Glorious Mud - Wigan

This weekend we went to Wigan show - which is actually near Preston. Friday was a mucky horrible day but we set off undeterred with our new home on wheels, 'The Mouse House', in tow. The Landy had a jolly old chug over the Pennines, barely noticing its new burden. We arrived about teatime and set up straight away - with a little kind help from Helen it was up and moved into within about 20 mins! Still not quite got the method by which you can put it up with the roof in place, but will keep fiddling! (Trying to put it away to facilitate this for next time resulted in a bumped head and some bad words!!! lol) The showground is in a nice location, unfortunately it's also a very very VERY badly drained location! There was a fair bit of rain but outside in the real world it was still quite normal. There, though, it was a quagmire!!! Saturday dawned wet and muddy ... The show squelshed on though. Maisie had an early running order in her first (Jumping) class - thankfully coz it was in the worst ring! She did an OK run - going well up till the tunnel where there was a very interesting sniff, and then eventually out of the tunnel into the weaves sloooowly coz she wanted to go back to investigate further! :) Still somehow managed to end up 5th though!! Luckily her Agility run was also in not too bad conditions and she did a tidy enough run to finish 4th - doing some of those lovely tight turns she can do if she has her listening ears on, haha. I ummed and ahhed about running Tim coz of safety, but decided he should be OK as it was fairly straightforward and I could make sure he was straight and steadyish for the contacts. He did a really super run actually - just nipped under one jump before the seesaw and popped out of the 12 weaves. He worked so nicely though and he had his listening ears on too! He was very funny at the start where the ground had got awful - normally he does a 'down'- or 'bow'-wait but No Way was he putting his tum in that mud so we improvised a stand-wait - which actually worked! He almost did a Jumping run too but was frrrrrrreaked by a walkie-talkie (my big brave boy!) and so I pulled him out before we started. The chap with the WT was very apologetic (not his fault) and when I took Tim straight over to seek his monster, he gave him a lovely cuddle with the WT in hand and all was well in the ginger world again. And that was the end of the Agility. It rained more overnight and then this morning we wallowed round the courses but the day was cancelled before it started - sad but totally sensible decision.

It wasn't all mud-wrestling - Helen & I had yummy hot choc with Baileys in and ginger bics. It was heaven to not be crawling in and out of the small tent in the soupy mud - amazing timing for the Mouse House to turn up in our world and it's earned its cost already, I reckon.

Terribly impractical venue, cancelled day, MUD MUD MUD, oh and more MUD. Would we go again? You betcha! :o)