County Fair

Great to be able to attend the Westmorland County Show today, after the cancellation of last year’s event due to covid. A few obvious changes for safety reasons - taking place over two days rather than one, not as many stalls in the marquees a cap on overall numbers and electronic ticketing - but otherwise everything was the same as usual. Due to an indifferent weather forecast, we waited to see how the day dawned before buying our tickets but, as it turned out there were only a few spots of rain during the day. Still quite muggy but not as hot as yesterday apparently. We were in Chester then but wouldn’t have gone to the show in that heat even if we had been around. And anyway, traditional show day is the second Thursday in September!
Free shuttle buses from town as usual, but treated to KT’s luxury coaches this year rather than the Stagecoach double deckers of previous years. Not crowded and running to timetable as well. Whether that’s because of lower visitor numbers overall, or the two day format, I don’t know but it made for a very pleasant journey there and back.
Really good to be able to see people just enjoying them selves and having a good day out. Bumped into a few people I’d not seen for a while and had a good catch up. Even blagged a coffee and a cake off the BMW stand - seems only fair, considering we bought two cars off them last year!
Had a burger for lunch that was made using only locally sourced ingredients and very good it was too. Which ties in with the picture, showing some of the cattle judging. I do wonder if it was slightly insensitive having the “Aberdeen Angus Carvery” van next door to the “Aberdeen Angus Society” tent - just in front of which, the Aberdeen Angus bulls were being judged. Maybe it helps them put in a better performance if they can see where they might end up if they don’t show well in the ring!