Hadleigh Show

We had a lovely day on Saturday at the Hadleigh Show. We were there for a one day solo show - our first this year! Rebecca, Ronan, Alex, Tinker and I travelled up on Friday afternoon, along the good old A14 which we'd driven just two weeks earlier! The journey was nice and easy until the final twenty miles, when the road turned into the wigglyest woo roads imaginable! All of the villages we passed through were beautiful, with gorgeous houses, thatched cottages and tiny little streets. However, tiny little streets are not so brilliant when you're driving an eleven tonne truck. Needless to say it took us longer than anticipated to get there!

Once there and set up we had to get absolutely everything ready for the morning - our first show was at 10.30 am! It was quite late by the time we'd done everything, but the massive funfair over the other side of the showground was still going, and looked lovely in the dark!

In the morning we were up bright and early and doing the first show before we knew it! It was the first time Alex had ever seen a solo show, let alone performed as the glamourous assistant in one, but he did fantastically well - just have a look at the photos to see how well he rode Thunderhoof! In between the shows Rebecca, Tinker and I did an interview for Radio Suffolk, although we didn't have much time as we were due on again at 12.30 - no rest for the wicked!! The second show was not only in a different ring from the first, but also quite a long way away and Alex and I had to drag all the props up there - and wrestling a giant toilet tent on a trolley through crowds of people is no easy task!

The arena for the second show was also on quite a steep slope - poor Ronan had to do his best not to slip and slide down one side, whilst struggling to make it up the other! As usual he was fantastic though, and really looked after both Rebecca and I whilst we were vaulting. The show went really well again, with Alex excelling himself as both clown and volunteer - you'd never have guessed it was his debut show!

The whole show was lovely, with loads of different things going on in five different rings, stewards in pinstripe suits and bowler hats, and masses of stalls and marquees. Although we would have loved to have stayed and had a good look around the show we packed down and got away as soon as we could - we wanted to get those wiggly woo roads out of the way as soon as possible!

Having arrived back at home we were just unloading the horses when the heavens opened and we got completely soaked. I turned Tinker out straight away and no sooner had I done so than he rolled in the muddy gateway. Typical. Then the sun came out and gave us the most beautiful rainbow - and Becca managed to get a photo of Casper standing at the end of the rainbow, like the little pot of gold that he is!!

We're off to Prestwold Park this weekend for a two day duo show, so I'll tell you all about it next week!

Love Rosie xx