Suffolk Show Visit (Part Two)

 More Photos from the 31st May and my day out at The Suffolk Show. It's impossible to watch everything that happens in the Grand Ring and look around the whole showground and I kept going backwards and forwards.

I watched these guys jumping the ramps and doing tricks high up in the air .......

 

But missed most of the horse and carriage parades until they were going round the ring on their way out

Then and Now on the St John's Ambulance Stand

and into the Flower Show Marquee

 The St Elizabeth Hospice Fundraiser this year is The Big Hoot. These owls have been sponsored by organisations or people and painted by professional artists and later in the year will be all round Ipswich for people to spot. At the end of the summer they will be auctioned off

Back to the Grand Ring to catch some of the Scurry racing, They have to go between cones that have a tennis ball on top, if the ball gets knocked down it's a time penalty. It's fast and furious!

In the Bees and Honey marquee - How on earth do the judges work out whats best between all the different sorts of honey?

Line Dancers of all ages doing a display

By the time I'd watched all these things and walked around most of the showground my back was aching, so I called it a day and headed out.

The most worrying thing about the Suffolk Show is remembering where in the gi-normous car parks my car is parked!! Luckily they have some numbered flags at the end of some of the rows

My treasures from the show ...........I bought a new waxed hat - which I was very grateful for in the rain. I had one of these waterproof hats at the smallholding but somewhere in the moves it vanished. Also picked up a free bag from The Scottish Power stand.

It was a sign of the times that there were lots of Stands missing. Organisations that have been represented at the Show forever like the East Anglian Daily Times, The East of England Co-op and even the WI didn't have a stand of their own this year.

Already looking forward to next year.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Visit to The Suffolk Show (Part 1)

After missing two years - like everything else- our big County Show was back. 

It's always been a favourite day out for me - usually on my own - which is much easier! I couldn't go through many of the smallholding and campsite days as May Half Term week was one of our busiest times for the campsite.

 90,000 visitors expected over the two days so I left home before 7.30 and drove cross country rather than the A14- just in case of accidents or traffic jams and got parked and into the showground and round to the grandstands by the  Grand Ring in time to see the first lot of show jumping which started at 8.30.

After the show jumping I walked round part of the showground - Rather Large Army helicopter

Specially for my American readers!! The USAF were in the military area too.

Then round to the sheep area.

We had a Texel ram for a while - the ugliest of all sheep in my opinion, but he worked well.

This is a Lincoln Longwool belonging to a lady who I knew way back when I lived in Bacton. She's been breeding them and winning prizes  for 40 years. Her daughter was at primary school with Eldest Daughter. I didn't mean to get her granddaughter in the photo but she suddenly turned round!

Now these are my favourite sheep, they are Ryelands, we started off with two and the most we had one year after lambing was 8. There wasn't a lot of money in sheep even though home produced meat is the best and once we'd extended the campsite and kept more chickens we gave up sheep keeping.

There's a competition for shoeing horses, this man was checking the preparation

And here's the Farrier preparing the shoe.

 

The Suffolk Horses in the picture are some of the few still being kept and bred.  They were featured on Countryfile TV programme recently. At one time the Suffolk Punch was rarer than the Giant Panda but things are looking more hopeful now.

Then I went into the Art Show - loved this one below, for sale for several hundred pounds

One local artist whose paintings of Suffolk landmarks are always on show is Reg Siger

More photos from the Suffolk Show tomorrow

Sue

Celebrations

I was going to put up the post about my Suffolk Show visit last week but instead here's some bits of the Pageant.

 

What a fantastic weekend of celebrations we had here in the UK. Home was the best place to be on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon to be able to see on TV the Huge Jubilee concert and then the amazing Pageant. It reminded me of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics - a bit of everything British and the Commonwealth and so very colourful.

I took a few photos from the TV in case you weren't one of the 1 BILLION people watching around the world.

 

I think it was a very long afternoon for the 3 Cambridge children, who were obviously enjoying some of the 3K long procession but looked a bit fed up at times!

Suffolk's own Ed Sheeran closed the Pageant

The Royals singing The National Anthem

Buckingham Palace

Four Generations and 3 future kings

 

The party of a lifetime and I loved watching it all and I can't have been the only person to have been in tears by the end.

And if you didn't see  and haven't heard about The Queen and Paddington Bear - just do a You Tube search - it will really make you smile.

 

 Tomorrow I really will post about my Suffolk Show visit

Sue