The last weekend show of the year, for me anyway. I drove up on the Friday with my two girls and Zaz who came to stay with us again whilst Bernadette and Dennis visited family in New York. I had to leave Poppy at home with Andy which I hated but she had a lovely weekend with nice walks and lots of time in the garden.
I decided to drive up quite early so that we could stop for a walk on the way. I wanted to walk in Thetford Forest but it was massive and the gates where you parked were quite isolated so I was a bit worried about leaving my car there. Instead I saw signs for Brandon Park which is part of Thetford Forest (I think) and decided to stop there. I'm glad I did as there was a proper car park and other facilities and we had a lovely walk. The pictures are not very good as they were taken on my Blackberry and it doesn't take very good photos, nowhere near as good as my previous phone.
After our nice walk we drove onto the venue which was different from last year. The show was being held at the World Horse Welfare centre, Snetterton. I was meeting Terry and Jackie there so I could help do a bit of setting up and as it happened filling of holes in the ground. The ground wasn't very good as it has been so dry and the horses' hooves had made lots of deep holes in the ground which needed filling. It was quite cold at the venue as it is situated on top of a hill. Once we had finished setting up the rings and built our course we headed off to Terry and Jackie's.
I had a lovely time and we watched some telly and nattered and then all the girls came in my bedroom with me. We had a routine for getting all the dogs sorted in the morning and this worked well as we were on our way to the show each morning by 6.45 am.
Here are my girls enjoying the run of the kitchen while Jackie cooks our supper!
Zaz and Zeki with my croc in the corner of the picture. I always do this, I a a very poor photographer!Zaz was a very good little house guest as were NN and Zeki. I am pleased to say they behaved very well. Niamh has become a very good girl, it has only taken five years for this to happen!
I am so glad I took coats for all the girls. Saturday was really cold at the venue and very windy. We were lucky that it didn't rain as we ring partied all day and it would have been much worse if it was wet. As it was Niamh got blown off the dog walk which really scared me. She actually chose to bail out as the wind caught her which was the sensible thing to do as it mean she went with the flow and landed on her feet rather than fighting it and falling on her back or something awful. I was very glad that Zeki's agility classes were both in indoor rings.
Zeki in her nice warm Hurtta coat - you can just about see Niamh in hers next door
Zaz in her borrowed coat - she wasn't too keen to begin with but I think she was grateful for the warmth!Agility-wise I was thrilled with both my girls. They ran really well and as usual I loved running them both. I am so lucky they are such lovely dogs to train and run.
Niamh did some great runs at her first G7 show and we got 2nd in the G7 jumping and 8th in G6/7 agility on Saturday. She did good runs in both her other classes but just had one pole down in each. On Sunday we had some good runs but I made silly errors including one lovely run where I completely missed out a jump. I had actually walked the course missing out the jump. Stupid person. It was a shame as she ran well.
Zeki was a little star and came 3rd in G1-7 jumping and 9th in G1-7 agility on Saturday. Her dog walk was much better so I hope we can get this properly fixed by next season! On Sunday she ran well again but I made two silly mistakes which got us eliminated. She was quite a handful in the indoor school and I was very grateful to Leah and Jay for helping me in my last run as you had to queue along a wall closed in by a barrier and she was manic! She got very interested in the ring next door but she didn't go off chasing so that was another good thing. I was very proud of her placings on the Saturday as all her classes included grade 7 dogs with some very fast border collies. Go the Beek!
On Saturday evening we forced Terry to watch Strictly Come Dancing. As expected he played up by trying to distract us and doing stupid things like deliberately opening the door across the t.v. and leaving it open so I couldn't see. The usual stuff. However we ignored these behaviours and he realised that he wasn't going to win so he gave in and sat relatively quietly through most of the programme. He got a bit hysterical when we watched X-Factor and at times I think, a bit tearful as people were thrown off the show. He is so emotional, it gets quite embarrassing! Here is Terry after his favourite person is voted off.
Bless him, he just can't deal with the disappointment. His favourite act is the twins and he really wants them to win. The worst thing is that he seems to get the two programmes confused and keeps saying that the Twins will undoubtedly do the best quick step and that Anton is the definite favourite for X-Factor. Never mind.I had a really lovely weekend, a lovely time at Terry and Jackie's and I really hope they hold a show again next year. There was talk that this would be the last one but then I heard them put out a call for judges for next year so maybe they've had a change of heart.
Grace took some lovely pictures of Niamh at Norfolk which I'll put in a separate posting.
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