The Royal Welsh was great although it rained all day on the Tuesday, which dampened peoples spirits and left them in no mood to spend money. The Kings Troops were in the main ring twice a day and were truly amazing. As they galloped out of the ring flat out it made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, and when all the cannons went off it was so loud that the ground shook, setting off some of the car alarms - On Wednesday a floor of a building collapsed and on Thursday a horse reared up in the other ring and broke someones shoulder. All terribly exciting - except for the poor person with the broken shoulder of course.
Doug had an upsetting telephone call on the Thursday from Hamish the farm manager - the gypsies had been to our farm the night before and stolen his two quads - I was more worried about the dogs, as gypsies love terriers as they breed from them and sell the pups, but luckily, or maybe unfortunately as they would almost certainly have not come if they were around, they were shut in the stable. Mum and Dad were coming and going but not staying the night, and the gypsies took their chance. They came around the back across the fields and had to push the quads some way, before loading them up. In a way it was lucky that they came while we were away because if Doug had caught them at it he would almost certainly have got very close to killing them (or himself) The insurers are very reluctant to pay up, as usual, but as we did everything by the book, hopefully will do so soon as Doug has quite a lot of work lined up and needs those quads.
We had a lovely day today as friends of ours, James and Anna (Beckett nuffield scholars) came for lunch with their two little boys. The weather was lovely and we sat out in the garden. We also had Phil and Heather (also Beckett nuffields) over for supper during the Silverstone week as they were up with their formula one mad son to watch the racing. While we were in Wales we met up with other Beckett scholars Will Scales, Nigel Elgar, and Sarah Mackie. Great fun, and really good to have a completely different circle of friends with diverse interests but so much in common.
We met so many lovely people at the show and even though I had said that this is probably our last year as we are normally so busy at home and finding it rather difficult to get away, we will be sorry if we don't go - I have been going for around 25 years, originally showing cattle, I think I may miss it rather.