Adnamashan One in a Million (Mr & Mrs Skelton) 1st Post Graduate Dog.(left)
Kingshaven Your My Shadow (Mr & Mrs Banfield) 2nd Post Graduate Dog.(right)

NL Ch. Powdermill Sweet Touch Spinillons (Mrs J Davidson Poston) 1st Open Dog

Temelora Sun Dancer at Hollrexia (Mr & Mrs Dembiniok) 2nd Open Dog

Powdermill Touch The Future Spinillons (Mrs J Davidson Poston) 2nd Puppy Dog

Lafford Flyin Without Wings at Dourhu (Mrs R. Johnston) 1st Puppy Dog.

Lafford Fly Me Too Farleysbane (Mr & Mrs Victor &Miss E McLaughlin) 1st Junior Dog and RCC

The Birmingham National Championship Show.

This was held at the County Showground at Stafford so for some of us it entailed a fairly lengthy overnight coach journey. Oh, how we love trying to sleep across the seats of the coach!
We had a very successful show and arrived home at about 1.30am today.
The weather was much improved from the Saturday's catastrophe at Thornton but it didn't really matter as we were indoors for most of the day.

The judge, Mr Mark Whitehill, resplendent in his kilt outfit. Did you guess he is Scottish?

Carole's Emma (Meerwings A Butterfly Story) wins the Reserve Bitch Certificate.

Swallow (Meerwings The Swallow Tale by Pyatshaw), photographed recently, has something to smile about after winning the Limit Bitch in a class of 13.

The Best Bitch and Best of Breed, Ch. Gleniren Juniper Starmaker Sunshoo, owned by Mrs. I and Mr. G Robb.

Best of Breed ready to be packed for the homeward journey!

Some food is required at the end of the judging.

..and a snooze for some of the Scottish exhibitors.

The view from the supper stop at Tebay Services in Westmorland.

The bus awaits us to complete the journey home.

Drookit Dugs wi' Weet Lugs!

Mo in drier times.

It did state on the schedule that there was no wet weather accommodation, but, with my usual optimism (well as far as dog showing is concerned), I set off this morning. It was heavy drizzle, being helped along by a strong gusty wind, when I packed all the gear, including a large umbrella, into the car but strangely enough it faired up a few miles down the road and the sun came out. The wind was still blowing erratically. I knew there was nothing to worry about.

The dogs had a walk round the park and judging of the Toys began. The rain started when the Cavaliers went into the ring, it drew breath when the Papillon puppies were being judged but got its second wind in the graduate class and let rip in the Open. The lady judge must have been frozen, as she peered out under the hood of her anorak. I have never worn a coat in the ring before but today it was de rigeur and I ended up sheltering under my huge umbrella as the judge did her final assessment. Papillons on the whole don't like the rain and today they looked really miserable with no lovely fringing blowing in the wind, only drookit locks! I didn't wait to see the Group judging.

George managed a fourth place in Puppy and Mo was given a rather soggy red rosette in the Open class. These were my only 2 entrants today.

Best of Breed was Kathy Smith's Wee Angus of Adinaken.

Tonight Swallow and I set off for the bus to take us overnight to the Birmingham National Championship Show. Luckily that will take place under cover.

Skywatch Friday

The sun goes down at Hallett Cove, near Adelaide, South Australia.

To see more sky photographs visit Skywatch Friday.

A Designer Litter.

A friend of ours has a "Chug", a Chihuahua X Pug bitch. She mated her to a S.C. Chihuahua dog and the litter was whelped this forenoon. There are 4 bitches and 4 dogs with an average weight of 5 1/2 ozs. All would appear to be healthy so far but there will probably have to be supplementary feeding.
Despite "that" BBC programme I am really a "pure bred" dog person but at the moment these pups are really cute.

All lined up.

Random display.

Spencer BVIS.

Spencer aka Pyatshaw White Heat at 11 years 6months. This is his 4th Best Veteran/Vintage in Show in 2009 to date.

The journey home from the North of Scotland Toydog Open show.

We had an enjoyable day at the show in Arbroath with Carole's Emma coming first in Open bitch, Spencer taking Best Vintage in Show, Swallow a third in Limit and Mo second in Open dog. We were chatting, as usual, and missed the road up to Carole's house, taking some other road instead which got us there by a rather unusual route. But it didn't matter. It was a beautiful day.
We were greeted at the house by Carole's husband, vacuuming out his van, which he uses to transport his Siberian Husky team. He was having a drink of tea, not out of a mug, which most folk would have taken outside, but out of a china cup and saucer (plus a spoon)! Of course, what else would a truly civilised country gent use?
The various ponies and donkeys in the field opposite the house are all suffering from some disability or other but seemed to be enjoying the seasonal sunshine.

The cup of tea on the van floor!

A couple of donkeys.

A Welsh pony.

A Shetland and an Exmoor.

A view down over the Firth of Tay from the north side.

These lovely cumulus clouds caught my eye.

I shot this view of the wind turbines in Dundee as I was stopped at traffic lights.

The village after sunset.

The sun had already gone behind the hill as I set off with some dogs the other night. This photo was taken with the daylight setting but the following ones were with the night setting.

The potato sheds at the farm on the approach to the village from the west.

The farm road, approaching the village.

The "bypass" or Perth Road which takes through traffic away from the village centre where the streets are extremely twisted and narrow and not suitable for today's traffic. The car is negotiating the mini roundabout, one of three on this road. We cannot lay claim to traffic lights though!

Patterns and shapes.

My second dog walk yesterday took place after 8pm. There was a beautiful sunset, after a sort of non-descript day but by the time I got organised and down to the bottom side (north) of the village the sun had gone down behind the hill. However, the tarred farm road runs between the cultivated fields and I found these interesting patterns and shapes. The night setting on the camera works wonders as it was really quite grey when I took some of them.

Straight lines, giving a fan appearance, and curves of the potato drills.

A triangle of drills in an awkward corner.

Straight (well, almost) tramlines in the rows of young growing barley.

Zig-zags and triangles.

A semi-circle. (looking towards the "west end" of the village!)

Lines caused by water running down a dry bit of tree trunk.