Colchester Town Show

Our next show following Framlingham was Colchester Town Show, run by Oakleigh Fairs. I've known Charlie, Emma and Daniel (the organisers) for years, and having not seen them since Poole Town and Country Show back in August I was looking forward to seeing them all again.  Helen was meeting us there so she'd be able to make a quick getaway on Sunday evening, so it was Imie, myself and the three boys packed into the lorry.  We made good time on the journey, but then spent ages trying to find the correct entrance to the park - we ended up at one point down a very narrow lane with a tight bend and had to do a many many pointed turn to try and turn around! We finally managed to wind our way down yet another teeny tiny lane and through a VERY narrow gate (reminiscent of the one at Todmorden Show but not quite so bad!) and we were finally there on site! Hooray!!

It was lovely seeing the crew again, and we were set up and sorted in no time.  The next day we were soon ready for the shows. The first one started well, but having not had much space to warm up in Casper was full of beans! As I was working on Tinker at the start of the show I could see him out of the corner of my eye dancing about and being silly, so when Helen said 'It's time to welcome Casper to the show, he's been waiting very patiently in the wings...' I nearly burst out laughing as he most certainly had not been!!

Roman riding was interesting to say the least, as Casper was plunging and broncing which is far from ideal. Poor Tinker was obviously just wondering what on earth was going on, and who was the massive idiot he had been clipped to.  Despite Casper's best efforts though everything went through as planned, just with a bit more oomph!  Luckily his oomph was mostly run out by the second show, so I could relax and enjoy it all bit more.  Having said that, I always enjoy the shows, even when Casper is being a massive fool - and the more of a fool he is the more the audiences seem to enjoy it!!

Helen and Imie spent the evening practising their head stands (good for shoulder stands!), and then we all tried to fly one another in various different acrobatic moves - with equally varying degrees of success!!

Sunday went through very smoothly and before we knew it it was time to pack up and head home. And that's where it got interesting! We had to wiggle our way back out of the very narrow gate before doing another many many pointed turn before winding our way back along the narrow little road, but we did it!  We were then happily whizzing back down the A12, thinking we'd be home in no time, when BOOM! A tyre blew.  Balls.  We pulled over in a layby and rung the breakdown people.  They were brilliant and within the hour a lovely chap called Jay had arrived with a shiny new tyre and proceeded to change it for our burst one.  The horses were so good, as the lorry was jacked up and a pneumatic tool was used to undo the wheel nuts right under their front feet - Imie kept them occupied by feeding them carrots so they were happy as anything!

We were soon back on the road, and on our way home - the whole episode only put us back just under two hours, so not so bad, although I was very glad to finally get home!  We've a few photos from the weekend which you can see here.

We then had a couple of weeks off, before heading of to Weald Park Country and Craft Show over the May bank holiday, so I'll tell you all about that next!

Love Rosie x