Venturing into the show ring

Today was a 5am start and an attempt to catch 3 alpacas in the dark, in a field!  We managed but it involved quite a bit of charging up and down a hill in the dark.  Despite the chaos we were still away in good time and had a good run down to . . . Perhaps I should say where we were going!  We went to Romsey show - full of trepidation and very unsure whether we wanted to go.  Of course we had a bit of a hope we might come home with a rosette but we were not hoping for great things as we expected the competition to be tough - and it was.  Being dark when we left the field, the first we saw of the alpacas was when we reached the destination and they did not look good - wet, muddy and straw covered.

The show organisation was, in my opinion very, very good.  We are first year showers and have very limited experience but I felt it was all very impressive.  The pens were well separated, there were disinfectant mats, public were kept from the marquee during showing, minimising alpaca contact was helped considerably by good placement of collecting ring, microchips were checked (I had been worried ours might have not been there as I did them and then had no way of checking - they were there!), pre show paperwork was ideal for people like us who need telling and there was a good catalogue.  How the Judge, Liz Barlow, coped with the heat and the number of alpacas was beyond me - but she did and she kept smiling!

We enjoyed it - despite me being very tense and biting one nail off.  We met lots of friends, shared muffins, ice cream and looked at yarn. . .
And we were pleased with our results which were as we thought they might be.  Yossarian got a first and a Reserve Champion while our other winner, Trouble, got a sixth place.  Now you might thing that is not very impressive and I should not be mentioning that one but I am very proud of it as she had lots of worthy competition in the white class - anyway,  I think Trouble is one of the worlds loveliest little alpacas!  I have lots of pictures but most of them are of a certain black alpaca, who gained a first place and performed many acrobatic movements in the ring with his owner, for some strange reason.  This is not very good but it's Yosser and his sash

 - Yosser was just interested in everything going on and watched the ring with great interest!  His and Trouble's favourite sight was the spider man marching band!

Now I feel I should go to bed but I am inspired to finish knitting a glove!