Toy Group 1 and 2 at Leeds Ch. Show.

Group 1-Ch.Vanitonia Unwrapped.

..and I've just read (Friday) that she then went on to win Best in Show!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Group 2-Ch. Lafford Fly Me Too Farleysbane (Dave) strutting his stuff.

...............and again

..and finally placed Group 2.

Well done, Dave!

Some photos from Leeds Championship Show, July 2010.

I had looked, on the internet, at the 10 day forecast for the Leeds area and was a bit dismayed to see it was forecasting showers for the Saturday of the Toy judging at the show. Wet ground at Harewood House is not ideal for pulling a trolley loaded with dogs and other paraphernalia. There is a fairly long drag uphill to exit the showground to our carpark and I'll swear it gets steeper as the years progress. However this "e"information was ill founded and we had almost uninterrupted sunshine throughout the day.
We stayed on to watch the Toy Group judging and were delighted to see our Best of Breed papillon taking Group 2 behind the winning extrovert Chinese Crested bitch, Ch. Vanitonia Unwrapped.
I have very few photos of the papillon bitches. I was showing in two bitch classes and both Maisie and Swallow won their classes, but of course, no photos of them either at the show. I may get some later from Sue so will post them then. Roley was unplaced in the Puppy Dog class.
Our judge was Brenda Banbury.

The winning line-up for Minor Puppy Dog.

This little bitch, Papplewick Pretty in Pink at Adinaken, won the Junior Bitch Class

As we made our way back to the carpark the Red Kites, for which Harewood is famous, made an appearance.

After spending quite some time watching it gliding and soaring, and most folk gone from the carpark, another Kite appeared. That completed what had been a pretty good day for us.

Ch. Lafford Fly Me Too Farleysbane, who won the Dog CC and then Best of Breed.

Jr. Ch. Ir. CH. Ibstock Bright Spark for Spinillons winning the Reserve Dog CC at the age of 11 years.

Best Puppy in Breed was Lafford Lord Snooty of Delphlands. (sorry I caught him with his tail down!)

The judge having another look to choose the Reserve Dog from the line-up of winning dogs.

A dog-showing weekend.

A pair of lions guarded the path to the front door.

A pair of griffins guarded the doorway.

We travelled down on Friday to attend the Leeds Championship show on Saturday and the nearby Northern and Eastern Counties Papillon Club summer Open show on Sunday. I travelled with Sue (Gennasus) and her two dogs and I had taken Swallow and the two pups, Maisie and Roley. Sue had arranged two nights accommodation with friends who lived on the edge of a local town in the Yorkshire dales. And it is some house they have! It had been built by a wealthy wool mill owner as a gift for his daughter on the occasion of her wedding. The woodwork in the interior showed signs of no expense having been spared with a massive curved staircase, huge solid wooden doors and deep skirting boards. The ceilings in the several public rooms were ornately carved.

It had been in need of some considerable renovations when Sue's friends bought the house but now it is lovely--the kind I like, with lots of wee rooms and cupboards for storing "stuff"!

I wouldn't like the upkeep though!

It also had an adjoining three fields.........perfect for walking dogs.

The dogs follow Sue up the path through the fields.

This is the view down over their part of the Dales.

(More of the two shows in later posts.)

It was 6 o'clock before we left the second show, on the Sunday, for the journey home and this is us reaching the crossing over the river Tweed, almost into Scotland. The sun was going down.

Farther north, near Dunbar, we were heading into the setting sun. It was beautiful but far from ideal for driving.

Only a couple of miles to go and the moon is rising. It is now 10.30 pm.

These last three photos were taken through the windows of the moving car, hence the blurring.

(Sue still has another 135 miles to reach her home in Morayshire, but that will wait till Monday forenoon.)

Success?

With bigger than ever crowds, T in The Park has been hailed as a great success yet again. There has only been 1 rape, 2 attempted murders, 1 serious accident (a youth falling from a flagpole), 1 fatal collapse and over 200 other incidents, several resulting in arrests, many of which were drug related, not to mention the mess left behind in the campsites. The vast majority of the tents have merely been abandoned. A Great Success indeed!

New variation of the breed.

This a part of the photo from the last post. I've been keeping quiet about this new variation of papillon-----the twin headed model! I have not shown her so far as there have been no classes scheduled but maybe NSC???

Flower Power.

Flowers attract my dogs like bees. That is why we no longer allow the gang among them. Sometimes I come into the kitchen and the floor is strewn with blooms like some kind of Hawaiian welcome. I was moving this pot and laid it down for a minute to pick up something and they were on it, initially sniffing but, given the chance, would soon have pulled off the heads.

By the way, we've had a day with no rain!

Raindrops keep falling on.................

True to the forecast, rain has been falling steadily for most of the day, sometimes a gentle drizzle and sometimes not so gentle. Plants are bowed down with the weight of water.

Some places in Britain are suffering from drought, but not here.

According to pictures on the TV the revellers do not seem to be dispirited by the dampness at the music festival down the road.

T In The Park.

That huge pop music festival that is T In The Park is with us again. It takes place about 15 miles from our village and there has been a mass evacuation of young folk from here, mainly to camp for the weekend duration. 80,000 people are expected to attend each day with thousands of those camping in the designated fields surrounding the site. Massive planning has gone into the whole operation with preparation having been visible for a few weeks. Traffic for the festival has been coned off on to specially designated routes in an attempt to avert the chaos and disruption to traffic flow of some previous years. We took a run down to see what was visible from the road ....not much! I took the photos through the moving car window as there was nowhere to stop and we had to drive for a few miles to even turn as every road end within miles was closed off.

During our weekly shopping trip to Perth yesterday we saw lots of young people arriving at the bus station. They are easy spot as most wear wellies and are lugging all sorts of luggage. Some were still trying to acquire tents but these are as scarce as hens' teeth at the moment.

I watched a bit of the TV coverage later tonight and I sure feel my age! What a din! (I'm sounding like my mother now).

It drizzled rain for most of the day but in the afternoon the sun came out and the evening was beautiful for the start of the "music". So if you like that sort of thing, conditions were ideal, but rain is forecast for tomorrow. I don't think that matters much to the youngsters.

The tented village can be seen in the background. How do they find their own tent?

The caravan park seems a bit more civilised!

It's not just music there. To the right of the picture is a big carnival wheel and chair-o-planes.

This relatively uncluttered girl is still looking for an entrance! Just in front of her, but out of the photo, was a young man trailing a wheelie bin, presumably containing all his necessities for the weekend.

The Golden Wedding

Ross and Alice on their wedding day.

A few weeks ago we received the invitation adorned with 50 year old and present day photographs of my elder brother, Ross and his wife, Alice and the added words, "No presents, please." I liked that bit (what with the current high price of gold etc...!!).

It turned out to be a real good old fashioned farming (mainly) community get together with a huge meal, an accordion band, lots of old-time Scottish dancing and everyone dressed in their "Sunday best". I think what I enjoyed most was chatting to people, some of whom I haven't seen for 10 years or more but I did put my foot in it when I asked my cousin, seated at table next to me, who the gentleman was, seated opposite her. He seemed a little left out of the conversation and I thought that if she knew his name we could include him. "That's my husband," she replied. I'd forgotten she had remarried!

Another cousin, Neil, gave a little speech and proposed the toast to the happy couple but he did make one gaffe. He referred to the wedding 50 years ago, as their funeral! I don't think it was intentional. However he related how my father had been a bit annoyed when the day of the wedding dawned bright and sunny--perfect for haymaking. Who in their right mind got married at haytime!

Chic very gamely accompanied me, hampered as he was with his multi coloured chest and shoulder injury.

A display of the wedding photographs.

I took so long to get out of my seat with my camera last night that they had cut the cake and Alice was on her way back to her seat followed by Ross before I was in position to snap them.

"Not much had happened in the last 10 years (since their Ruby Wedding party)", said Ross, "except that Alice had broken her ankle while herding cows into the milking parlour and he had had a hip replacement!"

Views From The Surgery Car Park.

This morning we had occasion to visit the doctor's surgery in the neighbouring village of Newburgh. On Sunday morning Chic had tripped when he got out of bed and fell striking his shoulder on a plastic box containing dog show catalogues and smashing the box to smithereens in the process. A day later the bruising appeared and he couldn't lift his arm but still would not go to see a doctor. I gave him very little sympathy until today when he asked if I would drive him to the surgery(his chest now being fetching shades of purple, lilac, green and yellow)....nothing broken, they could do nothing but give him painkillers.

I happened to have my camera in the car and, as I waited, took the following photos from the surgery car park on a beautiful sunny, warm morning.

Looking north over the steep banking towards the River Tay.

A closer view of the reed beds on the island in the river.

Looking south up out of the car park towards the main street. The village is built on a steep hill with the main road running along it.

This wood pigeon sees these views every day.

Showing at Blackpool in the sun.

This day turned VERY hot after a slow start, although the photographs show clouds and a breeze, thankfully, picked up through the afternoon.

I had taken Maisie, Roley and Swallow and I was also handling Emma for my friend, Carole. We were fairly successful with all dogs being placed. Maisie won her class then ended up best bitch pup but was unfortunate enough to come against the winning dog pup, who had won the Dog Challenge Certificate, and he came out the winner, Best Pup in Breed. Roley came 3rd in his puppy class and so has qualified for Crufts 2011, while Swallow was 4th in Limit Bitch and Emma 5th in Open Bitch.

Some sat in the sun (and burned!) at the end of judging.

I bought a straw hat--"It'll be better when it's finished", someone said!

It had already blown off in a gust of wind and I had lost my newly acquired Mr Whippy trying to grab it. However the ice cream wasn't wasted. Several dogs cleaned it up quickly.

These big brollies made good sunshades.

Many of us coach folk retired to the shade of the huge open-sided marquee to await departure time.