you think of the gundogs Walter?" the MC asked, " they were alright" Walter replied.

"Will you be inviting them onto the farm Walter?", the MC went on. "They already come".

Knowing he wasn't going to get the better of Walter, the MC went on to announce which young person had won this years most enterprising young person award.  It was Walter!  Everyone clapped, his family who seemed to be sitting near us cheered.

The glory was short lived, the MC had read the results out back to front and the turkey girl had won.  There was a hush around the main ring.

Now, it is prudent when one has dug a hole and reached the bottom to stop digging. Not so if you are the MC at the Wayland Show.  Trying to make light of it he announced that it was 'sad' and that Walter would see the funny side as he was a 'Game-keeper!'  Walter got £50 pounds for his trouble and his 15 seconds of fame.

We wanted you to win Walter, and don't feel bad because we were cheated too;it wasn't a lop eared rabbit nor a duck, it was a rabbit that looked like a hare and a chicken!  'Fowl play' I hear you all shout!

We've added our names to the list of competitors for the horticultural show for next year, I reckon we would have won the longest runner bean contest this year and our potatoes would have given the winners a good go too.

There will be more pictures added when Nanny Southwellski shows me how to get them off her computer.