“It’s taken us four hours to drive down from the Midlands and there’s bugger all in there”. He was offering me the ticket, still with the stub attached. “Want to buy this for a fiver ?”.

I did wonder as I crossed the muddy field why so many people were walking the other way. It had taken me an hour to get into the place, a combination of bad stewarding and very wet ground.

I agreed, did the deal and hung around the ticket booth looking like I was buying one then wandered in unchallenged. It was billed as countryman’s fair : a collection of rings with a variety of outdoor events, a fishing section and clay pigeon shoots. The most entertaining part was the gundog events.

I love watching working dogs. To me that’s the point of having one. Either a sheepdog or a gundog, trained to do a role and happy and well exercised to perform it.

There was a lot of opportunity to watch that in action here with various scurries and retrieves to exercise the dogs. Unfortunately there were also a lot of owner who thought it was easier than it looked and put their dogs into a competition they had no chance of winning, or even completing.

Still, on a sunny afternoon with a glass of Pimms what could be a nicer way of spending a day ?