Babs and Harry left on the Pentalina this morning. It has not been the best of holidays for her. The weather has been what is referred to in Orkney as "changeable" which anywhere else would mean "bad". At least I think that it gave her a much needed chance to unwind a bit once she had finished her OU work.
It is always sad when the kids go back home as we know that we will not see them for so long. We speak to Babs most days on the phone but I always have trouble with phones. Pam can gossip for hours about nothing but I can use a phone to pass information and then I am stumped. maybe it is a man thing but maybe it makes it more difficult to actually say goodbye.
We did not have much time for tears after Babs and Harry left because it was the South Ron and Burray show in the Hope so we had to shoot back home, collect the two chickens that we had entered and get them down to the showground.
We had entered our Orpington cock and one of his hens. The cockerel looks good to me but I do not know anything about showing poultry as this is the first time we have ever shown any poultry. Our best looking hens are moulting at the moment so I did not hold out much hope for the hen that we took in. Anyway, once they were in their pens and smoothed down, all we could do was wait.
The judging seemed to take forever and of course we were not allowed near but we could see all the cages. Finally they came round fastening the rosettes onto the cages and we were very pleased to see a red 1st rosette on the cockerel and a 3rd on the hen. I thought that as that was the end of it, I would take a photo of the birds with the rosettes on their cages but I had just got the photos when the steward came round and stuck another prize card on the cockerel's cage and then another and another and finally the champion rosette.
I was over the moon. Not bad for a first try at showing but we will see haow we do on Saturday at the county show when there will be the best poultry in Orkney. I was encouraged by talking to the judge (Eddie Cragie) later though. He is a well known breeder of black orpingtons and he reckoned that our cockerel was superb and had no real faults. He was very pleased to see some other good quality orpingtons. We will be competing against him on saturday though.
I was then interviewed and photographed for the local paper and had another interview by Radio Orkney. (Fame at last.)
It is a shame that babs and Harry could not have been there to share my excitement.
As a bonus, one of the photos that I had entered in the photographic section of the show got a third prize. If anything, this was more surprising than the prizes for the chickens. I had only really entered 3 photos to help make a good show.
As i was now getting allig headed about the poultry showing, I decided that the hen who had come 3rd was not good enough for the county show on saturday so I gave one of my dorkings a quick rinse and brush up. We shall see if she can do any better than the orpington.
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