Festival Fatigue

My September started with a very successful trip with my girls to the British Riding Club Championships at Lincoln. Daughter No 1 had qualified for both the dressage and showjumping so it turned out to be a very busy weekend. She learned the hard way that forgetting part of your test means the difference between winning the class and coming fourth but then went on to redeem herself by having top three placings in pretty much everything else. No 2 also joined her in the team jumping so our kitchen is now festooned in rosettes and sashes (if anyone ever comes up with a good way of displaying sashes please let me know!) From then on things got even more exciting with our festival weekend. This year saw the return of the raft race – my personal favourite. I can't believe how much effort some of the teams put into dressing their rafts and I was completely flabbergasted at how amazing the mini narrowboat raft was that the lads from the workshop created – they'd kept it top secret and even Angus had been kicked out of the workshop on more than one occasion to allow construction to commence, and what more can I say other than IT WAS BRILLIANT! Following the festival we all suffered from a bit of post festival fatigue so it was a bit of a quiet week in the office. It only usually lasts for a few days though before someone utters those immortal words "so what are we going to do for it next year?" I'm hoping we can talk the Rhyl RNLI team into coming back next year – not only were they superb with their in-shore boat on the marina and their displays of equipment and line throwing competition, but they also helped drink the bar dry on the Saturday night!