A Sunday outing
Today the weather was much nicer than Saturday which was good as we had tickets to go to the Edenbridge and Oxted Agricultural Show. It was very warm in the sunshine and around 19C/66F in the shade. It's around a 30-minute drive to get to the showground and as they have been organising the event for the past 186 years they are really good at marshalling a lot of people!
The show is one of the oldest traditional agricultural shows in the country. Once we'd queued to park we spent a really pleasant four hours wandering around the 120-acre site with its 250 trade stands, horse shows, dog shows, funfair, craft demonstrations (including farriers and blacksmiths) farm animal shows, places to eat and places to buy local produce. Under the cut for a few photos of what we saw.
One of our favourite things to see is the dog agility demonstration. Lookit them go!
In and out of the poles!
We watched the Scurry driving competition. A pair of ponies pull a small vehicle through a course of cones as fast as they can. One person drives the Scurry and the person at the back acts as ballast and leans to use their body weight to keep the wheels on the ground. On each cone there's a ball balanced on top, so that if they clip it, the ball falls off for a 4-second penalty.
The competitors all completed the course in under a minute - the winner completed the 12-gate course including a slalom) in 44 seconds....
It was very fast and exciting seeing the ponies run so fast.
There were vintage cars to see including this lovely Rolls Royce
I rather liked the duck bonnet ornament
Sheep! This is a Kerry Hill breed of sheep - originally from Wales.
Vintage steam road roller - this was so cute. I loved the use of wood on the chassis...
There was a demonstration of log sawing using a steam engine and a vintage disc saw. It was loud!
We came away with a hand-forged flower for the garden from the blacksmith demonstration. Mr Cee bought a lovely mirror which we can put in the garden and I managed to resist all the other lovely things! Maybe next year...
We had a really delicious lunch and decided to leave mid-afternoon as the weather started to look very grim and overcast (and we had pretty much seen everything we came to see). It was also getting very crowded as over the two days they usually attract around 45,000 visitors! One of the nice things is that you end up discussing what you are watching with someone sitting next to you at a demonstration or cheering on a competitor with your neighbour at a competition. We had a very sociable time in the end!
The rest of the day we will relax as it's Sunday...
Today's meme question is: 27 - Just Because Day: This day is meant to celebrate lazy afternoons at the beach, taking time off and doing whatever you want or feel like in the moment. So what will you do just because? Or what would you like to do just because if you can't actually do any just-becausing today?
We went to the Agricultural show just because...
The show is one of the oldest traditional agricultural shows in the country. Once we'd queued to park we spent a really pleasant four hours wandering around the 120-acre site with its 250 trade stands, horse shows, dog shows, funfair, craft demonstrations (including farriers and blacksmiths) farm animal shows, places to eat and places to buy local produce. Under the cut for a few photos of what we saw.
One of our favourite things to see is the dog agility demonstration. Lookit them go!
In and out of the poles!
We watched the Scurry driving competition. A pair of ponies pull a small vehicle through a course of cones as fast as they can. One person drives the Scurry and the person at the back acts as ballast and leans to use their body weight to keep the wheels on the ground. On each cone there's a ball balanced on top, so that if they clip it, the ball falls off for a 4-second penalty.
The competitors all completed the course in under a minute - the winner completed the 12-gate course including a slalom) in 44 seconds....
It was very fast and exciting seeing the ponies run so fast.
There were vintage cars to see including this lovely Rolls Royce
I rather liked the duck bonnet ornament
Sheep! This is a Kerry Hill breed of sheep - originally from Wales.
Vintage steam road roller - this was so cute. I loved the use of wood on the chassis...
There was a demonstration of log sawing using a steam engine and a vintage disc saw. It was loud!
We came away with a hand-forged flower for the garden from the blacksmith demonstration. Mr Cee bought a lovely mirror which we can put in the garden and I managed to resist all the other lovely things! Maybe next year...
We had a really delicious lunch and decided to leave mid-afternoon as the weather started to look very grim and overcast (and we had pretty much seen everything we came to see). It was also getting very crowded as over the two days they usually attract around 45,000 visitors! One of the nice things is that you end up discussing what you are watching with someone sitting next to you at a demonstration or cheering on a competitor with your neighbour at a competition. We had a very sociable time in the end!
The rest of the day we will relax as it's Sunday...
Today's meme question is: 27 - Just Because Day: This day is meant to celebrate lazy afternoons at the beach, taking time off and doing whatever you want or feel like in the moment. So what will you do just because? Or what would you like to do just because if you can't actually do any just-becausing today?
We went to the Agricultural show just because...