Asda 24th June 2008

Ewen was on his holidays during this show so my hubby helped set up, clean and close the unit with me.

We set it into position on the Saturday in sunshine where we roped off my area and left overnight.

When I arrived the next morning I found it surrounded by trucks and vans, as I thought I would be. Some had even moved my poles to fit their lorry in - cheeky mares but that show life for you!

The day started dry, only to get progressively wetter as the day went on. It was also very cold, so I had to put the small heater on for the first time this year….Brrrrrrr!

Wendy from Head Office bought the dogs along and helped me out on the unit for the day. She came with her other half nothing like persuading your partner to help you on a cold saturday!

We had two dogs, a Greyhound and a German Spitz. Apparently they were going to send another dog along which Wendy found out didn't really get on with other dogs, so she refused it and asked for a replacement.

When Wendy had arrived at the centre, their van wouldn’t start, so they had to transfer cages into the back of Wendy’s car. This made Wendy later than we had anticipated and we didn’t get dogs on the unit until approx 11.00am but at least they all arrived safe and sound!

In the meantime, I had been on the unit on my own trying to explain where the dogs were.

Once the dogs arrived we kept pretty busy.

Three people were interested in the Spitz, although he had a very bad cough, (apparently due to a soft pallet condition or something). I did hear a couple of people pass by outside wondering why we had bought along a dog with ‘kennel cough’!!

We had two people support us on ‘pulling out’ of KC events, which was very nice and a change from the usual ‘ear-bashing’ we have had.

We had some ex-Shoreham residents come and say hello. Its always nice to see ex residents.

Wendy took the dogs back at 4pm.

Sunday was horrendous from the moment I woke up. The wind was lashing rain horizontally against the window, and it didn’t let up really all day.

Eleanor a Canine Carer from Shoreham bought the dog along. Just Ellie the Greyhound, as Wilfred had apparently had enough. (I could see his point)

As expected, the day was a complete ‘wash-out’ literally. I’m surprised anybody paid to go to the show myself. The rain was horizontal and most of the outside tents had blown away/apart. Both stalls next to me packed up and had left the showground by 1pm and a good 1/3 of all other stands had given up and gone home by mid afternoon!! I did see a Trailhound which had been rehomed from the Ragley Hall venue at Evesham a few years back. She was very well, and very happy.

Brian Childs was at the show and came and said hello.

Eleanor was great, even though we didn’t have that many people to talk to. I had a slight problem with one of the kennels flooding, so fixed it by having to push the pod section in slightly. (Temporary but worked).

I sent Eleanor home at 3pm and as I was one of the few stalls still there, I decided to clean and close up straight after, getting out at 5pm. What a wash-out!! I didn’t get tractored off though