Countrified Life.

Yesterday, thanks to the wonderful people at Muddy Boots PR, Moon and I were treated to a day out at The Royal Berkshire County Show. We had been umming and ahhing over whether we should go or not for weeks so when I was lucky enough to get a couple of press tickets - taking the strain of the £18 a ticket price tag off - we jumped at the chance!




Moon's dad happened to be with us that day too so we did have to get him a ticket but it was a lot bigger than we anticipated so now we know that it's definitely a lot more worth it than we thought it would be. We thought it may be similar to the Country Fayre we visited in May with Kirstin and Dan but it was like a whole festival for country life, full of livestock, craft and food tents, as well as farming machinery and trade.

My friend, Laura, and her boyfriend also tagged along, Laura's an old friend and they've recently moved to Reading so are really keen to see what Berkshire has to offer - I'm a little stumped at the moment but hoping to come up with some suggestions for them for the autumn - it's going to be good having another friend close by bringing the grand total to two - not bad...




Meeting a beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog, so soft ♥



In between a few controversial comments about fox hunting, I thought there could have been a little more to this display than walking the dogs round, although it was pretty neat to see them altogether as such a large group.





An alpaca model made from alpaca fur.


Fruitlessly aiming for the bullseye.



We spent a lot of time in the main food tent. Trying free samples, taking in the beautiful packaging and, in my case, buying a lot of German sausages. Taking me back to that afternoon at Taste of London, you really can't beat a decent food fair.







Sadly Tim & Laura bet on these two losers. They were won over generally by ferrets' weaselly charm though and are now, albeit rather casually, thinking of getting some.




– Lots of pictures of cows, pigs and other animals alert! –


Even if we had made it to more of the shows and displays, I think my favourite part was always going to be the livestock area - the fact we were able to get so close was just a bonus.


Washing down champions.


Personal favourite.


Nice big bully.


So chill.



What animal makes for this sort of reaction...?


Little pigs, of course!




These three boys just about killed me with their cute matching hats.
I also like how the middle sheep looks like she's singing.




Didn't set out for a mini-series of llama headshots, but I quite like them.


Moon's favourite tent.


World's Best Egg Competition.



Foghorn Leghorn


♥


Smiling goat.


To put things into perspective, Moon and his dad are both around 6ft1-2...


Beautiful bonsai trees.







We finished up the evening with a great meal at the wonderful Swan Inn.
I wish we could have sat by the fire longer, darn their fast service(!)

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It was a great day out and while I do feel like a bit of a 'blogger blagger' for getting the complimentary tickets, I don't think you'd be seeing anything much different if I'd paid to go. It's a pity that the sun didn't shine for us because I think that definitely makes the difference when it comes to me being snap-happy but it was such a great experience all the same, I'd definitely like to go again next year.

I was pretty gutted to miss the hot air balloon display and climbing men towards the end but I never thought I'd get so excited about ferret racing or log cutting so that was pretty good. I've no idea how I managed to miss the air displays too as I would have thought they would have been pretty loud, still, it's all something to learn for next time. I'm just glad that the forewarnings of traffic were pretty unfounded in the end and we weren't penalised for not getting there on opening.

There's so much to see and do I was even tempted to head back again today but that probably would have been a bit of an overkill, for now I guess I'm just happy with the amount of cows, pigs and llamas I saw.